In 2002, I made a decision to send my friends and family something different for the holidays. I'd sent homemade treats before, and was looking through some recipe books, when a thought struck me. I've always hated how whatever you cook from a recipe book never looks like the pictures they show of the finished dish. So I thought .. why not make a recipe book of my own? With real photos. I had just purchased my first SLR film camera, and I thought, what better way to learn to use it? After all, necessity is the mother of all invention. So that's what this page is ... the entire recipe book as I sent it to friends and family in December of 2002. I hope you enjoy some of the recipes. I tried to cover everything from appetizers to desserts ... there's even a recipe for the dog of the house! Everything was cooked by me, photographed by me, and the pages laid out and put into a book by me. I'm pretty sure I gained about 5 lbs. in the process, but in the end it was worth it.

Please click on the thumbnails to open the full pages, which will open in a new window.