Good morning, world

Hello, world, and welcome to 2013! Here's hoping this will be your best year yet, though not so great that coming years can't match it.

This blog is a new project of mine, which I'm starting as part of my 'do something fun in 2012' resolution. As you can guess by the name, it has to do with the game Guild Wars 2 and cooking. That's because I think Guild Wars 2 is a great game, and because I like cooking. I'm a straightforward sort of person.

The idea of this blog is that every week, I'll post a recipe based on a recipe you can craft as a chef in Guild Wars 2 (henceforth GW2). My goal is to stick as closely to the original recipe as possible - that is, use all the ingredients listed and not more than that - but it's also important for me to create actually edible recipes. If that means straying from a pure GW2 recipe, so be it. Or maybe I'll post multiple versions if that happens. Who knows! You'll have to stay tuned to find out.

In addition to this, I'm going to start by only making recipes that I've discovered or bought in the game. I have a lot of hobbies and can't/don't spend hours a day just playing video games, so I haven't discovered every recipe yet. About 75% of recipes involving chili peppers, for instance (what is up with the blasted chili peppers?!). And of course, recipes are added to GW2 occasionally - such as ice cream and recipes involving passion fruit! So I've got plenty of options to keep me going for quite a while.

Now, I'm going to end this introductory post with three disclaimers:

1) I am not a professional chef nor do I charge for cooking lessons. If you can't believe I would do that to a cabbage, by all means leave a comment.

2) I am not a professional photographer. The pictures that illustrate the recipes are meant to give an accurate impression of what you can expect when making the recipe yourself. They are not art, they are not artistic, and as I actually have to eat these things, I can't cover them in hairspray to preserve the colour or let them grow cold while I fiddle with the lighting. Deal with it!

3) English is not my first language. I do not live in the USA. I do not know how to use imperial measurements. (does that count as three separate disclaimers?)

Alright, so I guess that's it! Updates are on Wednesday, so we're starting tomorrow with a great, healthy winter dish: kale (and poultry) soup. See you then!