We met as colleagues in the kitchen, testing recipes for our column in The Boston Globe Magazine, deciding what our readers would like, what would be easy, and what would give them the most dish for the least time spent cooking.

Anyone who has ever worked alongside a mother or aunt or dear friend knows that there’s so much more to cooking than the food. Yes, the dishes you’re making matter a great deal. But if you’ve got something on your mind, often you can’t cook until you get it off your chest.

And so, over Yankee Pot Roast and Smoky Corn Chowder and Rosemary Biscuits, we tried to solve the problems of the world (these days, that’s a tall order), to respond to a frantic phone call from one of our children – we have four boys and a daughter between us – and trade details of our social lives. And in the process, we became good friends.

We cook differently and yet there are many things we do the same way. Both of us are bakers, mostly making the kind of bake sale cakes and cookies we grew up on. Julie bakes in the earliest hours of the day so there’s something coming out of the oven by the time her husband gets up. Sheryl bakes late at night to relax after coming home from the newspaper so her beau has something for his tea the next day.

Both of us entertain all the time, offering big pots of soups and stews in the kitchen, only slightly more formal food for the dining room. Summers we might make a main course such as Salade Nicoise or a Shrimp Boil eaten directly out of the pot. Sometimes we skip the little things in the living room beforehand because we ran out of time, offering instead a few olives and some toasted Pita Crackers. The purpose in getting people together, we believe, is for friendship and good conversation. That’s all anyone wants and wonderful food is a happy extra.

Both of our mothers are generous women. They taught us never to go anywhere empty-handed, which is why there are so many baked goods tucked into our freezers. They also taught us that it’s easy to set another place at the table – in fact, it’s fun if it’s crowded. Use smaller bowls or plates to serve the food.

Julie was raised in Montreal and Sheryl in many places (she’s an Army brat), including Boston. Julie had a career in nursing for 20 years before she went to cooking school in Boston and – like many nurses before her – became a chef. She was working in Todd English’s first kitchen at Michela’s in Cambridge when Sheryl met her. Sheryl was the food reporter at The Boston Globe, looking for someone to collaborate with her on the magazine column. Sheryl had gone to the Cordon Bleu cooking schools in London and Paris and spent her career at newspapers.

Working in the kitchen with a like-minded colleague is a wonderful adventure. Collaborating and laughing with a friend at the stove is a joy. We hope you find lots you like in “The Way We Cook,” and have as much fun as we do.

 

-Sheryl Julian & Julie Riven