Welcome to Lord Byron’s Kitchen! I hope you decide to stick around and become one of my Dear Readers! Before you start exploring my recipes, let me tell you a bit about me and my blog.
Let’s see… I’m a 40-something year old man. I spend my days and life with my partner, John (John.e); my daughter, McKenna (Mickey); and our two cats, Jake and Maggie. I live and blog from our apartment in Toronto, but spend nearly ever weekend at our country home 4 hours Northeast of Toronto.
I love to cook and bake, and I love Christmas way more than anyone else I know! I love to crochet and just started to teach myself how to do cross stitch as well. And, I love to decorate! I’ve been known to completely change the look and feel of one room several times in the same year!
Lastly, when I’m not doing one of the previously mentioned things, or working on this blog, I work full time at a private school doing the same job I’ve been doing for the past 15 years.
I’ve always been fond of baking and cooking, but I didn’t get to do much of it until later in life. Growing up, my mom was the primary cook. She never spent time in the kitchen other than to prepare a meal or bake something. I can’t remember her loving it, so she wasn’t about to show me the ropes.
Fast forward a few years and I found myself living with the love of my life, John.e. Everything in my life was perfect – or so I thought! You see, John.e is a vegetarian, and I have never been the type to prepare meals without some type of meat. It was a recipe for disaster.
Growing up in a primarily meat-eating household, the concept of cooking and dining without the presence of meat was completely foreign. But, in the spirit of full disclosure here, I wasn’t about to let him cook for the both of us! He has only three recipes in his repertoire – re-fried beans, frittata, and ratatouille.
What was I to do? All joking aside, it was a serious issue. I couldn’t expect him to change and eat meat after being a vegetarian for 25+ years. Sure, I could prepare pasta every night, but how long would it take for us to grow tired of that!? And I tried to adopt a vegetarian diet, but it lasted only 13 days. It was time to make a change.
Every home cook has a notebook of hand-scribbled recipes that they cherish and love to prepared with the hopes of impressing family and friends. In my new relationship with “the vegetarian,” I would have to work much harder to impress him with my culinary skills. I made it a goal to teach myself to cook all over again – this time, with vegetables!
The first step in overcoming this challenge was to accept the fact that it was easier for me to change and/or adapt my diet rather than to compromise his ethical dietary restrictions. After all, eating more veggies might actually be good for me! Who knew!?
I have learned to satisfy both palates without trading in the taste and the comfort of home-cooked meals. And, that is how this blog was born. I taught myself to cook vegetarian versions of classic comfort food. Other couples who were in the same situation would ask me for recipes. Rather than write them out by hand repeatedly, I decided to document them in a blog.
Back then I used to blog not only about food, but about crocheting, weekend getaways, and refinishing furniture too. That was until I made the move to blog about food only and changed the name to Lord Byron’s Kitchen.
So, why Lord Byron’s Kitchen? Well, the kitchen part is obvious – it’s a blog about cooking. And the Byron part is obvious too, because that’s my name! The Lord part was suggested by John.e and to be honest, I was a little worried about it at first. I thought it sounded a little pretentious. But, I decided to go with it for two reasons. It was a nickname given to me by my high school English teacher, and I absolutely love anything to do with the historical Kings, Queens, Lords, and Ladies of Tudor Dynasty as well as the medieval and Victorian eras. I’m completely addicted to period piece drama!
When I made the change to Lord Byron’s Kitchen, I began to incorporate recipes with meat too. This blog is a great source of vegetarian mains and sides, and I still write recipes that are vegetarian, but in the effort to establish a well-rounded blog, I branched out and began posting my favourite chicken, pork, beef, and fish recipes too.
So, there you have it! That’s how Lord Byron’s Kitchen came to be – my love of food, coupled with my love for John.e – and the rest, as the saying goes, is history! I hope to see you back here regularly. I publish a new recipe three times each week. It’s best to subscribe if you don’t want to miss anything, or add my page to your list of favourites!
If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me. You can leave recipe comments on the recipe page directly – just scroll almost all the way to the bottom. Or, you can navigate to my contact page to send me an email. Happy Eating!
Sincerely,
