Beer Drinking Dog wrote:

> Other more recent influences have been Alton Brown, Mario Batali, Ming
> Tsai, and Lynne Rossetto Kasper.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the TV cooks who made a difference to me.
Mostly the Frug -- my mom and I used to watch him together, and we loved
him, but we also watched a lot of Martin Yan and other folks. Not
everything they taught was great, but it was enjoyable to watch, and it
fueled our desire to try to cook new things. We made Peking Duck
together because of the Frug, for instance.

Serene
--
"I think I have an umami receptor that has developed sentience." -- Stef