Dear Food & Dining readers,

This past spring, we put out a call for recipe columnists. We were looking for a few Mainers who could both cook and write to help fill a gap while our longtime Green Plate Special columnist, Christine Burns Rudalevige, is on sabbatical with her husband. (She’ll continue to write for us once a month while she’s away.)

Almost 200 of you responded. We were stunned by that number and by the range of potential writers. People interested in the freelance gig were retirees and young parents, widows and newlyweds, Mainers going back generations as well as Mainers who came here as soon as they could – decades ago in some cases, just months ago in others. We heard from lawyers, teachers, accountants, nurses, hotelkeepers, L.L.Bean employees and many more.

We also heard from stinky cheese lovers and vegetable haters, from vegans, pescatarians, vegetarians, omnivores and gluten-free eaters, as well as Mainers who cook with an eye on calories and cholesterol. Other respondents wrote about learning to be a parent in the kitchen, their road to finding dishes that could be put together quickly and at the same time satisfy – and nourish – finicky children and hungry adults.

People who wrote to us traced their ancestry (or their childhoods) to spots around the world, including Korea, Japan, India, Lebanon, Italy and Canada – geographies that showed up in their kitchens. We got recipes for bibimbap, succotash, risotto, anadama bread, rhubarb crisp, bagels, Japanese turnip pickles and many more.

Through emails, we met Mainers who cook to remember grandparents, Mainers who cook to bring to mind fabulous vacations and Mainers who cook to mimic memorable restaurant dishes. We read responses from cooks and bakers, from recipe followers and improvisers. We received recipes for long project dishes, as well as for fast weeknight suppers, from community cookbooks and from popular online sources. One applicant, whose husband recently retired from a career in Alaska, told us about her “freezer full of Alaska moose which I enjoy cooking!”

Some of the respondents were professional cooks, others professional writers. We got long, eloquent notes and short, sweet ones. Most who wrote in were just avid home cooks, with more than a few passionate restaurantgoers, too, excited to tell us what they cook and how those dishes fit into their lives.

In the end, the responses we got were simply too good to set aside. And after imagining so many delicious meals at so many tables all over the state, we wanted to share the experience with you. So rather than narrow down our choice to three or four writers on repeat, as we’d originally planned, we hope to convey the big, varied, glorious array of Maine cooks today, and by extension, the big, varied, glorious state that Maine has become. Each week, starting today, look for a new dish and a new recipe from your neighbors in Maine.

If you sent in a recipe and column we’d like to use, we’ll be in touch. If you’d still like to contribute, send your recipe and a story telling us how you came to cook it, who you cook it for and why it’s found a place in your life to pgrodinsky@pressherald.com. Also, please tell us a little bit about your life as a home cook, include a photo of the dish, and let us know if the recipe came from a cookbook or internet source – credit where credit is due.

Welcome to Home Plates.

Peggy Grodinsky, food editor

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