About Recipe for Fatherhood

I vividly remember the months leading up to Hannah's birth. My wife and I did everything we were supposed to. We took prenatal classes, read all the books and got lots of advice from friends. There wasn't much support, however, for fathers-to-be in the kitchen. If you are like me, you've found that once the baby comes you have only a limited window of opportunity to enjoy dinner with your wife or partner. These recipes are designed with the French culinary term mise en place in mind. This means "have everything in place" by preparing all your ingredients so they are ready to go at a moment's notice. When it comes to cooking while caring for a newborn, this is an important concept. Most of these recipes require three 10 minute time periods to prepare, cook and serve.

Many of these recipes are mine but there are some that have been in my family for many years and have a rich history. As an Army wife, for instance, my mother often had to "make do" under unusual living conditions. The Fiesta Tamale Casserole was invented in 1965 when, while living in Okinawa, she went to the Commissary one day to find the shelves bare because a typhoon had kept the regular shipments from coming into port on time. Using whatever she could find, desperation turned to inspiration and we now have a recipe that's been in the family for 40 plus years.

I've also drawn upon my grandmother's World War II-era recipes for housewives trying to manage meals under restrictive nation-wide rationing and my great-grandmother's Depression-era hints that save just as much time and money in the kitchen now as they did in the 1920s.

I hope you enjoy these simple, easy to make recipes that I have developed. If you have any feedback, write me at nelshenderson@mac.com

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If you are a publisher interested in helping me publish a Recipe for Fatherhood
cookbook, please contact me.