I sell cars. I cook a lot.

I’m Cole, a Canadian car salesman with a passion for research, learning, and cooking. This is where I keep track of what I’ve made, what I changed, and whether I’d bother making it again.

I’m not a chef. I read a lot of recipes from people who know more than I do — Kenji, Meathead, Paul Prudhomme, Joël Robuchon — and try them in my own kitchen. Sometimes I follow the instructions. Sometimes I use considerably more hot peppers.

What you’ll find here

The useful part of a recipe isn’t always the ingredient list. It’s the step that looks wrong until it works, the substitution you can get away with, or the thing you’d change next time. Those are the notes I try to keep. Along with plenty of photos of the process.

There’s French cooking, pasta, barbecue, hot sauce, and whatever else catches my attention. Nicole joins in occasionally. The Big Green Egg gets a workout. If something is an 8 out of 10, I’ll call it an 8.

I link to the original recipes so you can give the people behind them their due. Where a recipe is my own, I say so. As I put it in my roasted potato post: “If the directions suck I apologize.”

Start with something good

• Braised oxtail and short rib pasta — a long cook with a good payoff.
• Crispy, crunchy roasted potatoes — my own recipe, and one I come back to.
• The pantry — pickles, hot sauces, and things to keep around.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully you find something worth cooking.