Twenty years in the making!

Here begins a culinary Odyssey -- a summary of twenty years of cooking for my girlfriend Melissa (aka "Jo-Jo", "Mama", "Saucey", "Mamacita" or "'Lissa").

The scoop:

• Melissa is from Midland, Ontario, Canada and I'm from London, England. We met (as passing ships in the night) whilst working as counsellors at a YMCA camp outside Victoria, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, way back in 1990.
• I was born into a family of cooks (though am not a cook myself) and Melissa comes from a family of simple eating tastes. When we first met Melissa was strictly a "meat and potatoes" kind of chick...nothing fancy. Whilst her palate has grown to include all sorts of new ingredients, there are still certain things I can't persuade her (or our three naughty children Ruaidhri 13, Rex 10 and Harriet 7) to eat: offal (boo hoo!), mushrooms (ahhh!) or squid.
• It is extremely hard to make Melissa gush about food.
• I have a variety of cooking obsessions, the most notable being: I can't stop buying cookbooks and I can't ever cook the same recipe twice (once in a while I will...more on that later). I have a warped conviction that one day (before I croak) I'll cook every recipe in every cookbook I own. I know -- uber-warped.
• Another weirdness is that I write-up every recipe I cook. Included in the write ups is the date; what was going on in our lives on that day; an analysis of how successful the recipe was (with suggested alterations/changes); and (most importantly) what the response to the recipe was like. Over twenty years, I am guessing I have cooked over 4,000 recipes for Melissa -- from the sublimely divine to the gaggingly foul. Every day, at the start each meal preparation it is my fixation that this will be the recipe that achieves the illusive honour of "'Lissa loved it!" For me this is bigger than Michelin stars, bigger than celebrity chef endoresments, bigger than anything that Julia Childs or Escofier may have to say about anything. I live to hear that "'Lissa loved it!"...in our house this is entry into the Culinary Hall of Fame.
• So, to my blog. I have been promising to collate all the recipes that have achieved the heady accolade of "'Lissa loved it!" for over a decade. Now (and for the first time) the first publication of all the recipes that Melissa Belfry absolutely adores. I intend to post two recipes a day. With each recipe comes the date it was cooked (not in the very early days, sorry), the name/author of the cookbook the recipe comes from and my write up.
• Remember the only thing that connects these recipes is that "'Lissa loved it!"
• I'd love to hear your thoughts on the recipes I post -- whether good, bad or ugly. Also, if you think you have a recipe that 'Lissa may love, please post and I promise I'll test it for you and write you a review. But be warned..."'Lissa loved it!" DOES NOT COME EASILY...believe me.