Dear Sandra Lee,
I have spent many years watching you open cans, thaw frozen foods, and throw back quite a few refreshing drinks. Throughout this entire time I have complained about, made fun of, and laughed at your concoctions, but I have never once gotten off my couch to try out your recipes. Not a single one. So let me first offer a sincere apology for judging you and your dishes/drinks, without even making what you have been trying to teach me for all these years. This injustice will continue not one day more. I have just ordered your magnum opus - Semi-Homemade: The Complete Cookbook - and I plan to attack each of your dishes and drinks and write to you about the experience and the results.
I know what you must be thinking: just another kid who pretends to know about food and wants to ride my coat tails. Well, Sandy, you're wrong. (One quick thing before I continue - I know we just met, but I hope you are comfortable with me calling you Sandy, because I plan on doing so from now on. You may call me Andy, if you'd like, but please don't do so around my mom or grandmother. They are not particularly fond of that name.) Back to where I was... This is so much more than another food blog. This is an adventure that we will take together, and we will learn as much about ourselves as we do about each other. You can think of this as one part Julie & Julia, one part Into the Wild, one part When Harry Met Sally, one part Judy Blume novel, and one part Drunk Cooking With Craig (this is a failed cooking show I had planned with my friend, but I know you would have gotten a kick out of it!). There might be a little bit of 127 Hours and/or Full Dark, No Stars during some of your less semi-homemade and more fully-homemade recipes, but let's hope not!!! ;)
I am at once terrified of and excited about our journey. (I don't know if you noticed, but I tried to start off on a good note by making the title font Homemade Apple.) I know it will be tense at points, as I will be brutally honest and expect the same from you, but I hope you don't give up on me. I hope you don't give up on us. So with your book on the way and my eagerness to mix my first electric blue cocktail, I will end my first letter to you by simply saying: game on, Sandy.
Impishly awaiting our first date,
Andy
