I’ve always been a toast-and-Hot-Pockets kind of girl. If it was more complicated than unwrapping it and stuffing it into a microwave, I wouldn’t bother with it. At least, that was the case until I spent Christmas with my mother-in-law and was asked to chop up a bell pepper and I realized I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING.

I kind of poked at it with the kitchen knife and realized it wasn’t going to cut itself, so I blushingly told Mary my secret: I’d never cut up a pepper in my life. Ever! How embarrassing.

My mother-in-law kindly took me under her wing and shared some culinary know-how, and I returned from the holidays with a New Year’s resolution in mind:I would learn to cook by making one new dish a week, every week, for the entirety of 2009.

For anyone else, of course, making dinner (or lunch, or breakfast, or dessert) once a week isn’t a particularly daunting task. But this is me we’re talking about, here. I’ve been known to subsist on nothing but Cheerios and Diet Coke for days because I was too lazy to cook. In the past, when I did cook, I had to look up basic things on the internet, such as how to slice up an onion. (Not kidding!) I even managed to set an Eggo on fire once. (Sorry, Mom…)

So this is the blog of a culinary neophyte. I’ll be posting the recipes I’ve made, and sharing photos of my results, and hopefully I’ll learn a lot along the way. If not, well, at least my husband will eat my food!

(Note: This may be hard to believe but my project has nothing to do with “Julie and Julia,” although I would like to see the movie sometime!)