To make sure that we are talking the same food language here, I thought I should define what I mean by “seasonings.” When I say seasonings, I am referring to the things that can be added to food to alter or enhance it’s flavor such as herbs, spices, oils, and vinegars.  Primarily we’ll be talking herbs and spices. 

So, what is the difference you might ask?? By definition, herbs are plants that have seeds, leaves, flowers, barks, berries or stems that are used to flavor foods.  Some are used for medicinal purposes as well.  Spices are the result of an herb being dried.  And, someone way before me had the brilliant idea of combining the flavors that are typical in certain foods to make spice blends…a busy cook’s best friend! 

Why blog about seasonings??  Because I can talk forever about something I am passionate about, and because many family members and Facebook friends are probably tired of hearing my everyday menu play-by-play.  Maybe, just maybe, there are people out there interested in great food and want to cook for their families, but don’t know how to make the same ol’ chicken into something new and yummy.  Hopefully, we can share easy, inexpensive and fast ideas. There are so many tasty flavors out there, and we need to get away from the idea of just salt (a sometimes needed, much overused spice) and pepper on food!! I’ll share my favorite seasonings (look out…my spice collection rivals most of my girlfriend’s shoe collections!) and amazing recipes to make boring meals exciting.  And, to help me get out of any spice rut I might have fallen into, I will explore the hundreds of herbs and spices available.  I’ll start with an easy one…and my very favorite: Garlic.