20 Jun Cooking For The Family – My Cookbook
Love of good food is international. Everyone has their favorite foods, but it’s deeper than that. It’s not just the taste of certain foods we love, it’s how it has the ability to transport us back to a place we love.
Food is comfort, food is sharing, food can bring us our past on a plate. That’s why I put this cookbook together. Even the humblest of dishes are gourmet meals when prepared and shared with family.
My Influences
Like most everyone, my earliest memories of food appreciation came from my Grandmother. My Grandmother was an excellent cooks and being Italian, no one dared go hungry at her house.
Everything made from scratch and love, I still use her recipes today. So good were her meals, and in particular, my Grandmothers ravioli, I wanted to spread that love and share it with others. Which is my new cookbook, Cooking For The Family
This tradition of great meals was carried on with my mother in my own home growing up. She only used the freshest ingredients to make her meals, every single time.
These are the memories that carry us through and help us make great meals for our next generation of family. Using old family recipes and making them new and adding our own special touch to continue the tradition and also make it our own.
Nothing ever tastes the way your Mom or Grandmother used to make it, but we can sure have fun trying. The more you try, the better you become and the more your dishes taste like home.
An Early Education in Fine Foods
Perhaps my love and longing to know more about food started when I worked in our family’s grocery store in Long Island. I started working there when I was just a kid but I loved it.
Later, in my early 20s, I took that love of fine food and ran our grocery store in Boca Raton. Woolley’s Fine Foods was a store like no other. It was one-of-a-kind in Florida, that’s for sure.
Tops chefs from all the hotels and restaurants would come to our store to find the best, freshest ingredients for all their menu items. We carried all kinds of unique items you couldn’t find anywhere else.
But, they also came to cook. We supplied great fresh foods for people to buy and take home that was already prepared to perfection. Everything from a fresh salad to a full course meal.
That grocery store was considered the Number One Gourmet Grocery Store for 15 years. There was a catering section run by my mother and we somehow managed to prepare hundreds of meals a day.
The whole family ran the store and made it a success. People could call or fax in their grocery orders we would pick the order and delivery to there home and even help unpack the order into the customers cabinets.
Morada Cafe
My love of great food continued with my friend Chef Andrew Swersky. Our friendship continues today, all the way back from when it started with the Morada Cafe.
Morada Cafe started with a bang in the late 80s and proved to be a favorite for a long time. Chef Andrew is still a great friend and I feel honored that he will still come and cook for my family a number of times a year.
I never cease to learn something from him, and from all of the other influential people in my life. It is because of all these people that I wanted to put together a great cookbook.
Cooking For The Family
Sharing food and sharing recipes is what family is all about. There is nothing like getting together with family and friends to celebrate the holidays, a birthday, or just a back yard BBQ.
Cooking is more than just putting a meal together. It’s sharing time together, sharing old family recipes, making up new ones, and enjoying the time you have together.
Cooking shouldn’t be a chore or an obligation. Even whipping up something quick and simple should be done with love and caring. That’s why I wanted to put together this book and share it with you. The book is now available on Amazon, Kindle and scottwoolley.com.
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