Bakin' and Bacon

We talk often about how much we hate the word "foodie". The most obvious reason is the cutesy nature of it, the impression that it is more akin to baby talk than actual English, but the larger issue is the definition of the term and the people to which it applies. I bristle anytime someone refers to me as a foodie, because it conjures up the image of someone with a freshly poured glass of wine who spends the next 10 minutes swirling and sniffing and sniffing and swirling. "Hm, yes, the lovely overtones of a lavender field with a hint of smoked sea salt and deep ruby characteristics of a --" and my head just exploded. I've rolled my eyes through a sitcom-length analysis and they can't even tell me if they like it or not.

I think of a foodie as someone who spends their life on a quest for that one great flavor, that one perfect ingredient, that ultimate sip of wine. People like Erin and me (and, I'm suspecting, most of you) are more interested in sampling everything -- from the very good to the unfortunately bad -- in a mission to find the perfect flavor for right now. This may seem like a small distinction, but I feel it is an important one, nonetheless. So I ask you: What should we call ourselves? We've considered "food nerds", "flavor savers" and even simply "eaters", but none of them seem quite right...

We have created this blog as a forum for others and as a service to ourselves. We cook like mad but we rarely write our recipes down. Maybe if we had a little outside pressure, we'd be more diligent about documenting our creations. We also have the great fortune of living in Chicago, one of the greatest food cities in the nation, and we enjoy eating out fairly regularly. This forum gives us a place to post our adventures. Hope you all enjoy reading, and please don't hesitate to leave comments!