A note from Jim:

Hi and welcome to Lydia's Kitchen; this program is a work of love and appreciation for my wife Lydia. My hobby (and some job functions) is programming and I spend a lot of time sitting at my computer; so much in fact that Lydia started referring to herself as a "computer widow". I've learned many a programming language over the years and Lydia has tolerated the lost family time as well as any man could expect. Her continuous support impressed me and made me ponder of a way to honor her with my skills. Then one day it hit me! Why not write a program that might be useful for her? This was the birth of Lydia's Kitchen. It provides me with a standard training aid while working with an unknown language. I only hope Lydia has enjoyed the benefit as much as I have. Just the title alone always brings her closer to me as I sit at the keyboard.

Lydia is a marvelous cook, a chef really, and everyone loves her Mexican cuisine. Family and friends regularly ask her for the old family recipes. So I thought why not combined the family history and the recipes together and pass them on to the extended family. The recipes themselves are fairly traditional, but the tender hands of a devoted wife and mother always added that pinch of love which turned each meal into a feast.

Version one of Lydia's Kitchen was born on my second computer, a Commodore 64, and was written in basic. This was about the time Windows 1.0 was hitting the market. I actually purchased a class library to extend the basic language to give me many of the Windows features. Version two was written in Pascal, Version three in C++, Version four in Visual Basic and Version five was moved to the internet as I learned to use PERL. You may not believe this but I actually adapted Lydia's Kitchen to run in Karel (a robotic programming language).

The current version is written with HTML and PHP linked back to a MYSQL database. Since I’m opening the program to the public for use I added a new feature; CLUBS. There is a public area (often I will refer to this as a club too) where everyone can view and print recipes. If you will register with me (FREE) then I’ll allow you to submit your recipes to share with others. The club feature just allows users with a common interest to filter recipes and also offered me a new challenge while writing my new code.

The program is a fundamental recipe book, not many bells and whistles, but the one feature that I want you to use is the ability to add anecdotal history of how the recipe became so significant in your life. It’s your chance to honor your Wife, Mom, or a dear friend. It is our hope (Jim & Lydia) that it lets other’s gather round the table to enjoy the dish and share the love.

With all my love for Lydia,
Jim