Leggy Peggy

about me

Originally from Nebraska, I have mostly lived outside the USA since 1976. I've been lucky enough to live in the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia (which is the place I call home). It's been fun to learn about and cook foods from all over the world.

My Australian husband and I have two daughters (aged 25 and 23) and more than a dozen exchange students who have become family.

We love hosting students. Obviously, they don't all live with us now, but they are in and out of the house all the time. They all come back for visits—some for a week and some for six months. There is a lot of overlapping. We've hosted Belgians, French, Germans, Japanese, Sri Lankans and Brazilians. It's been great for recipes and general diversity.

Right now—April 2007—we have six people at home, including two exchange students (Lia from Germany and François from, you guessed it, France). It's awesome to have extra 'hands' in the kitchen. François and Lia have been taking photos of some of my recipes and the recipes we've been making for Pick a Chef in Apirl 2007. You'll find his work as Maki Catta and hers as Salsa Girl.

One of our six is a 96-year-old aunt who lives with us. She's the fussiest eater of all, so if she likes a dish, it must be a winner. She thinks soup is a beverage, and not as worthy a one as wine or a good stiff brandy.

I usually only make recipes that I think (based on the ingredients) will earn four or five stars. A rating lower than four stars means the ingredients and/or reviews fooled me, and I chose to make a recipe that really didn't suit our tastes as written. I give five stars to recipes that satisfy every taster without any changes. I also give five stars to recipes that I only make equivalent changes to, so I can accommodate more mouths to feed or replace ingredients we don't have in Australia. I give four stars to recipes that we loved, but that needed an important tweak to keep everybody happy.

In addition to the wealth of wonderful recipes at Recipezaar, I value the amazing sense of community. What a supportive and helpful group you are!

Favorite Foods:

My mother was a home economist (Purdue University) and let us kids have one food we wouldn't eat. I never chose one.

That said, when I lived in the Middle East, I learned it was sometimes best NOT to ask what I was eating—too much information. The beef spinal cord in Syria was excellent, but I really didn't need to know.

I was lucky growing up. Dad was the pilot for the Army Corps of Engineers and travelled all over the USA. In the 1950s, when no one in Nebraska had heard of shrimp, he would bring home a bucket of them from New Orleans. I remember the time we 'voted' that the meal was chicken. After we finished eating, he confessed that it was frogs' legs. Obviously, I should have learned the too-much-information lesson when I was 12 years old.

Also, I'm not big on sweets—give me savoury any day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canberra