Lois & Don Crawford
We love to cook. In fact, we love the whole experience from shopping for the best ingredients to gathering around the table with friends and family, savoring the meal.
Cooking is a great hobby! It’s not like when Don was into making model airplanes. You don’t have to find room for the latest creation when you are done. With cooking, all you do is prepare, enjoy and clean up. Except for enjoying the leftovers later, there isn’t much to put away after your meal.
As Baby Boomers, we’ve been cooking for many years. And over that time, we have accumulated many recipes. But do you think we can find them when we want them? Usually the conversation starts with, “Do you remember that black-bean and squash with corn and cilantro recipe? What was it called? Where is the recipe?”
If you are anything like us, your recipe filing system is a jumble of note cards, pages in a journal, clippings stuck here and there, typed recipes in a notebook and lots of cookbooks with notations like “excellent” or “use more garlic next time.” We’ve been frustrated with this (lack of a) system for many years.
We knew there had to be a better way! We thought technology could help us. So we decided to create an online, searchable database to store our recipes. But as we talked with family, we found they wanted access to the recipes they enjoyed while growing up, too. And our culinary friends thought an accessible database was a terrific idea. So Recipe Idea Shop, where delicious ideas start! was born to store our recipes for all to see.
We believe that recipes are, for the most part, guidelines, not strict formulas to be followed exactly. There are certain rules of proportions necessary to create masterpiece food but other than these few rules, cooking should be a continual experiment of taste, appearance and texture. You’ll see many of the recipes we share have stories about how the ingredients shown were chosen or a personal memory about the food. We encourage you to comment with your own variations for the recipes as well. Whether you are just learning to cook or have been at it for many years, our hope is you will find Recipe Idea Shop a place where you can find your favorite recipes and get answers to all your cooking questions. We encourage you to experiment, have fun and enjoy the pleasure of good food, attractively presented, shared with others.
Bon appétit!
Lois and Don