How I Taught My Brother To Cook

Improvisational Tuscan-Provençal Cookery (and other good stuff to eat)

Welcome to our "improv" cooking network. We'll share ideas about simple Italian, Tuscan, Provençal, French and "American peasant" cuisines.

Recipes, recipes, recipes!

You want recipe ideas? Use the search function on this page that says "Search Social Network" at the upper right corner (for example searching for "chicken" turned up over 30 ideas). Or just click here for hundreds of photos and ideas for creative dishes we've created. Improvisational cooking is what we're about - so our photos give you a picture of what we made, and a few ideas of how we did it. The rest is up to you - that's improv! If you need a tutorial, buy our book.




Blog Posts

John Barrows

Good Food in Honolulu (?)

Posted by John Barrows on February 6, 2010 at 11:19am — 1 Comment

Cindy Fallsen

fresh fish

Posted by Cindy Fallsen on February 3, 2010 at 6:17pm — 2 Comments

John Barrows

Nothing Fishy About Fish

Posted by John Barrows on January 12, 2010 at 9:00am — 4 Comments

Patrick

The Julie/Julia Project

Posted by Patrick on January 4, 2010 at 10:31am — 1 Comment

John Barrows

"Injun" food

Posted by John Barrows on November 22, 2009 at 2:00pm — 1 Comment

John Barrows

Food, Inc.

Posted by John Barrows on November 18, 2009 at 7:28am — 1 Comment

Patrick

How To Watch A TV Cooking Show

Posted by Patrick on November 8, 2009 at 12:07pm — 7 Comments

John Barrows

What, me worry? (about what I eat)

Posted by John Barrows on November 1, 2009 at 2:29pm — 1 Comment

 

Recipe Of The Week: BACCALA AMB SAMFAINA

A Catalan dish from Barcelona. The food of this region, because of its Roman heritage, closely hues to that of Italy and Provence.

This Is The Home of the Famous "Pane di Napoleone"!

This is the home of "Pane di Napoleone" the new, refined version of the no-knead bread dough. Requires no fancy expensive cookware. An unbeatable basic recipe for classic Italian bread, pizza, and almost any other bread that requires a yeast bread dough. BREAKTHROUGH! Follow the above link to discover a recent breakthrough on achieving a great top crust.

French Rondele on homemade bread" WOW!
Check out the Pane di Napoleone Bread Collection from members

JOIN THE SITE - "How I Taught My Brother to Cook". It's all about improvising with food. Whatta ya' got ta lose? Break outa the pack!

Johnny Gets interviewed by the Oregonian Newspaper

Read the Story in The Oregonian
Take a look at our pizza world with creations from us AND members. Add your own too!
Visit the
PIZZA PAGE!

What's our damn book about?

Respect your food. Play with it too

How many recipes do you have on your kitchen shelf, if you add up all your cookbooks? Ten thousand? Probably more! You like to cook, but searching for a recipe that matches your mood and your pantry has become a chore. It’s time to leave rote instructions behind and unleash the confidence to improvise, and discover a style all your own.

Brothers Patrick and John Barrows want you to think more about your food, but not to stress over it. Taking cues from the peasant cuisines of the North of Italy and the South of France, their approach is fresh, simple and honest. Local in-season vegetables, the kind of meat that’s handed over the counter by an expert in an apron instead of shrink-wrapped, fresh eggs for hand-made pasta-- these home cooks show that the more you embrace a palette of basic high-quality ingredients, the more you and your family will enjoy what you’re putting in your mouths, and realize that convenience foods aren’t saving you time or money, and might be sapping your soul.

“How I Taught My Brother To Cook” is part family memoir, part cookbook and part raucous sibling rivalry. Most of all it’s a story of two men’s journey: to embrace their family roots in rural Italy and upstate New York, put good food on their family’s tables, and avoid the anxiety over diet fad and fashion that afflicts most Americans. Weaving a dialogue in recipes and techniques, the brothers take a “lowfalutin’” approach, though they rarely agree on whose approach is the more unpretentious. Bring your own opinion to the countertop conversation, and your memories of what your own grandparents and parents and favorite aunt fed you, and renew your joy in food.”

 
 

Buy our book now.


Visit "the Road Kill Cafe" - our virtual diner PLUS Visit Uncle Claude's Victory Garden

Latest Activity

I would use phyllo
8 hours ago
the way I like to cook ribs and wings is to marinade them, then seal them in foil in a single layer on a baking sheet and slow steam them in a slow oven (maybe 200F) for a few hours. Then unseal, grill, or broil, or just crank up the oven heat to br…
8 hours ago
Jeff L Baldwin is now a member of How I Taught My Brother To Cook
9 hours ago
Patrick added a photo
yesterday
I propose they are French spring roll wrappers as mentioned or, at least, one could make an adequate substitution.
on Sunday
A regular modern day Robinson Crusoe. If Robinson only had an iPhone and your knack for finding good places to eat his island stay would have been less painful. Glad you made it out safely after that touch and go harrowing island experience.
on Sunday
John Barrows added a blog post
My friend, Andy, who was good enough to take me to Honolulu on a little junket declared that "there was no good food" there. I was determined to find some. Searching my iPhone for little places with good reviews, I discovered many that were well off…
on Saturday
OK. Thanks!
on Friday
Its very thin leaves of dough made with wheat flour. A kind of phyllo dough !
on Friday
in America (at least) agri-business is run by the chemical companies. That's why anything that's farmed is loaded with crap that's not good for you. Sad. But there's no money to be made by big business in organic agriculture.
on Thursday
basically the same stuff - often called "farmer's cheese" also
on Thursday
what are brickleaves? I'd like to make these.
on Thursday
Cindy Fallsen is now a member of How I Taught My Brother To Cook
on Thursday
Nice appetizer. The wrappers appear to be spring roll wrappers or at least that is what I know them as. Johnny will have to get his Asian buddy to take a look at your creation.
February 3
Patrick added a photo
February 3
Laura added a photo
February 2
Patrick added a photo
January 27
A video by Hilary Conway was featured
07:18
Renew this old favorite in your life! Dylan shows you how fun and easy it can be.
January 26
I'll leave that to Dylan in his expert flipping method
January 26
Potatoes recipes ... hou ! yes what not ! its like french cheeses, lol, their is 300 recipes at least !
January 26

Badge

Loading…
 

© 2010   Created by John Barrows on Ning.   Create a Ning Network!

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Privacy  |  Terms of Service