Retired professor Richard Hebein never makes the same thing twice.

He has turned his loves of teaching and cooking into an instructional cookbook and presented his Holiday Buffet Salad with Appetizers as an example of a dish with many options.

“I did a buffet salad with mixed iceberg and Romaine lettuce, which are my favorites. I didn’t include any little spring greens, which I call ‘frou-frou’ greens. I wanted something more substantial,” Hebein said. “Then I went into the cookbook, to the appetizer section. It’s really a buffet salad, because someone, maybe at New Year’s, or another party, is going to set up a buffet, and then go to watch TV or speak with guests, and it has to sit there without wilting.

“These are dishes that hold up well while people are celebrating,” Hebein said.

“The Old Professor’s Cookbook: How to Become a Better Home Cook” came out in November and is available through PalmettoPress.com.

“In my book I have a basic discussion on the basic type of salads, chef, chopped and cob, this is the chopped salad,” Hebein said.

With this salad, he included eggs — for a very simple reason.

“I like hard boiled eggs,” Hebein said.

He’s also a fan of small shrimp on a basic salad.

A tip for making this is closely watching the onions.

“Don’t burn the onions. There’s a lot of sugar in the onions,” Hebein said. “If you are frying the onion in the butter or oil, pour in some water or dry white wine, continually turning the heat down, until the liquid you added is gone. I think burning the onions spoils them.”

Hebein is a professor emeritus who taught at Bowling Green State University for 40 years.

“I taught Latin and Greek and just loved it,” Hebein said. “The classes, in ancient Greek and Latin were always small. … Back then, the word of the day was ‘relevant.’ I’m so glad we built up the humanities department when we did.”

In addition to teaching the language, he taught about the cultures and history of those ancient societies.

He said that he learned the other family profession, teaching, which was the most popular field. The second family profession was farming. He comes from a Wisconsin farming family that had a variety of farm businesses, from working with cattle, to manufacturing cheeses.

“So, from those folks I learned to sell a subject, like Greek tragedy. After a while I used to joke that I used to teach Greek tragedy to Ohio farm boys, and they loved it. That’s really the strength of the humanities, we are all human,” Hebein said.

The book has a variety of recipes that come from his hometown of Kewaunee, Wisconsin, and Northwest Ohio. In the 1960s he started writing down the family recipes, starting with his mother’s recipes, and has continued it throughout his life.

Hebein’s book is a reflection of his years of teaching, giving more than just a list of ingredients and instructions. It also has descriptions of basic cooking techniques with the recipes, as well as the strengths, historical context, garnishes and accompaniments.

The recipes include Sauerkraut Balls and Bean Soup with a Ham Bone.

Hebein’s recipe for Pea Soup with Bratwurst includes this advice: “You can use cooked or uncooked bratwurst or weisswurst. It will be added toward the end. My mother always made the egg dumplings to go in at the end.”

Hebein doesn’t have any family in the area but enjoys regularly cooking for his close friends.