Mystery Kitchen Cookbook Book

Recipes are simplified, so this is a great book for beginner cooks. Advanced cooks will be amused at how unusual ingredients were used to make really interesting dishes. The secret ingredient not only improves the recipe, but also makes it exceptionally good. All recipes have been tested and critiqued by five accomplished cooks.

Have fun giving, "Mystery Dinner Parties". You'll be an instant success as a hostess while keeping everyone guessing.

Make family meals interesting by seeing who can guess the secret ingredient. Your kids may even want to eat vegetables!

I am the eldest of six children and my mother was a home missionary for several years. At a young age, I ended up doing a lot of the cooking. Sometimes my father would prepare a meal. My favorite was his clam chowder. We were told the reason the chowder was so good was because it had a secret ingredient in it. He never would tell us what the secret was and we never guessed it.

In his old age, my dad became very ill and ended up in the hospital. We were told he was terminal and in a coma. Family members took turns sitting with him so he wouldn't be alone.

As a retired nurse, I assumed comatose patients might be hearing us even though they don't respond. While sitting by my father, I talked about my family, about news stories, about memories and anything else I could think of. One night I guess I was running out of things to say so I said, "Dad, this might be the last time to tell me the secret ingredient in your clam chowder."

Much to my surprise, he stirred and in a weak, raspy voice he said the last word he ever spoke, "baaaaaacon."

As I grew up having to cook, I found out as an adult that I loved to cook. It was a way I could be creative. I especially enjoyed experimenting and sometimes the dishes were really good and sometimes a complete disaster. It was fun to turn a disaster into something special. I never made my children eat everything I cooked. I just asked that they try one bite. Sometimes they liked the dish even if they didn't think they would.

My cookbook is fun to read and I made it more interesting by writing a couple of paragraphs about each recipe. After writing these for 90 recipes, I got a pinched nerve in my thumb. This, I felt it was a good excuse not to write so much. So, I distributed the 90 recipes throughout the book. The rest of the recipes received a line or two.