About
this site
Hello!
I’m Bear Hands, and this site is a collection of my adventures with two favorite pastimes: food and film. I love exploring culture through cooking, and I invite you to join me on this journey.
This site is a collaboration between my husband and me.
Despite working in the restaurant industry for many years and being a dedicated home cook (we go out to eat about three times a year, and only because someone else is paying), I cannot follow or write recipes. My husband, on the other hand, needs recipes — and enjoys writing them.
By day, he’s a Drafter, working with precise measurements — I honestly don’t really know what he does; I just tell people he “works with computers.” What I do know is that his inclination for precision and numbers flows into every other part of his life: he tracks the house budget, handles the tools to update the kitchen whenever I need, and helps transform my intuitive cooking style into easy‑to‑follow recipes that we share with you.
Our Site Has Three Main Sections
Recipes
My cooking process is pretty loose. A lot of the meals I prepare for my family are things I’ve thrown together, and are hard for me to think of as “recipes”. When I find a new ingredient or dish I am interested in, I will read articles about it and create a cooking plan based on my own tastes and the ingredients I commonly use.
My husband will help translate my dish into a structured recipe, and will often give two versions:
Detailed Recipe: The standard, narrative style with context and explanation.
Easy‑Follow Recipe: A table format, designed for quick glances while in the hectic cooking process.
Dietary Restrictions: All recipes are naturally gluten‑free and pescatarian/vegetarian (I have celiac disease and don’t eat land animals). Any of my recipes can be made with regular, gluten-filled products. For my gluten free needs, I don’t use anything special: for gluten free flour, I simply buy whatever 1 to 1 blend is available. With other products like noodles I simply buy a gluten free version.
Movie Reviews
We watch a ton of movies and love discussing them afterward. Writing reviews became a fun extension of that habit. I often write mine in the voice of Frasier Crane from the 90s sitcom Frasier (a 90’s show I revisit almost daily). I hope you enjoy reading them as much as we enjoy writing them.Movie Tracker
We used to track movies with Chrome bookmarks, but that eventually became unmanageable. In 2024, My husband built a Movie Tracker web app — a searchable archive of everything we’ve watched. It helps us remember films (“what was that movie last month…?”) Feel free to take a look. It includes our ratings and links to reviews when applicable.
About us
About Bear Hands
I grew up on my Grandma’s farm in rural Canada where I ate a lot of food that was grown or hunted by my family, and cooked by my grandma for our house of seven people.
I’ve cooked at many levels: as a chef in high‑end Chicago restaurants, a cafeteria cook for a grade school, and — my favorite — as a home cook. Here’s what I believe about food:
Anyone can cook. It’s how we feed ourselves and our families.
Recipes are guidelines, not rules. Your taste and intuition are your best tools.
Food is one of the most powerful forces on earth. Sadly, media and society often turn it into a status symbol — something “fancy people” do better than the rest. But if you’re feeding yourself and your family in a way that works for your life, you should feel proud.
Cooking is therapy. It makes my back and feet hurt, but it puts my mind at ease. I hope it does the same for you! (Not the back and feet hurting part…)
Most importantly: There is no singular or correct way to prepare food. As home cooks, we do what works for us. I’d move mountains to feed my loved ones, but there is only so much time, energy, and ingredients in a day.
About Hubby Bear
My husband grew up in the suburbs of the US, and was addicted to fast food.
He is in charge of all things technical. He thrives on organization, and precision. I get just as annoyed with his incessant need for organization as he gets frustrated for by proclivity for whimsy. He helps turn my kitchen adventures into logical, easy‑to‑follow recipes. If you see any cute drawings on this site, he did those too
About Haunches
Haunches is cute, but makes everything more difficult.
Us Together and “Taste”
Taste is subjective. Sometimes I think a dish is a dud, but my husband insists he loves it. We’ve even argued about whether he’s “pretending” — until I realized he really does enjoy flavors I don’t.
That’s the heart of this site: taste is personal, shaped by upbringing, biology, and experience. Some people think cilantro tastes like soap — and that’s valid. Media may try to convince us there’s a “better” taste, but in reality, there’s only your taste.
This blog celebrates differences in taste and how we compromise, share, and come together — whether it’s dietary restrictions or flavor preferences.
🧂Salt is the perfect example of taste in action. Some say it enhances flavor; others say it dulls your palate. We tend to use less salt, but seasoning are flexible — you can always add more. I once saw a friend open their fast food burger and add salt to it. It blew my mind, and made me think about how different people are. That being said, you should know that our recipes tend to use less salt so you may want to adjust while cooking.
The takeaway:
People have different tastes.
No one is more right or wrong.
Everyone should enjoy what they enjoy, without judgment.
Cooking can be as simple as microwaving canned goods or as elaborate as crafting a whole‑foods recipe that leaves every utensil in the kitchen piled in the sink. It’s all valid.
In the end, I love being a home cook. Even if we had the budget to eat out, I wouldn’t change anything. I try to make cooking easy and fun, but also challenging in the best ways.
This site is our celebration of food, film, and the many ways taste brings people together. We hope you find joy, inspiration, and maybe even a little peace here.