Home Cookin' LLC

CHEF'S SECOND COOKBOOK FEATURES GEORGIA ARTISTS, PERSONALIZED MENUS UNION POINT, Ga. -- Personal Chef Doug Janousek has begun work on a new cookbook pairing food, wine and art in what should prove to be a unique coffee table/kitchen counter book. ?Home Cookin' Illustrated,? due out in time for the holidays this year, features 13 Georgia artists, the chef's recipes and pairings from a Lake Oconee-area "wine guy." Janousek is a personal chef in the Lake Oconee/Greene County, Georgia area, based in Union Point. He is also a local food columnist and cookbook editor/author/publisher. His first cookbook, which was published in 2006, was a group effort with several other personal chefs ("Twelve Seasons Under the Florida Sun"). Chefing is Janousek's second career -- he spent nearly 25 years as a working journalist writing and editing for small- and medium-sized newspapers all around the United States, as well as a stint in the Caribbean. He says this project is the perfect marriage of his two careers and his two passions -- writing and cooking. "What I've done is sit down with the artists and quiz them about their art, the food they eat and a little bit about their lives," Chef Janousek said. "Then I created a very personal menu for each artist and while I'm fine tuning the recipes and their stories, the artists are expressing their passions on canvas." Janousek said the artists aren't necessarily illustrating his recipes, but rather are painting each according to their muse to depict themes that evoke the menus and each artist's personality. The menus range from an Irish-theme dinner inspired by Celtic fiddler and artist, Lillie Morris of Augusta, Georgia, to an African inspired buffet inspired by Union Point artist and gallery owner, Anne Jenkins. In between there are country-style recipes and higher-end offerings, including an 11-course tasting menu concocted by the chef. "I think the recipes and menus offering a great variety of foods and flavors," Janousek said, "and that, coupled with the art makes for a useful and entertaining book." The art styles are also varied, including abstract painters, landscapists and folk artists. The recipes feature a myriad of ingredients including rabbit, lamb, venison, beef, seafood, pork and a large number of additional items, though nothing so exotic as to not be found by home cooks. Along the way, Janousek said that he's been fascinated by the stories the artists have to tell -- stories of starting to paint and to cook at a young age, stories of world travels, stories of finding outlets for their passions no matter what else they were doing -- working, raising a family. It turns out that another of the artists, Gail Vail (who also lives in the Lake area), grew up not far from where Janousek did in Nebraska. "Even before discovering that we had a great rapport," Janousek said. "Finding out that we were 'neighbors' just made this whole project even more interesting." "I've always said everyone has a story to tell," Janousek said. "This book allows the artists to express themselves in a different format and it allows me to write and cook in a lot of exciting new ways and to tell some pretty interesting tales."