"We're OK if the only reason you come to our site is for the food! " From the desk of Beth and Dale Cook: Greetings Friend, Everyone likes good food. But not everyone feels that they can cook. But that can be changed. In fact, it just takes a bit of practice and the right recipes to learn to make tasty dishes over and over again. Let us break it down for you with one question. Do you like to cook? If your answer is yes... if you want to learn to prepare a delicious entree for your friends, family, or more importantly, yourself... then we have news for you. You can make delicious food! Just by cooking like your family did when a home- cooked meal was the norm rather than the exception! We are going to tell you everything you need to know to make these dream recipes from yesteryear. And you can find it all inside our deligently created Cook Family Recipe books. Not everyone in life has the opportunity to do the things they love. If you enjoy cooking, you should pursue the recipes that will make everyone in the family stand up and take notice of your hard work. People who make a conscious decision to do the things they love - often achieve happiness in their lives. The best thing about being the cook... ...is that you get to eat the delicious food you cook! That's the way life should be. And is for the select few who that make the decision to move forward with their dreams and goals for their family. If you're about to make the decision to change your life for the better, I applaud you. As the cost of living continues to rise, I feel more people are going to come back to cooking at home and learning the cooking arts so that their families are eating more healthy. I guarantee that our Cook Family Recipe Books will be worth your money. While researching through our families recipes, some of which date into the 1800's, me and my wife, Beth, have discovered that today we are indeed blessed by the standardization of measures that have come about in our current day and age. In creating these recipe books we have been converting old, no longer used or vague measurements such as "a lump of butter" or "a dash or pinch of salt" into meaningful approximate measures when we come across them in our old family recipes. While it has often been said, just as the author Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln states in "Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book: What to Do and What Not to Do in Cooking", written in 1884, "On measuring, it is said that good cooks do not measure anything. They do. They measure by judgement and experience; until you have a large share of these essential qualities, use your spoon and cup or scales.... Correct measurements are absolutely necessary to ensure the best results. Good judgement, with experience, has taught some to measure by sight; but the majority need definite guidelines." We have found that the family dessert recipes more consistently have accurate measurements because they were used less frequently, the accuracy of measurements are more critical in those recipes, and less of the recipe and cooking instructions was committed to the memory of the cook. But on the more commonly used, everyday entrees and side dishes the cooks, even including today's good cooks or chefs that cook quite frequently, such as my wife Beth, the recipes tended to not be written down and the measurements of spices and minor ingredients are measured by eye and now must be carefully recreated to record the accurate measurements of all the ingredients. As Beth says, these family recipes did not always tell the exact measurements for the ingredients because they were more of a method than an exact measure for the cooks involved. Because of this issue on the entree and side dish recipes, we are writing the dessert cookbooks first; as it is going to require many hours of reading and deciphering the family main dish, side dish, and casserole recipes. Besides, I've always been fond of the expression, "Life is uncertain, eat dessert first!". Thanks for reading, Beth and Dale Cook P.S. Stay tuned and bookmark this page. We are working hard to organize our families recipes, some dating back several generations, like some from two of my great-great grand aunts and others from several of my great grandparents. We have enough recipes to make several recipe books and are planning on at least two dessert-only books (one for simple desserts that won't cause problems for those with less experience), at least two volumes of all-inclusive recipe books, a beginner recipe book, a holiday recipe book and several others. We will soon have an opt-in form where you can signup for a newsletter to keep you informed of our progress on both the site and each recipe book. In the meantime, I have added links to my sister's HCG diet guide and her friend's HCG Diet Recipe Book. As the Cook Family site grows there will be sections and whole domains dedicated to health, family, fun, budgeting, vacations, music, and reading to name a few. Napster has over 6 Million Songs and you have 7 FREE days to try them out!