Welcome!

Oh, hello there!  I see you managed to find my corner of the internet where I decided to start posting my various cooking attempts and experiments.  Before diving in to the accounts of my foodie misadventures allow me to tell you a bit about who I am and some of the things that influence what I will be posting about.

My name is Abe Kwiatkowski, and I live in the great dairy state of Wisconsin.  Specifically Madison, WI; known for it's fantastic summer farmer's market and diverse food scene (much in thanks to the regular influx of students at UW Madison).

Midwest Nerds, Unite!

Like many of my fellow Wisconsinites I have a great love of the three food staples of the state: Beer, Brats, and Cheese.  The best beer is always produced locally, and Madison has a fantastic selection of local breweries and pubs that brew their own unique selections.  If you are someone from outside of Wisconsin that doesn't "get" what the big deal is about bratwurst, I hope to write an article during the summer that will help give insight to our obsession with this wondrous Bavarian meat-in-tube-form.  Cheese may be stereotypically Wisconsin, but I keep being told by my out of state friends that they have never been surrounded by so many different cheeses so often as when they visit here.

The "Nerdy" in Cooking Made Nerdy is thanks to a life long immersion in comic books, science fiction, tabletop games, and video games.  Much of what I cook gets taste tested by my local gaming friends, and many dishes I make have been inventions of necessity when feeding various gatherings of friends.

It's important to note that I am not a food professional nor have I been a culinary student of any sort.  Beyond early cooking lessons from my father I'm self taught and often learn a great deal from the collective knowledge of other food blogs and lessons from the always helpful Alton Brown.

What I will be showing you

I'm a single guy that works in IT, and this is not a blog about healthy cooking or lifestyle changes.  That doesn't mean I may not bring out dishes that are good for you, it's just that they get equal time with the kind of dishes that you eat just to indulge in, or dishes that that come together because leftovers need a second life.  There will be snacks, drinks, meals, and random experiments.  For me, cooking is about having fun and I hope you enjoy reading about what I make.