Southold resident John-Paul Stanišić brings Croatian cooking to home chef’s tables through his newly released, self-produced and self-published cookbook Tastes of Coastal Croatia.
Stanišić combined his over 25 yearlong career in design with his knack for cuisine and his Croatian heritage to bring an assortment of appetizer, side dish, seafood, meat, rižoto and dessert recipes to life.
“A lot of cookbooks have these huge teams, including photographers and designers,” says Stanišić. “I was able to do it all by myself — the photographs, the retouching, the layout, even the marketing — and I self-published it, so it literally was a one-man job.”
Despite living in the United States, Stanišić has always enjoyed food from Petrčane, the small Dalmatian fishing village where his family immigrated from, thanks to his grandparents’ cooking.
For years, Stanišić made note of the stories behind recipes from Croatia and other American meals that his family “Croatianized,” and it took him about four months to put them down on beautiful, bright and flavor-packed pages.
In those months, he would plan a recipe, cook it, photograph it and write it out in his home kitchen. He worked very closely with his mother, Maria Stanišić, whom he dedicated the book to.
“I did a lot of this with my mom, so working with her and learning the history of everything through her, it brought us a lot closer,” says Stanišić. “She’s been my champion since I could first remember.”
Blitva and polenta fried lignje (Photo credit: John-Paul Stanišić)
Ingredient sourcing for the recipes like Stanišić’s polenta fried lignje, blitva, punjene paprika, sarma or crni rižot are simple, he says, and are easily accessible from your local grocery store, farm stand or fish market.
“I think the thing that sets this cookbook apart from others is that every single recipe has a story,” says Stanišić. “It’s not just a cup of this, a cup of that; there’s a history behind each recipe.”
A favorite story of his in the cookbook was from his grandfather, which inspired Didi Pave’s Lobster Salad — a non-Croatian dish but one that became a staple on his family’s dinner table.
When his grandfather came to the United States, he was a longshoreman loading and unloading from the RMS Queen Mary, and this lobster salad recipe was one that was served to first-class passengers.
While this is Stanišić’s first cookbook, he does not plan for it to be the last, as he sees that many home chefs’ are interested in his Croatian cooking.
Grab a copy of Tastes of Coastal Croatia from Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Apple Books and learn more about Stanišić here.
