TBK cooks and cooks and cooks- making his 2023 online Recipe book

 

                    The cover of Neil's second recipe book in 2014

I really do not know what got into my head when I suggested to Chester (the Hooman) back in September 2022 that we should create another recipe book. The problem is they get more high tec and challenging each time. The first one was handwritten in 1976, then we typed one and had 50 copies printed in 2014. By 2018 we had gone online but just with 12 recipes from 12 countries.

The added complexity in 2018 was I dressed in the costume of each country and Corleen designed and made 12 Chef's uniforms for me. Another OFW, James, took the photos and Chester designed the pages and created the eBook.

If you missed it, then click the link below:

Travelling the world through food, one recipe at a time.

We did 3 dishes a weekend for 4 weekends!

I should have realised that to create a 72-recipe online recipe book from 36 countries, using guest Chef's from around the world was going to be a lot harder! However, I love cooking and I have been trying to broaden the horizons of my Pinoy friends. They all love Jollibee and eat fish and rice and have never had Lamb or strawberries! I have retired- so what else do I have to do?!

First task then was to find some new recipes and answer a question from Mark Johns (funny how he is behind each recipe book!):

"What are you going to do with all those scrapbooks when you retire?"

For those who did not hear of a scrapbook it's a big (A3) book into which you stick newspaper cuttings, tickets, recipe cards and mementoes of your life. In my 12 years in Bahrain, I filled over 200 and 5 of them were just with recipes.

This one was from 2015 for example- now look inside...

So, I went through all of these to find new dishes I had not made before from different countries. I also wrote to all my Chef friends and people who like cooking to see if they would like to contribute a recipe each. I was overwhelmed with the response- Chef Arnel sent two, Mama Jam 3, Chef Poochie one, Chester's mum 2, and Bazz, from Macedonia one! (He was my fitness trainer in Dubai while I was waiting to move to the Philippines). Chester designed a template, so they all looked the same- like this:

My first guest Chef was Poochie who taught Jhoanna and I how to cook Pinoy cuisine in 2020

With the recipes we found there was insufficient room for all of the ingredients and the procedure:

So, I suggested to Chester that we removed my picture (I know, most unusual of me!) and the TBK cooks logo to make more room for the actual recipe and this is what Chester came up with:

We are still having problems with the photos as the template squashes them, so Chester is having to upload them separately. He also copied all the recipes we had created on the old template to the new one and we added a line to say which Chef prepared the dish. On some there was now too much space on the method or procedure, so Chester added back the TBK Logo and my picture individually where there was space. 

Our schedule as at 12.11.22- red shows the recipe is complete, or the Chef confirmed

My plan was to complete January to March before Christmas to give Chester time to get the online recipes ready to upload-the first 6 will go live on 15.1.23. In the end as several recipes came in that were more suited to the end of the year (Pumpkin Pie and Mince pies for example) whereas some recipes did not work out first time around, or we could not find the ingredients. We have about 21 recipes complete so far and I will continue the process in December. This week I am being cooked for at Victoria Beach house and next week I have ordered food from Poochies kitchen (fish and chips, Ossobuco, Greek style chicken kebabs, Chicken pies and Beef and ale pies!) 

It has been great fun rediscovering od British classics like bread-and-butter pudding and using my Turkish Jams as the filling:

My thanks to Keith Gardiner, who I worked with in Bahrain, and who has now retired to Turkey for translating the Jam labels for me!

Two of our local Deli's in Palawan (Deli Mart and Puerto Deli sell Turkish Jam!)

So here comes the Turkish lesson:

"Reçel is jam and çilek is strawberry so çilek reçeli is...... strawberry jam.  The "i" on the end is a requirement of Turkish grammar when two nouns go together, a bit like a possessive.

kitap kapağı - book cover

çamaşır deterjanı - washing powder

and

Neil'in köpeği - Neil's dog.  Dog = köpek but if "k" is followed by "i" then "k" becomes "ğ".  Fun."

Thanks Keith! Maybe you or Rehana could be a guest Chef with a Turkish starter or dessert?!

Well, that's all for now, if you want to see the final recipes read the blog or check our Facebook page on the 15th of each month from January 15, 2023. If you want to contribute a recipe as guest chef, or for me to make a specific dish for you email me at the address below- many thanks

Neil