I've been realizing more and more what a large part of life food can play. I recently found my love for cooking, so we've had more homestyle dinners lately. And then today I nuked a tv dinner for lunch and found it so unpalatably salty that I could barely get it down. There's something about the smell of cooking onion and garlic, chopped fresh herbs, and sizzling meat that creates that cozy childhood feeling of safety. My mother cooked every day when I was growing up, which I didn't appreciate because I thought that was just "the way." Now I don't know how she had the energy. Especially to do all of the dishes right after finishing eating. (I sprawl on the couch and forget about it. *tsk tsk*) She made a lot of simple things that tasted great - and if I smell them cooking now, I'm seven years old again. She'd make spaghetti a lot - not the most Italian version, but it's my favorite version (and I usually like to go traditional with recipes from other cultures - there are no Asian recipes involving spaghetti in my kitchen). Barbecue chicken, chow mein (again, not-so-Chinese, but still yummy), manicotti, and sometimes we'd have the simplest of all: scrambled eggs and coffee cake. I wasn't raised to be a picky eater. If I didn't like it, it fell under the category of "too-bad-so-sad." And most the time I just didn't want to try it. This is probably why I have a low tolerance for picky eaters. I don't like cooking for the picky because I put a lot of myself into my recipes and food and it's like a slap in the face when adults pick stuff out or eat one bite and leave the rest. Manners were a big deal in my family growing up. Also, my husband was really poor for a while when it was just he and his mom. He ended up taking mayonnaise sandwiches to school for lunch or eating plain rice for a snack because he was so hungry it didn't matter what it was. So, when someone turns their nose up at something, it bugs us. (And yes I wish I could go back in time and give him my lunch in the cafeteria.)
My husband and I have wanted our new lives together to be heavy with tradition. I don't keep a lot of my family's traditions because, well, some of them don't have good memories. There'd be a fight every Thanksgiving and every Christmas morning. (Actually, anytime we did anything all together.) But, one thing we kept from my family is the finger-food Christmas Eve dinner. Apparently my older brother would eat anything bite size, so my mom took advantage of it. And it stuck. Little tuna sandwiches, little vegies and dip, cheese ball, little sausages, the works. Same way with dessert - fudge, cookies, little cakes... We did come to a problem with the gift-opening traditions. John's family opened all their gifts on Christmas Eve. I found this shocking. No all-night torture and sleeplessness? No waiting until 6:59 am (cause it takes a full minute to walk to the next room, of course) to go wake up Mom and Dad. Of course we'd try to peer down from the top of the stairs to see what Santa had brought in the night. Then we had a long present-opening taking turns and then had breakfast. A compromise had to be made (cause going one way or the other would stomp on all tradition for someone) and we open one present on Christmas Eve and the rest in the morning at the tree. My mom always made sweet rolls, but we wanted to come up with a special breakfast all our own for Christmas breakfast and this last year landed on: banana pancakes. I mean, a griddle makes everything feel more special. (If I were southern, I'd add a y'all on the end of that, but it's annoying when people who don't have a clue say y'all.)
And currently our favorite homey, cozy yummy is a soup I've adapted from another recipe. It has chicken meatballs and gnocchi (pronounced nyokee) and carrots and celery and peas (my husband thought he didn't like peas until he had them in this and loved what they added) and there's other stuff, too, but let's not give it away.
So, that's my spiel on why cooking matters. And I leave you all (damn I wish I were southern) with my mother's (from my dad's mom and who knows who before that) recipe for Fruited Barbecue Chicken.
Fruited BBQ Chicken
Combine: 1 8-oz. can tomato sauce, 2 Tb. white vinegar, 2 Tb. brown sugar, 1/4 tsp. worcestershire sauce, 1 8-oz. can crushed pineapple (or pineapple tidbits) with the juice. Combine ingredients in a big skillet and bring to a boil. Add pieces of raw chicken (I just add cubes of breast meat) to the sauce. Cook 10-15 min. or until chicken is no longer pink in the center. (If it's bone-in chicken, it'll take longer.) Serve over rice or noodles. (If the sauce gets too thick, add a little water or stock, if it's too thin add a mixture of a little bit of cornstarch and water to the sauce.)
My husband and I have wanted our new lives together to be heavy with tradition. I don't keep a lot of my family's traditions because, well, some of them don't have good memories. There'd be a fight every Thanksgiving and every Christmas morning. (Actually, anytime we did anything all together.) But, one thing we kept from my family is the finger-food Christmas Eve dinner. Apparently my older brother would eat anything bite size, so my mom took advantage of it. And it stuck. Little tuna sandwiches, little vegies and dip, cheese ball, little sausages, the works. Same way with dessert - fudge, cookies, little cakes... We did come to a problem with the gift-opening traditions. John's family opened all their gifts on Christmas Eve. I found this shocking. No all-night torture and sleeplessness? No waiting until 6:59 am (cause it takes a full minute to walk to the next room, of course) to go wake up Mom and Dad. Of course we'd try to peer down from the top of the stairs to see what Santa had brought in the night. Then we had a long present-opening taking turns and then had breakfast. A compromise had to be made (cause going one way or the other would stomp on all tradition for someone) and we open one present on Christmas Eve and the rest in the morning at the tree. My mom always made sweet rolls, but we wanted to come up with a special breakfast all our own for Christmas breakfast and this last year landed on: banana pancakes. I mean, a griddle makes everything feel more special. (If I were southern, I'd add a y'all on the end of that, but it's annoying when people who don't have a clue say y'all.)
And currently our favorite homey, cozy yummy is a soup I've adapted from another recipe. It has chicken meatballs and gnocchi (pronounced nyokee) and carrots and celery and peas (my husband thought he didn't like peas until he had them in this and loved what they added) and there's other stuff, too, but let's not give it away.
So, that's my spiel on why cooking matters. And I leave you all (damn I wish I were southern) with my mother's (from my dad's mom and who knows who before that) recipe for Fruited Barbecue Chicken.
Fruited BBQ Chicken
Combine: 1 8-oz. can tomato sauce, 2 Tb. white vinegar, 2 Tb. brown sugar, 1/4 tsp. worcestershire sauce, 1 8-oz. can crushed pineapple (or pineapple tidbits) with the juice. Combine ingredients in a big skillet and bring to a boil. Add pieces of raw chicken (I just add cubes of breast meat) to the sauce. Cook 10-15 min. or until chicken is no longer pink in the center. (If it's bone-in chicken, it'll take longer.) Serve over rice or noodles. (If the sauce gets too thick, add a little water or stock, if it's too thin add a mixture of a little bit of cornstarch and water to the sauce.)
2 comments:
I totally admire anyone who will voluntarily (sp? I'm so bad with that word) spend hours cooking something. Especially when it's hot out. You and my mom-in-law would get along faboulously (I still can't spell). She cooks to relax! I cook to stress out. You should trade recipes with her. By the way, do you want to cook for me, too?
The weird thing is that cooking is such a focused energy for me that it stresses me out and relaxes me at the same time. And there's enough lack of control yet ability to control to make it interesting.
What would you want me to cook for you? I could make the yummy soup sometime. It'll make me more nervous to cook for someone other than my husband (the one that liked the cookies when I put a tablespoon of baking soda instead of a teaspoon). Just don't try to help me out too much - it totally throws off my rhythm cause I'm used to thinking of a lot of things at once. (I'm weird, by the by.) You'd get to sit back and relax.
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