I want to cook, or pick up where I left off when I used to cook for myself a lot. Most folks that cook have an arsenal of tools they use from kitchen string, to spatulas designed by NASA – well, maybe not NASA but there are a lot of pampered chefs out there – I’ll leave it at that for now.

So my arsenal consists of four new knives pictured above, and a few baking pans and skillets I’ve collected over the last few years. The skillets and bakeware I used for a dinner I cooked for my girlfriend’s nanny. She’s British and I thought I cook a “Thank you, you’re awesome!” Sunday dinner for her and her family. It turned out amazing! Their words not mine. All of the recipes I took out of a Jamie Oliver cookbook that targets British favorites his family and friends shared over the years. The recipes were wicked simple to follow and made sense for the amateur taking a whack at a full-blown three course meal for 11.

This past weekend I was shopping for the two smaller knives pictured and stopped at a store I thought would have what I needed. So, I’m standing there looking over the myriad of brands and sizes of cutlery and the knife angel shows up – not a store employee but someone on the same type of quest a few months back who, unlike me, did all of research to make an informed buy. More than I ever thought I know about metal, age, steel, handles, grips, knife duties, etc. I left with the two pictured “Cuisinart” knives pictured.

I’m not sure my “arsenal” is complete, but it’s started. I also picked up another cookbook from a book fair at a local elementary school with my girlfriend and her daughter. Simple recipes, full of flavor, that don’t need the full arsenal, but enough to get me started for sure.

One of my blog followers (Tina Schell – http://travelsandtrifles.wordpress.com/) was looking for more sparks based on a blog entry I composed about writing code; I’m hoping there won’t be to many sparks from my crazy cooking that would lead to a mishap in the kitchen. I promise to be careful. There. I’m good now. Besides, like my good friend Z says, “what’s the worst that could happen?”

j@s