DadsRecipeBox started out as a way to save our favorite family recipes and pass along a few home cooking tips and a little philosophy to our teenage kids. They’re all grown now and haven’t necessarily embraced cooking like the old man did, but they still like to eat well! Our youngest married a guy who’s a great cook, so she’s finessing the whole deal. Clever girl. Takes right after her Dad.

These days, I mostly care about eating healthy. There seem to be two or three camps around food and eating.

• The “I like what I like.” camp. These folks, seemingly the majority of Americans over a certain age eat the same favorites they learned to like when they were kids and young adults. The older they/we get the more we feel entitled to eat what we like and as much as we can handle.
• The “foodie” camp. Quality and not quantity is most important. Knowing where to find fine food (Parmesano Reggiano only, please), how it got there, and how to make it at home is how they spend their food time. Farm-to-table restaurants, cooking classes, and Alice Waters.
• The “Keto” camp. Here I am lumping together everyone that emphasizes weight-loss and nutrition over both quality and quantity. We know Keto absolutely works. But it leaves so much “on the table.”

I’ve been a camper in all of these so far. I gradually became a better cook over a couple of decades since the days when I fired up the barbie a few times a year and thought I was a big deal. Now, after years of trial and success—and error—I love to pass along recipes I’ve borrowed and developed and also what I’ve learned about healthy eating and cooking at home. And I’ve loved learning about the food system, the new agriculture, and how we can overcome food deserts in our cities.

I read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma back when it first came out, and this book profoundly changed my thinking about how we get our food—the so-called food system. I believe there is no excuse for people starving given the world’s abundance, but I have become aware that the way we do food production, distribution, and marketing contributes to malnutrition and starvation all around the planet—from American cities to remote villages, and refugee camps. Working to make food system players better stewards is our cause here at DRB.

So, we care about healthy eating, the food economy, and the body-and-soul-nourishing benefits of cooking at home. We hope you find DRB a good place to find a new take on an old recipe, share a food story, learn a new technique, or get clued up on the big changes happening in the food system and how you can help drive change.

Good cookin’,
Dad