Hilah Johnson - Learn To Cook: A Down and Dirty Guide to Cooking (For People Who Never Learned How)

This label has become very annoying to me, as ubiquitous as it is. Dont get me wrong, I believe organic farming is the way to go for the planet and for our bodies as well, but I will never, EVER list organic anything in any of my recipes. I think its obnoxious, in the same way that specifying good quality anything is obnoxious. Yes, I do buy organically grown (and local when I can) produce and meat when Im feeling rich. But I dont beat myself up over it when I cant afford it, and I dont think you should, either. Inform yourself and do your best, but dont go broke over it. That said, these are the Dirty Dozen, meaning the most worth it to buy organically: apples, celery, bell peppers, peaches, strawberries, nectarines, grapes, spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, blueberries, and potatoes.

You were supposed to draw what you (the short chef) looked like, but since my brother and I were sharing the book, the drawing (done by me, the elder) was a weird mish-mash of what my brother looked like and what I looked like, down to what we were wearing that day.

Anyway, I think I was about seven, and thats pretty much when I started cooking. From there on out, I loved reading cookbooks. Seriously. I mean, I already really liked reading and eating, so once I discovered cookbooks, I couldnt get enough.

As I got older, I got more interested in the chemistry of cooking, toonot just how to make brownies, which were my specialty for many years.

Also, my parents cooked. Nothing fancy or elaborate, but we definitely werent eating out all the time. My dads specialties were chili, chicken fried steak, and cream gravy. My moms specialty was using cookies to distract my brother and me from being annoying. She would put butter and sugar in a big bowl and tell us to go outside with it and sit in the sun until the butter was soft. Usually we would end up eating about half of the delicious butter-sugar mess before we went back inside.

My interest in nutrition specifically started when I was in high school and one day, like many alternative kids, decided that I was going to be A Vegetarian. Fortunately, I had hippie parents who were familiar with this alternative choice, and my mom gave me a book to readDiet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe, which is a great book that I recommend to anyone who is considering adopting a dead-animal-free diet. Its original premise was the theory of protein complementing (combining foods to create a full complement of amino acids and thus a full protein). The practice has since been rebuffed as unnecessary by the American Dietetic Association and the author herself, but it still makes sense to me in an intuitive way and in a delicious meal way.

NEwayz, the vegetarianism lasted about eight years and included a short-lived stint with veganism, but the fascination with nutrition and vitamins and junk has stuck with me.

With all that in mind, this is still my cookbook, and these are all things I eat. For the most part they are fairly well-balanced and healthy recipes. What I mean by healthy is: I keep a loose leash on my calorie and fat intake and include lots of vegetables and fruit. Im not a nutritionist but Im no dumbass, either. You wont find anything in here that calls for a stick of butter (well, except cookies) or a pound of bacon. What you might find is half a stick of butter and half a pound of bacon. To me, thats reasonable ... sometimes.