The Unconfidential Cook

Emma and Guthrie, a 160-pound, three-year-old Leonberger, who lives to eat.

Catherine

Bruce

When Bruce and I got married in our early forties (both for the first time), we’d both pretty much been there/done that. Bruce is an art dealer, and had traveled and dated for decades. I am a magazine editor (worked at Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar,  Marie Claire, Mademoiselle, and eventually became the Editor-in-Chief of Elle)—and my life was a lot like Carrie Bradshaw’s, with less sex and more skiing. I still work full-time, making magazines, newsletters, web sites, and annual reports, for consumer-product companies, but from home, in my pajamas. Two of my favorite things about living in Los Angeles are: 1) never having to wear pantyhose, ever and 2) never ruining your Manolos because there’s no rain and no walking—you actually have to be careful not to slip on carpeting in a new pair since their soles never even get scored!

As soon as Emma arrived, neither of us wanted to leave her for a second (who knew?), so we started having our friends over instead of going out—Sunday brunches, dinners, client cocktails, champagne-and-chocolate dessert parties, girls’ lunches, holiday meals, and kids’ birthdays and sleepovers.  I was thrilled to have a great kitchen and someone to help with clean-up —you don’t want to know how it feels to look over a sea of glasses and dirty plates in your small New York City apartment, alone, at midnight when you have to go to work the next morning.

You can learn a few more things about us—10 to be exact—in the post about accepting The Honest Scrap Award.

The recipes on this site have all been part of the partying, and have been “filtered” by our family and friends. They come from a variety of sources, though you’ll soon see who our favorite cooks are, and it won’t be long before you figure out that I really only make chocolate desserts (the richer, the better). When someone requests a recipe, I consider the occasion a success. Once I started sending friends my recipes they’d usually, but not always, reciprocate with theirs. I divide cooks into two categories–recipe hoarders or recipe sharers.  Eventually, from the latter, I started getting email trails where friends had been exchanging recipes with their friends. Which is what I hope you’ll do here: Please comment on anything you make from my repertoire, and send your favorite recipes, too. Your recipes will mingle with mine, pretty much just as you sent them (not formatted like mine), and will be marked in the title, RR*…*Reader Recipe. I am the editor (some things never change), and I filter recipes so the site conveys my sensibility about food, but what makes this site different, and I hope special, is that it is OUR site, yours as well as mine. These are not just my recipes that I find or create; yours are equally important. This is your community, our community. Welcome!