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about me

[SINCE I HAVE WELL OVER 200 COOKBOOKS, I SUGGEST THAT ANYONE EXPLORING MY COLLECTION CLICK ON 'AUTHOR'S ORDER' AT THE TOP OF THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN BEFORE PROCEEDING. I'VE ARRANGED THEM SO THAT COOKBOOK SERIES OR SIMPLY COOKBOOKS ON RELATED TOPICS APPEAR TOGETHER, WHICH SHOULD MAKE IT EASIER TO FIND THE ONES THAT INTEREST YOU.]

In 2004, I moved home to New England after many years living in the South. Often I go walking in the morning with my sister, who lives near me on the Maine coast--we truly live in a beautiful place. I share a love of ACC basketball with my brother in upstate New York. Nowadays, I rely heavily on Kitty Rosati's Heal Your Heart book (lots of low-sodium recipes) and Donald Gazzaniga's No-Salt, Lowest-Sodium Cookbook. Other cookbooks I frequently use are Weil & Daley's The Healthy Kitchen and Cooking Light's Five-Star Recipes cookbook.

From January 2005 to September 2008, I hosted the recipe tagging game ONE-TWO-THREE HIT WONDERS, taking four months off in late 2007, during which the tireless, compassionate and totally wonderful Game Forum Hosts ~Nimz~, justcallmetoni, Lauralie41 and Andi of Longmeadow Farm with incredible kindness of took over my workload. I loved hosting the game and the players there were and are the best, but competing obligations required me to give it up and it's now ably presided over by HokiesLady.

In 2008 my dear sister finally joined Recipezaar. Her chef name is Sagadahoc (the county in Maine she lives in). My popular Merle's Horseradish Salmon Log is actually her recipe--check it out sometime, it's great! She eventually realized how useful having several cookbooks can be, so I gave her a premium membership as her birthday present in March 2008.

Some of my favorite sources of recipes are the public cookbooks of other Zaar chefs. I have over 100 bookmarked to refer to occasionally, but some of my favorites are from the following:

In January-February 2007, the Chefs of 1-2-3 Hit Wonders hosted a Cook-a-Thon for veteran Zaar member Sharon123 while she was undergoing chemotherapy at Duke University. The entire group of recipes tagged, cooked and reviewed for the Cook-a-Thon are contained in:

Sharon123's Cook-a-Thon Cookbook

~Rita~: Thanks to her stunning photographs, she has one of the most beautiful cookbook lists at Zaar. Her cookbooks focus on a variety of inspired topics, many of them health-related, and the introductions often provide an encyclopedic disquisition on the topic at hand. Some stand-outs:

Edible Flowers

Honey Honey You`ve got me wanting you!

Recipes I named after zaar chefs

Menopause

If you've been around Zaar any length of time, you probably know that Bergy writes wonderfully detailed and helpful recipe reviews and has also contributed a wealth of wonderful recipes of her own. Judging from comments in the forums, her burger cookbook is the most popular and referenced cookbook at Zaar, and her appetizers cookbook is a treasury of finger foods as well as a major hunting ground for Dim Sum:

Saturday Night Burgers

Appetizers/Finger Foods

PaulaG's own recipes are a well I go back to again and again--I've made tons of her dishes, with great results. Cookbooks of hers I find especially handy include:

Chicken Recipes

Then There Were 2

As I mentioned above, while I love the cuisines of all regions of the world, my favorite is Greek, and the following from Cookiegirlandi is chockful of great Greek recipes:

It's All Greek

(Another great way to find Greek recipes is to go cirectly to evelyn/athens' recipe list and then sift for Cuisine-->European__>Southern-->Greek. She currently has 142.)
UPDATE: evelyn/athens, host of the Greek Cooking Forum and Greek food expert extraordinaire has a cookbook of her own Greek fecipes that could be the only reference you'll ever need for Greek cuisine:

Greek Cookery

I'm not a vegetarian, but I do eat meatless meals a fair amount of the time. I've observed that Sharon123 is a great one for cooking fare that's healthy and tastes great, which is why I trust and turn to her:

Yummy Vegetarian Dishes

If I want to cook something to eat with my friends, the go-to person is Miss Annie:

Recipes for Entertaining

Pot Luck /Picnic Recipes

Dancer^ is single-handedly responsible for tons of great salad dressing and seasoning mixes posted at Zaar. See the evidence in her cookbooks:

Dressings & Vinaigrettes

Spice and Herb Mixes

If I'm hanging out in heaven a hundred years from now, I'm hoping to find they've had the good sense to make NcMysteryShopper and Bev the twin bartenders there, so after I go to my final reward I can continue to imbibe offerings from Cheryl's Layered Shots & Drinks, Drinkin' & Pickin', Amarula: The Spirit of Africa, Amaretto... Liquid Love, Cinco de Mayo ~ Beverages!, Valentine's Day Love Potions and Drink Me.... I'm Irish cookbooks and Bev's Cocktails @ 5 and Cordially Yours cookbooks. These ladies know how to set 'em up and I know how to chug 'em!

