I love food and I love to cook.
Food brings people together, whether it’s a romantic first date dinner, families at holidays, lunch with business clients, a church brunch, or heads of state negotiating treaties. It’s a common experience that we all share as humans, the need to eat.
How we all go about carrying that out is with such a wide variation across countries, religions, and cultures. Even if you can’t afford to visit other countries, you can travel the world, through food, without a passport, without being groped by airport security, without ever leaving home, and at a fraction of the cost. You don’t have to be a millionaire to eat Hawaiian meatballs, a Chinese stir-fry, Indian curry, Italian pasta, Mexican enchiladas, Japanese sushi, and Vietnamese phở, all in the same week.
You can relive history, through food, such as the hardtack biscuits eaten by Civil War soldiers, Christmas cookie recipes passed down through generations, a Roman toga party dinner, Renaissance pears in mead, and Thomas Jefferson’s Chicken A La King.
But food can also harm our health and shorten our lives, saturated fat clogging our arteries with cholesterol, too much sodium raising our blood pressure, too much sugar and refined grains leading to Type II Diabetes.
So, all things in moderation, making healthier choices most of the time, so when you do decide to indulge, it won’t kill you.
I aim to present recipes you might not find elsewhere, some unique variations of old classics, things that have been in my collection for decades, recipes passed down through my family, healthier variations and alternatives, faster and easier methods of cooking, new inventions and old family favorites.
I originally started this online collection of recipes to serve as a cookbook for my daughter, so whenever she asked “How do you make ___?”, I could post my recipes online, for her, rather than trying to explain things over the phone. It then became a necessity, to document and preserve our family traditions, so that I don’t end up taking all our family’s recipes with me, when I die. That’s a tragedy experienced by too many families, and one I am hoping to avoid.
At the same time, I am also sharing my collection with the world, so that others might experience something new, and perhaps make it part of their own traditions.
However way you ended up here, please help yourself to some good food, and feel free to comment and ask questions.
Bon Appétit!
