About Me

^I

'm a recovering architect, maker of photo-based art, and amateur cook. I'm married to Elise and we live in Portland, Maine, with our cats Jack and Betty. That's my granddaughter Madi with me in the photo (taken by my son-in-law Craig).

Stephencooks.com is the kitchen notebook of an everyday cook. I cook to put good food on the table and to entertain myself, my family and my guests, and this blog is just a record of what I cooked, usually with some brief commentary about the ingredients, procedures or recipe sources and history. I may not be the trendiest cook, and I probably won't break new ground here, but I my culinary interests range fairly widely as I seek to keep my cooking interesting.

All recipes published on Stephencooks.com are original, unless credited to others. I'm a self-taught cook and cookbooks have been my teachers, but these days they pretty much stay on the shelf as I work out variations on the things I've learned from them. When a my recipe depends heavily on a specific cookbook or published recipe I will mention that fact, but in most cases the connections between what I cook and a recipe in my cookbooks has become blurred over time as I've adapted and changed and combined dishes.

For more information about me and this blog, see the recent interview on Culinate.

_________________________________________

NOTES

My Kitchen Helper

I pretty much just cook, and I'm lucky enough to have a willing and energetic partner who does most of the cleanup. Cooking the way I do, with the frequency I do, and blogging about it, would not be possible without this help. Click HERE for more information about E, my wife and partner in crime.

Ingredient Quantities, Cooking Procedures, etc.

About Cooking Time --
My friend Carmen observed years ago that "Stephen likes labor-intensive cooking," and she was so right. I can't help myself. If you're looking for something quick here, I'm sorry but most of the dishes I cook take far too long to be called quick.

As mentioned above, this site is a kitchen notebook, not a cookbook. These recipes are jotted down as I cook, and I'm of the "throw some in and taste it" school of measuring. Therefore, ingredient quantities shown here are always approximate at best, since they are usually guesses after the fact, and procedural directions may be very brief or even incomplete by some standards. My ideal recipe writer was Elizabeth David, who could easily fit 6 or 8 recipes on a page and an illustration as well. Here's her complete recipe for PESCE ALL'AGLITA (Fish in Garlic Sauce) from Italian Food: "Slices of any coarse white fish, fried in oil, served in the following sauce: In a mortar pound a clove or two of garlic, add a handful of breadcrumbs, enough oil to make a thick sauce, and a little vinegar." Marcella Hazan has a very similar recipe (Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, pp. 298-99) that takes up a whole page and specifies everything from how to wash the fish to how long to brown the fish and at what temperature. You won't find that here, though I'm rarely as succinct as Elizabeth.

Yield

Usually I cook for two healthy eaters, and we nearly always have leftovers...so I think that my quantities are in general adequate for four average eaters, or two good eaters with leftovers. I'll note it if the quantities deviate from that standard and I remember to do that.

Black Pepper

I have an irritating but not dangerous medical problem with black pepper so I avoid using it in my cooking...which is why you see "hot sauce" used so often in my notes. You might consider using fresh ground black pepper where I say "hot sauce," since that's what I would have used in most situations, absent my problem.

Comments

I love receiving comments on posts and I frequently respond via email because I've found that communicating with people all over the world about similar interests really has added a new dimension to my world. However, just so you know: if you leave a fake email address, I automatically delete your comment, since fake email addresses are little lies, which is the first clue to me that I really don't want you around here. Also, please confine comments to topics related to the associated post...I have email if you have questions about other issues, want to send me a notice about something, etc.

Food Source Issues

While I'm vitally concerned about the quality and sustainability of our food supply, the health impacts of food choices and the environmental damage caused by industrial food production operations, this site is limited in its scope to discussion of preparation of food in the kitchen, due to my limited time and expertise. I'm confident that others are doing a better job than I could at tracking and addressing these concerns. I certainly recommend that all my readers seek out the information they need to make decisions about food choices consistent with their environmental concerns, health issues and ethical outlook.