Cooking with John

I love to cook. When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, helping my mother prepare food. During my father's lifetime, she was pretty conservative, as both his tastes and diet were somewhat restricted. However, she became a lot more experimental after he died and like to try new recipes.

At college and grad school, I got a bit lazy and did not cook much for myself. However, after Terry moved in with me in 1982, I began to cook more and more. This interested has continued and even though I now need to restrict my diet, I still enjoy cooking for myself. I also like to bake, and though I can no longer eat more than a sampling, I like making cookies and sending them as holiday gifts. I own a breadmaker and have started making my own bread on a continuing basis. My kitchen is reasonably well equipped, though I do not have a lot of really high end "yuppie" stuff. It is a working kitchen; not a show-off one.

I also like to entertain and have friends over. When doing this, I prefer having small dinner parties rather than throwing large cocktail parties, but I have done both.

I am including links to some of my original recipes and some which I have altered or adapted so heavily it would not violate a copyright to print them. As time goes on, I'll add to these. A lot of my favorite recipes do come from cookbooks, so I cannot reprint them here.

APPETIZERS
SALADS
SOUPS
MAIN DISHES
VEGETABLES AND STARCHES
PASTA SAUCES
DESSERTS
BREADS
MISCELLANEOUS

I have a good-sized cookbook library as well. One of my favorites is the Joy of Cooking, in both the Old and New editions. For general cooking, I also like the New Basics cookbook, though some of their recipes are a bit too "fufu" for me (I think the name is a misnomer). I love Italian food, and one of my favorite cookbooks in that area is The Regional Italian Kitchen. For bread making, I especially recommend the wonderful Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook. For Jewish cooking with a little bit of nouvelle updating, I like The Gourmet Jewish Cook. A couple of vegetarian cookbooks I like, thoudh they are quite dated, are the Vegetarian Epicure and Vegetarian Epicure, Book 2.

Online, I always find good cookie and cake recipes at www.allrecipes.com though I think in onther areas the recipes are a bit too much like something someone would bring to a church supper in a small town. An interesting food web site, though I have not yet been brave enough try any of the recipes, is the Medieval/Renaissance Food Homepage.