About

Kitchen Riffs is both the name of this blog and the nom de plume of its author, John Griffin.  That’s me, and I live in St. Louis, Missouri, with my wife — who makes frequent appearances on the blog as “Mrs. Kitchen Riffs.”  To learn a bit more about Kitchen Riffs the person, you might want to take a look at my introductory post, Who is Kitchen Riffs?

Kitchen Riffs (the blog) is an outgrowth of my fascination with food.  A long time ago, I started messing about in the kitchen because I wanted to learn how to cook the wide variety of foods that I had read about or sampled in restaurants.  Over the years (many years!) I developed decent cooking skills.  And I learned how to change or adapt — riff — recipes so they’d suit my taste.  Often this riffing would lead to entirely new recipes.  The blog is a way to record and extend my food explorations.

My “food philosophy” is straightforward:  Food should be easy to prepare.  But most of all, it should taste good.  Flavor is the theme of Kitchen Riffs:  What is it?  Where is it?  How to achieve it?  How to enjoy it?

No food-related subject — from aperitifs to zabaglione — is off topic for Kitchen Riffs.  My underlying principle is to discover and discuss what makes a recipe tick, what makes it flavorful.  Sometimes that means recognizing what I don’t yet know, but need to learn in order to cook (and eat) better.  The idea for me (and I hope for you) is to find out what is important in cooking, and why.

And above all, to discover which foods and recipes make our tongues happy.