About this site

Well… this site has been a long time coming. I’ve tried to get it up and running for three years now, and a lot has changed in those three years. My mission stays the same, however. So let’s dive into that.

Neurospicy.cooking is my attempt at helping to bridge the gap for fellow “picky eaters” to trying new food. Well, no. Not to “try new food.” Picky eating is not some “problem” that needs “fixed.”

I believe that picky eating is an issue of comfort, understanding relationships, sensory tolerance, and enthusiasm. I’ve spent my entire life being pushed and prodded to “try new things” and to “stop being weird” about notlikingwanting to eat things that people often “normally eat.” The pushing, the prodding, the complaining, the nagging, even the encouraging only really sets me up to not eat the thing.

Instead, I’ve spent the past six or seven years working very hard to expand my horizons (and my palate). This has meant really exploring what I do and don’t “like” (or tolerate) on a per-ingredient level, diving into the effects and impacts less-desirable ingredients (like sour cream, for instance) have on food even when you don’t taste them, and learning to really cook for myself.

Ten years ago when I moved out on my own, I was eating plain Ragu/Prego spaghetti for dinner twice a week, basic pizza half of the time, spending way too much money on frozen meals, and mostly only ever ate chicken tenders or plain burgers from popular fast food joints when eating out. Today, I (along with my wife) home cook most of my meals, grow a lot of my own ingredients, make bread, grill and smoke meats, bake my own pizzas with my own homemade dough and sauce, blend my own compound butter, and eat so many things I never thought I would eat.

And now I even get eager to try “new” foods at food trucks, fairs, etc. (Now, of course, most of these foods are only slight twists on what I normally eat, but it’s a process of building up over time.)

There are still plenty of things I won’t eat. And there’s plenty of deal-breakers that I’m still warming myself up to (like mustard). Despite my expanded palate and new-favorite hobby of home cooking, I’m still a picky eater. That’s not something that just goes away. But by understanding food, and cooking, better, I’m able to more comfortably explore and expand upon what I eat more in a month than I could over the course of years before.

This is for the neurospicy people out there. For the fellow picky eaters I encounter (especially at work events) who freak out at the lack of “plain” food available. For those who get really uncomfortable at the idea of trying anything remotely out of the ordinary.

This is a blog that I wish I had my entire life. Things would have been so much easier to have these kinds of framing and perspectives available.

I will end with a confession. One I can’t go without saying. I am absolutely that guy that hates when recipe sites fluff up the page with a bunch of nonsense, burying the recipe and crashing my phone’s web browser with too many ads. I really am.

But the thing with learning to cook – and learning to eat, in this case – is that just following simple instructions doesn’t really get you there. You can assemble some parts but still not know how to cook. You can follow a recipe to success once, but not know how to adapt when things are sticking, cooking too fast, not shaping up, etc. And especially with this blog, the posts are as much about understanding how to appreciate the ingredients, trust that you might enjoy them (or not hate them), and make connections between known/safe things you do like and new elements being introduced.

So yes, I’m sorry, the recipes will also be surrounded by supporting text. The supporting text is very much the “point” of this site. I am posting full recipes (sometimes on repeat, with modifications/upgrades) as I think they’re valuable – and so many of you request my recipes in response to my food postings on social media – but they won’t be posted in isolation.

There will never be ads on this site, however. The "fluff" is not to show you ads (they won't be here) but to add actual value. If you want to support the free postings here, there are paid subscription options available when you sign up - though no push. The content will always be free: Free of cost, free of ads, free of AI.

I will be trying to carefully use tags to help categorize types of food, seasons, cooking methods, etc. to make this as searchable as possible.

Bear with me as I get the scraps from my prior attempts at this site up and running and start filling out more posts.

Hope you enjoy!