This is an introduction to what I hope will be a regular alternating series of posts (alternating with my regular recipe posts) in which you, the world of the culinary curious, my friends, supporters, students and readers will get to ask me, The Kitchenista, any question pertaining to cooking, the kitchen, culinary technique, kitchen tools, appliances, gadgets, etc. I get a lot of emailed and texted questions from my students—people I’ve done private or group cooking classes, or cooking parties with. Usually they are elbow deep in a recipe or trying to replicate a recipe we’ve done together in a lesson and they dash off a frantic question, no doubt leaving goop on their keyboards or iPhone screens in the process.

My desire for perfection in all things (mostly never achieved) has had me putting off launching this feature because I didn’t have all the bells and whistles in place for it…a separate page on the site, a searching tool that will allow readers to search a particular issue, a cool new logo just for this feature and on and on. Because I was awarded a scholarship to a class at my alma mater, the International Culinary Center (formerly the French Culinary Institute in New York) on Food Blogging with Steve Shaw I am being inspired (forced, coerced, held to the ground, pushed, cajoled) to just go ahead and get this idea out of my head and onto the screen.

Help me launch this by sending your kitchen questions to me or leaving one in the comment section below.