Food memories matter. You know they do. For me? Scent triggers. Coming around a corner in Pilsen, the roasty-moist smell of fresh made corn tortillas wafts, and just like that, I am 11 again, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, shutter-rapid images popping and flying open in my mind’s eye, bright fuschia and green and red and exciting.
For you the food memory trigger might be sight, or taste, or sound, or some sensual mixture of all of it. The point is, we all have recipes we’ve loved and lost. How serendipitous to rediscover them. Coming around this Lost Recipes corner, I hope you do.
I’m Monica Kass Rogers, writer, photographer, home cook, appreciator of delicious tastes and quirky stories. I’m a mom. I dabble in design and printmaking. And before it was a blog, I started Lost Recipes Found as a column for the Chicago Tribune, one of many publications I’ve written for over the last 20 plus years.
I’m lucky. Writing has given me the privilege to learn about food from the chefs and restaurateurs who have made careers of this challenging work. In every instance, history, family and culture contributed to the dishes these professionals love most, giving each a lovely narrative– the story to the taste.
You’ll find those stories, recipes, visuals, and hopefully, some connection to the food memories that matter to you, here. Some of the recipes are my own. Some are adapted from vintage cookbooks. Others are chef creations based on vintage recipes they love. Before publishing to the site, I test, prepare and photograph each dish–using natural light. I do a little research for the copy, and put the results together for you here. I’ve got dozens of recipes, photos and stories ready to go and will be posting them as I can each week. So nice to meet you.
E-mail me anytime at monicarogers@hotmail.com