About Kitchen Penguin

Who is Kitchen Penguin? 
Kitchen Penguin (KP) is a 33 year old Asian-American female living in the DC metro area. KP has a BA in English with a minor in East Asian Studies and works as an Office Ninja. KP was born and raised in Hawaii and moved to the mainland in 2000 for college then ended up staying. KP is now going to stop referring to herself in the third person because it's annoying and pretentious.

As I stated in my first post:
A number of my friends refer to me as a "foodie" but I don't think that I live up to this standard. Am I passionate about cooking? Yes. Do I eat to live or live to eat? Live to eat. I'm addicted to Good Eats, nobody will ever stave at my dinner table, and I do rather enjoy cooking a meal for my closest 80+ friends. Perhaps the problem is that, as with all things in my life, I set very high standards for myself.

What is my cooking style? Every dish that I cook is my attempt to recreate the tastes and memories of my Okinawan great-grandmother and grandmother's kitchen in Hawaii. Calrose (sushi) rice is the only rice in my house and it's eaten at least three times a week. I buy shoyu (soy sauce) by the gallon and a lot of my staple ingredients can only be found in Asian markets. But my repertoire does extend beyond Okinawan/Japanese home cooking. I also enjoy baking, brewing, and Medieval recreation.
I'm not a chef...yet. I do not claim to be an expert in anything other than being myself. This blog is a collection of observations and experiences that I have had. Please be safe when you cook.

What is the purpose of this site?
It's somewhere for me to express different facets of three of my passions: cooking, environmentalism and fiscal responsibility. Seriously, I believe that all three are intertwined. I grow or buy my produce from the farmers market and it has a smaller carbon footprint because it's either coming from my back yard or from a farm a few miles away instead of across the country. I save money by growing my own vegetables, I eat healthier because I can control what goes into my soil and I get to have the vegetables that I want to eat. Yes, I could join a CSA and I was a member of a CSA for two years but I couldn't keep up with my share (even the half share) and ended up giving away or throwing out produce every week. I buy food as close to the source as possible and cut out the cost of the middle-man. Cooking at home means I'm not spending my money on take-out and that I have more control over what goes into my body.

Who is DBF?
Dear/Darling/Dearest Boyfriend. He likes to eat meat and says that "vegetables are what food eats." Cooking was an integral part of our courting. We started out as friends and when he bought his house I decided that he needed to stop eating frozen convenience foods, he finally had his own kitchen so there was no excuse for eating two TV dinners a day, so I started cooking for him a couple of nights a week and the rest, they say, is history.

Is there a posting schedule?
No.