Get To Know: James

Hello everyone and welcome to my Get To Know series where I casually interview other blogs as a means of getting to know them better but also to spread their blog! Today our guest is James from Fork ‘N Tasty!

The Basics

Name: James
Nickname(s): A few I can’t mention but some of my friends call me Bloom. Long story short it involved a weekend in Amsterdam and the Blue Planet TV Show.
Occupation: Customer Success Manager
Nationality: Irish
Country Currently Living In: Ireland. Although I spent 3 years living in Australia until the beginning of last year. 

Let’s Get A Little Personal

Favorites:
Favorite herb to cook with? Oregano. I cover my pizzas or pasta dishes in it! I also love coriander, or cilantro. The freshness of it in dishes is amazing and something I love to add to Mexican or middle-eastern food. This has caused many argument around dinner time because my girlfriend hates even the tiniest bit on her food! 
Favorite seasoning?  I love Paprika! Smoked or sweet, don’t care. Love the stuff. I put it in as many dishes as I can. Couscous, Chilly, on sandwiches, on meat, everything!
Favorite breakfast meal? I’m a simple man really. The best breakfast is crispy bacon, black pudding (an Irish delicacy, I won’t say what its made from though. It’s also know as blood sausage…) on butter toasted topped off with some ketchup. Simple, delicious, really unhealthy!! Haha. 
Favorite dessert? Meringue/Pavlova. I mean does it get any better than these? I’ve had some incredible ice cream and gelato on my travels but Meringue is just brilliant! Few berries with it don’t go a miss either!
Favorite vegetable? Ooohhh tough one! I love veggies. Ugh I’m such a stereotype by saying this but potatoes! Boiled, roasted, baked, mashed, fried or chipped I love them! There’s so much you can do with them. I’m particularly found of sweet potato and going to try some new recipes with them soon. And before you ask, yes we do eat other things in Ireland other that potatoes!
Favorite cooking channel? I’m a big fan of the Viceland cooking shows and the online Munchies channel they run. They do more edgy stuff like F*ck, That’s Delicious. But over the last few years Netflix has really pushed the bar with it’s collection of cooking shows and docs. My favorite by a long way is Chefs Table. It’s a stunningly shot look into what makes the best chefs the best. Ultimate food porn!
This or That: 
Sweet or savory? Sweet. No hesitation there! I love sweets. As much as I love food, dessert is usually the first thing I look at!
Spicy or not? Spicy, hotter the better. Although there’s a few times I’ve gone to hot!
Quick meals or meals that take longer to make? Longer. I love spending time in the kitchen and it’s so much more satisfying when you eat something you’ve spent time over. 
Cooking or going out to eat? This has me torn! I love cooking but going out to eat is that bit more special. I love trying new foods when I go out that I can’t get or cook at home.
Cooking or baking? Cooking. Let’s just say I’m not great at sticking to exact recipes and some things rise, a lot!
Simple Questions: 
Why did you start blogging? I’ve been blogging in various forms for about 5 years. Originally I started a blog when I moved to Australia to keep people back home up to date with what I was up to, then I started a music review blog as I was working in the music industry in Sydney so had access to loads of gigs! After that myself and my girlfriend started a travel blog that detailed our 3 months spent in South America early last year. And now I blog at Fork ‘N Tasty, which I started earlier this year! To begin with it was to keep people, particularly ones not on social media, up to date with what I was up to and the photos I was taking but Fork ‘N Tasty is more to, hopefully, help people eat better and nicer food that they can cook themselves!
When did you get into cooking? When I was really young. My parents are both great cooks. I used to help out with desserts on Sundays and then cook for myself at weekends when I was in my teens. When I was about 15 I had the opportunity to work in the kitchen of one of Irelands best restaurants, Shanahans On The Green, for a summer. This opened my eyes to food and is when I started to take a real interest in it.
Out of all the places you’ve visited, which place had the best food? These were suppose to be the simple questions, this is really tough! Peru. The range of food there is insane! Seriously. I have never seen so many massive vegetables and so many different types. The type of food ranges from simple Peruvian food to incredible Chinese food. While there I was lucky enough to eat in the 4th best restaurant in the world, Central. We had an 18 course meal were each course was from a different altitude. Incredible. The chef there, Virgillo Martinez, is feature on an episode of Chefs Table if you want to see more!
Are you adventurous when it comes to tasting food? Most definitely. I’ll try anything once.
What is the craziest thing you’ve eaten? Crocodile. Guinea Pig. Alpaca. Any of them!
What don’t you like about cooking? 2 things. 1- Finding fresh or unusual ingredients. This annoys me so much! Sometimes in Ireland it is so so hard to get good fresh produce. And 2 – chopping onions. I’m a bag of tears once this starts!
Have you ever followed a recipe and it turned out just bland? Oh yes, a couple of times! But what was worse was the time I tried to make spaghetti carbonara and ended up with scrambled eggs and spaghetti!  

Let’s Get A Deeper Connection

What advice would you give your younger self? Stay in the kitchen! Go to college and learn to cook. 
If you had the opportunity to go on a TV cooking competition, would you go? Absolutely! Big fan of Master Chef and also the Australian show My Kitchen Rules. It’d be really hard but I’d love to give it a go at some stage in the future. 
Could you see yourself being a chef with their own TV show? Ye why not! But probably online. I’d probably be a bit to raw for TV! 
What inspires you to cook? Seeing other people cook. My parents inspired me to cook from a young age and seeing people cook and present food in appealing way really makes me what to cook and better myself.
James, I absolutely LOVED your answers! Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to do this interview, your answers were super detailed and really just wonderful! 
A Message To Everyone: Go on over now now now to follow James because his blog will make you hungry!!! Not to mention…don’t you just want him to cook for you all day long now after reading this because I sure do!

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