About

Technically, Chez Thorburn as an entity originated in 2009 when my husband and I married.

The hashtag #chezthorburn began in 2013 when we joined Instagram (private accounts) and started posting photos of our home cooking (and our cats, and musical exploits, and other oddities). Our Instagram accounts are still private, and the #chezthorburn hashtag is only available to our friends.

That’s where this site comes in. Now that we are all trapped at home with COVID-19 ravaging our daily lives, I thought it might be fun to share some of our #chezthorburn adventures (past and present) on a slightly-wider platform. If it inspires you to less boredom and more kitchen fun during this weird time, that’s great.

And while there is a much larger story about why we cook at home–including various degrees of necessity, healthfulness, and simple enjoyment–I’ll leave that story to selected recipes to individually develop. There are 7+ years of recipes in the #chezthorburn archives, and we remember most of their origins quite vividly.

One final note: I’ve grown increasingly annoyed by the traditional blog-style presentation of recipes, in which endless ads and stories must be endured and scrolled through before a recipe is finally presented at the bottom of a page. By this time, a browser with many tabs open has already stalled, and maybe crashed. So, on Chez Thorburn, all recipes will be presented concisely and clearly, be easy to find, and have zero ads, since this is so not a financial venture. If you don’t want to read a story, a link will be provided so you can skip straight to the recipe. And while this site isn’t yet printer-friendly, at least it looks wicked good on an iPad.

So: Happy browsing, and happy cooking adventures while stuck at home for the foreseeable future!