FOR THE LOVE COOKBOOK

I'm so excited to launch FOR THE LOVE Cookbook!  Good things can come out of quarantine, right! 
I never planned to write a cookbook, but then again, I never planned to be quarantined for 3 months! Still, you gotta make lemonade, so I did. 
As covid hit our town, we did our best to stay positive and entertained.  We played games, painted with Bob Ross, completed jigsaw puzzles and caught up on books and movies.  After a couple of weeks of cooking, I became bored.  How many groundhog days can one person experience?  It was at that point I decided that we would not be repeating a meal throughout quarantine – every meal would be a new experience.  
Had I known it would last for nearly 3 months, perhaps I would not have been so adamant.  But, as we searched and created new meals, we experienced such variety of flavors!

This book is a collection of some of those dishes.  In addition to recipes for appetizers, sides and desserts, I selected exactly 40 of our favorite main meals.

Why 40? Well, in the 14th century, Europe was fighting the plague.  Countries recognized that diseases were being brought into their country through the many ships that arrived at port.  Italy, specifically, decided that ships had to remain off shore for a period of time to protect the port cities from disease.  Likely, because 40 is so significant in the bible, Noah and the ark, and Jesus in the desert, they determined that 40 days would be the perfect amount of time.  Any guesses what 40 is in Italian?


Quaranta!
So the off shore period became known as Quarantine.
And so I created and selected 40 main dishes to be included in this cookbook.  
OK maybe I also needed a good reason to stop finding new meals every night.  That's what we call a win-win!