Writing cookbooks

For years now I have been working on a healthy vegan cookbook. I began writing my first cookbook at the age of 10 and I still have that yellow-covered spiral-bound notebook, as well as the red-covered second one.

 

As you can see,  the yellow one cost 50 cents, while the red one from some time later cost 49 cents. Until I looked at them through someone else's eyes (yours), I hadn't realized how awful they look all covered with the remains of my cooking with them for decades. The red one has pages of scribbling added by one of my children who took advantage of my attention being elsewhere to decorate my books with artwork. At the time, I was furious and now I cherish the scribbles. Isn't life funny that way?

That little digression is apropos of nothing except that it was part of my journey that brought me to writing my current cookbook. Right now I am working on a chapter of Greek foods because of a woman I sat next to on an airplane recently. She and I talked the entire flight about food. Actually, she talked and I listened to her describe the wonderful food she had learned to cook before arriving in America. Her children, now grown, were all born in the US, but their favorite foods are the traditional Greek foods she still cooks for them. Lucky them! She cooks and delivers food to their houses!

People say Mediterranean foods are so healthy. I say they are if the food is prepared and eaten the way it was a couple of generations ago. The woman on the plane told me about all of the wonderful vegetable dishes she cooks and that her family loves. Those are the recipes that I am working on now.

Even in the red notebook there is a recipe for Beefburgers Greek Style. I have no idea where I discovered it, but I remember cooking Greek-style burgers for the five of us at home when I was a teenager. My father, I am sure, would have much preferred a plain American hamburger, but he never once complained about my kitchen experiments.

As my cooking skills improved, I added moussaka and spanakopita to my repertoire with the help of a cookbook I received as a gift when the book was first published. My cookbook collection grew and by the time I was ready to move to Florida, I could only bring half of my cookbooks. One I needed now and no longer have was Greek Cooking For the Gods, by Eva Zane. I looked on Amazon, thinking it would probably be about $1 by now, but no, it now sells for $46.99 to $139.95. 

And that brings me to what I really started out to say today, aren't public libraries the best? My local library obtained a copy for me, which I just brought home. And that is what sent me down memory lane, posting this message when I should be reading the recipe for Lopia Plaki or Lima Beans Plaka Style.