Amy Wilson’s Streaming Gourmet Recipes

Amy Wilson, the author of the cooking blog Streaming Gourmet, discusses what inspired her to create the blog and the new direction her home cooking and the Streaming Gourmet blog have taken.

Could you tell us a little about yourself?

I'm a 39 year old wife and mother of two who has been obsessed with food her whole life. I used to be a high school physics teacher and then an administrator, but when I left work to raise the children, I decided it was time to embrace the fact that there is one thing I never get tired of thinking about: my next meal. I found searching for cooking videos on YouTube frustrating because of having to sift through so much unrelated content when doing searches. I decided to create a site that would aggregate and categorize all of the best cooking videos on the web to make it easy for people to find, watch and share high quality content. I also wanted to share recipes and cooking tips of my own, so I created a video sharing site called StreamingGourmet.

What can readers find on the Streaming Gourmet blog?

My posts are almost exclusively recipe-driven. While I may reference a restaurant or dining experience in a blog post, the focal point is always a recipe and tips for how to execute it. Photographs are a big inspiration to me, so I try to make the photographs on my blog as compelling as I can. So far, my recipe collection represents an omnivore's diet, but I am beginning to move in the direction of vegetarian and even vegan foods. I do believe that if everyone incorporated a few vegan meals into their diet each week, we collectively could take a chunk out of environmental and health problems that our country is facing.

What kind of responses do you receive from your readers?

I always love it when I receive comments from readers who have actually tried one of the recipes. Sometimes I receive suggestions for how to improve the recipe, which is great. We all have different tastes, so some readers want to increase the sugar while others will reduce it. It all depends, but I love to hear what people are trying. I also love it when I hear from people who are trying a new ingredient for the first time. I have tried to expand my own ingredient repertoire with this blog, so it's nice when others come along on that ride.

What are your favorite foods to cook/bake?

I must say that I am a potato fiend. Baked, fried, mashed, gratinéed, puréed in a soup. Some people think everything is better with bacon. I think everything is better with potato. Pumpkin is good too. Last October, I did a series: 31 days of pumpkin. I think I could do another 31 days this year. Seriously.

What aspect of cooking/baking do you enjoy most?

I like the uncertainty of whether or not the dish is going to work. I could never be a chef, because they achieve perfection through repetition. I, on the other hand, enjoy the thrill of attempting to cook something for the first time and watching what happens. I remember making orange-scented granola for the one and only time last fall and the surprise and delight I experienced popping it into my mouth after the first batch had cooled cannot be overstated. So I suppose I never achieve perfection - unless of course we're talking about potato gratin, which I am quite happy to repeat again and again.

If you could summarize your personal cooking style into one quote, what would it be?

My style has shifted of late. For years, it was all about making the ultimate comfort food: high quality ingredients and no skimping on the fat. Lately though, I've become a bit more health conscious, so I'm going more for fresh, seasonal, local, and plant-based dishes. Cheese sauces are on hold for now, sadly.