Hello and Welcome

 I arrived in Astoria, Oregon two weeks ago. As to be expected, life here is much different than what I was used to in Los Angeles. For starters, wet and rainy weather is as normal here as sunshine is in LA. I'm not complaining, in fact, I welcome this change. Another quick observation is the friendliness from the neighbors and most of the towns people. At roughly 10,000 people it's no surprise the residents of Astoria do seem to be a close knit community. Unlike the metropolis of LA with its millions of residents, most attempts at anonymity here in Astoria are probably pretty difficult. Chances are you will run into the same people over and over so you better be nice to each other ;)

With this blog I hope to chronicle some of my pastimes here in Astoria. Many of the posts will be about cooking. I have always had a knack for cooking and enjoy it immensely. Like my father and his mother, I consider myself an improvisational cook. I like to take the ingredients available to me and make a spontaneous meal. Rarely do I make meals using recipes and if I do, more than likely I end up customizing it. For the most part, most of my meals have always been a hit (minus a few epic misses) and in fact, there's been more than a few times that the meals turns out downright amazing! It was times like these I wish I'd written down the ingredients and quantities I used. So to remedy that, I will start writing down my meals and sharing it on my blog for anyone who wishes to recreate the dish.

In addition to cooking, I plan on spending a lot of time starting a garden. Some of you might be former readers of my blog "A Garden Grows in Los Angeles." Although I had some minor successes with that "garden", I never found the time (nor space) necessary for a truly successful garden to flourish. Now I have both the time and space. On top of that, a green house available to me so no more excuses.

But first, I need to do some reading about gardening in this climate. The cold and wet weather makes it a little trickier starting a garden, especially from seed as I intend on doing. Luckily my copy of "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" has recently arrived in the mail and I intend on studying it like a bible.

Of course, aside from cooking and gardening, I will also post on an assortment of other subjects. From home improvement and creative projects to exploration of Astoria's many restaurants, shops and attractions  I hope to give my readers (if there are any) a glimpse of what my life is like since moving here to Astoria.