About this Blog
Hello. My name is Jeremiah Benge and I write the blog Julio’s Delicatessen. I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana and have also lived in Raleigh, North Carolina and the San Francisco Bay Area. This blog is a collection of recipes I like and photos I have taken. Thanks for stopping by.
There are two reasons I decided to start this blog. The first has to do with my three kids. All three of them have shown a real interest in cooking specifically and food in general. (When she was six years old, my oldest daughter asked me if the chives I added to a dish were for color or flavor.) I wanted a way to keep track of the things we cook and eat together as a family that would be easy for the kids to access at some point in the future. The other reason has to do with the way that I cook. Unlike my mother, who can have every dish she’s cooking ready at a precise, predetermined minute, I have to plan everything in advance. Carefully. And in writing. If you’re at my house and I’m preparing dinner, there’s a great chance I have a 3 x 5 card or a folded piece of paper in my pocket indicating when each step has to occur in order for me to serve dinner at the appointed hour. As a result, I think of recipes as a timeline and choose to write them accordingly. This blog has recipes formatted in that manner.
About the name Julio’s Delicatessen
The word delicatessen – like the word delicacy – originally referred to “fine foods.” Over time, it has come to mean “ready-to-eat foods.” This blog is all about food, most of which probably falls somewhere between “fine” and “ready-to-eat.” Of significantly more interest (to me, anyway) – Julio’s Delicatessen was the name of a restaurant that my grandpa Julio and his brothers owned in Indianapolis in the 60’s and 70’s. (Several years ago, my grandpa gave me an old menu from the restaurant. Click here to see a scan.)
This is Grandpa Julio
This site has nothing to do with that restaurant (though if I ever happen to have access to a meat grinder and can get my grandpa’s Italian sausage recipe, it most certainly could…), but I liked the name and thought it was perfect for this site.
Recipe attribution
On this site, I always note whether a recipe was “adapted from” (meaning I’ve used my own words but essentially not otherwise changed an existing recipe) or “inspired by” (meaning I started from an existing recipe but made a number of changes to ingredients or process) some other source. I also include a link if that source is a cookbook. Do I really think I can cook better than Julia Child or Rick Bayless or Anthony Bourdain or Thomas Keller or David Chang? Of course not. If you’re reading this blog, there’s an excellent chance that you’re a better cook than I am. (Let’s face it, if you’re reading this blog, there’s a better than average chance that you’re my mother.) It isn’t my intent to present these recipes as improvements on the originals. In fact, most of the changes probably make them less tasty than the originals. That being said, the recipes are representations of what worked for me in my own kitchen and are formatted in the manner described above.
Contact
Please feel free to send me an e-mail at juliosdelicatessen (at) gmail (dot) com. I promise I’ll reply.
Julio's Delicatessen 
