Preface

Some of the recipes in this book have appeared, in slightly different form, in Cooking, Gourmet, The International Review of Food and Wine, and Woman’s Day.

As food writers, cooks, and longtime experimenters with food, we have become increasingly intrigued with the idea of making at home the products that seem to have been born right on the market shelves, already prepared and prepackaged. What other kind of busybodies would examine in such detail the alternatives to store-bought bean curd, zwieback, breakfast sausage, or green-peppercorn mustard? Our culinary curiosity has resulted in this bookful—with who knows what more to come?