Julesong was one of the first to take advantage of the multiple-cookbook option of premium membership in a big way. For awhile she held the record for most cookbooks at Zaar. Some of those I've particularly liked include:

Junior League Cookbook Recipes

Second Chance - a generous list of Zaar recipes that received a low-to-mediocre rating but may deserve a second look

Newspaper Recipes - some of my own favorites have come from newspapers, including the original version of my most popular recipe Finger-Licking Chicken Marinade.

Old Bay Recipes

Penzey's Recipes

Gooseberry Patch Recipes

They Call Me the Soup Fairy... Julie's Soups - Julie has some great soups in her repertoire!

Famous Chefs - Julia Child, my hero! (My favorite from among her exhaustive collection of Famous Chefs cookbooks)

I'll admit I've never actually made anything in them, but Amber of AZ and Mirj have two of the most fun cookbooks to peruse:

The Bizarre of Recipezaar - Amber

Funny Recipes - Mirj

I'm always looking to lose weight, so really appreciate all the fine folks who've come up with cookbooks for dieters. Other than keeping my sodium intake low most of the time for my blood pressure, I don't follow any particular one of the popular diets, but rather am just an old-fashioned calorie counter. This means that I can find gold in all the varieties of diet cookbooks--low-fat, low-carb, weight watchers, diabetic (even though I'm not). Ones I've found useful include:

Low Carb, SB Diet Recipes, WW - Barb Gertz

Healthy, Low Fat and Low Cal Cookbook - Hazeleyes

Low Carbing It - The Dancing Cook

Side Dishes Recipes in Weight Watcher's Core Recipes - toni gifford

Weight Watchers Recipes - Flex Program - toni gifford

Recipes with WW points - Dancer^

Can this really be lowfat? - Shirl(J)831

WW Core Recipes I Have Tried - ladypit

Low Fat - PaulaG

Lowfat and Lovin' It - rochsann

Low Fat Favorites - Kree

Watch My Weight! - KCShell

Steaming Recipes - LittleKiwiChook

Low Fat NOT Low Taste cookbook - Theresa P

Guiltless Indulgences - WaterMelon

When I'm looking for cheap or easy or cheap AND easy, these cookbooks come in handy:

Budget Cooking - Lvs2Cook

Cheap and Easy Cooking - Lvs2Cook

College Favorites - .::.Blink.::.

Cheap to Make, Easy to Make - KathyLBel

College Cooking - Julesong

Easy Weeknight Recipes - Vote_for_Pedro

Food on a Dime Recipes - peacefulnightdove

Frugal Gourmet - Carolyn H

Got Leftovers? Got Recipes - Lennie

Mama's Fast and Frugal Recipes - mama's kitchen

One Dish Wonders - Doreen~

The only freezer I have is the one on top of my fridge, so I don't have room to do once a MONTH cooking, but I generally like to have a dish or 2 stowed away there to cut down on last minute rushing. Tish's complete library of OAMC cookbooks are the reason I have bookmarked her entire homepage for easy reference.

Here's a special shout-out to my friend KITTENCAL. When I see in my Zaar InBox one of her thoughtful notes just sent out of the blue to offer an encouraging word, it makes my day. She has a goodly collection of cookbooks, but her true achievement is the 3,000+ recipes she's posted--how does she manage to be so prolific yet keep the quality of her offerings so high?

I especially want to thank that sweetie-pie Pot Scrubber for teaching me how to link to other people's cookbooks. Check out what HIS favorite Zaar chef cookbooks are, as well as see his own wittily titled cookbooks here.

Favorite Foods:

MEATS: roast lamb, salmon; VEGETABLES: asparagus, tomatoes, carrots, artichokes; FRUIT: pineapple, avocado, any kind of berries. DESSERTS: Haagen Dazs rum raisin or coffee ice cream; peach or rhubarb pie; bread pudding. HERBS: dill, thyme; SPICES: coriander, cardamom; BEVERAGE: southern pecan coffee, consumed sitting on my sunporch overlooking the New Meadow River. I'm addicted to Villa Manodori balsamic vinegar--$35/bottle, but it tastes heavenly. I also love anything lemony or limey, hot sauces, and cheese. Don't like chocolate or lobster (I know, it's weird, I've been told). I grew up in the Lowell, MA, area, where I had lots of exposure to Greek cuisine, which is my favorite. Favorite restaurant: Aurora in Chapel Hill, NC. BTW, THANKS to anyone who adds a photograph to any of my recipes you review! I don't yet have the means to do that myself, so it's a very welcome service.

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