By Michelle Anastasia

Welcome to The Plated Page!

Here you’ll find three of my favorites- books, food, and history. I hope you find it enjoyable and come back often! You can also follow The Plated Page on Instagram to see what’s new, and please click on the recipe index to go to a list of entries.

Books are magic. A good book takes you somewhere else and helps you to feel better when you really need it. Some authors can put ordinary words together and come up with the most extraordinary pictures, and certain books I’ll come back to again and again, just to escape into the world it creates for me. I love to read and think it’s one of the most important things you can do.

I also love food- eating, cooking, reading about it, growing it. Getting a recipe to come out just right works almost the same way as reading a good book: both make something come to life, and help me to feel better. I spend a lot of time as the first person up in the very early morning, either reading or cooking. It’s a magical alchemy of words or ingredients, and both can surprise! I like to start my day that way.

For a long time I've made note of passages in my books that mention a meal, or a recipe, and thought to myself, "I'd like to try that" or, “what is that?” After a while, I had sticky notes marking food passages in so many books, I thought that I’d better just get started.

So here it is. I'm going to try some of those things, and you can try too. Some are very easy, and you can probably do them without my help. Just think of those pages as inspiration. Some are a lot harder, and I have had to tinker with the recipe a few times to get it right. (The Leopard’s timpano…still working on that one to get it the way I want it.)

I also have an interest in history, so I’ve included some historical recipes here as well, when I can find them to offer.

One thing that I’ve noticed as I’ve been writing these pages- I’m not very good at the “confessional” style that’s found on a lot of blogs. I originally began each entry explaining about how I started the day, and what made me choose a particular recipe. I felt a little bit weird; it just wasn’t feeling true. So, I cut it down to the basics. I’m going to give you some background on the books, and some thoughts about the food, and just whatever else interested me on that day. But I’m not going to give you a whole bunch of insight on the inner workings of my mind. I think we all have too much going on to listen to my philosophizing. And I’m going to try to keep the recipes as simple as possible for you, depending on what I’m doing.

At some point I’ll also be doing little sidebars on kitchens. Kitchens described in books so well that the whole cozy idea jumps out of the page, and makes you run to your own and start checking the pantry.

Good luck in your kitchen. I hope these pages inspire you to try something new, whether it’s something from here, or from a book on your own shelf.

—Michelle