Well now.....this feels very awkward. How do I even begin this post? 

Um, so as you all know, I'm butterbattle (pst, not my real name).

I love food: sushi, curry, pork ribs, McDonald's, squid ink pasta, blood pudding, fried crickets, anything and everything. I like to think that I have an extremely wide palate and have eaten far more types of food in far more countries than my fair share. However, even though I love food, I don't know how to cook, which is a sad sad thing. I have identified two main reasons for this. 1) My parents never taught me how to cook. When I was younger, I felt bad that I never learned enough from my parents. As I got older though, I realized that they never made much of an effort to teach me things. Also, I gradually discovered that my mom is actually pretty shitty at cooking.  2) I've never had my own kitchen as an adult. I'm in the military, and I've been mostly living in the barracks up to this point.

But, a few weeks ago, I moved into my own apartment, and, for the first time ever, I have my own kitchen and a comfortable paycheck. Ergo, no more excuses; I can't just blame shit on my parents. I'm going to start cooking.

But....I'm still single at the moment, and there's no one to cook for except myself (). I'm planning on feeding my co-workers once in a while as a form of motivation. I'm still worried though; I sense that it's not going to be enough. My personality type dictates that I get bored with projects easily. If I simply start cooking, I suspect I'll lose motivation after about a month, and I really really don't want to let myself do that.

Tada! That's where this blog comes in. I'm going to TRY to use this blog to get myself to continue cooking. At first, I considered doing this on facebook, but then I was like.....no, I don't want everyone I know to know about it (*cough* parents *cough*). Then, I thought about starting my own blog, and I was like.....ugh.... You know what they say about blogs: "Never before have so many said so little of substance to so few." Lol. Anyways, in a weird way I feel indebted to this website too. This was like my primary source during the years that I truly developed my current worldview, so everything I believe about religion, politics, morality, etc., was to some extent, supported by or derived from what I wrote or read on this website in the last 7 years. Of course, mostly likely, my worldview would've developed in about the same direction regardless of whether I had run into this forum or not. But, the fact remains that I DID run into this forum. Now, this site is not active as it used to be, and I'm one of only a few currently active moderators. I feel like I should be doing more to try to keep the forum active. But, I don't have the same fiery desire to argue with people like I used to (someone's wrong on the Internet!!!), and even if I did, the Christians don't dogpile our mailbox anymore (I guess they no longer care if people go to hell). So, maybe this will help. Even if nobody reads it and it doesn't help the forum, it'll be soothing and motivating for me to write it.

It does feel a little weird to start a series that has nothing to do with.....Rationally Responding. But, in hindsight, these kinds of forums were never only about arguing; it was about building a community. Either way, I'm sure much lower quality irrelevant things have been posted in the past, and Brian has that poem thread, so surely, there's nothing wrong with me doing this.

So......welcome to butterbattle's cooking corner!