Living on the Edge

Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies.  Well not really but maybe 1976.  It is the bicentennial of our country.  Every town across the USA is filled with American pride.  My town, Spencerville Ohio actually painted their fire hydrants as little minutemen.  I know, awesome.  Really, imagine yourself as my dad.  You live in rural Spencerville Ohio, okay Spencerville is rural, but we still live out of town.  Our neighbors not too close but close enough.  You are married and have 4 children.  You don’t lock your car or your house.  There has never been a break-in or theft in our neighborhood ever!  What a country!  You sleep like a baby every night dreaming of better meals and sports.  Your children are all tucked safe in their beds, not a care in the world.  You are awakened by footsteps in your house.  Is it one of your kids?  Is it your mother-in-law, your neighbor, a burglar?  You realize your only form of protection; i.e. a gun is in your son’s room at the opposite end of the house.  You have to improvise, MacGyver style.  If somehow you could sneak to the kitchen, there hanging above the kitchen stove were the knives.  You could fend off this would be thief and save the family from disaster and years of therapy.  Slipping out of bed and making your way across hardwood floors, no creaking , no sound, not even a whisper of noise.  In the faint light of the moon shining through the kitchen window, you make out the silhouettes, 5 shiny knives hanging; ready to do battle with the enemy.  There is only about 15’ between you and all the protection you will need.  Under the cover of the dark night you make it to the stove.  As you reach for the dagger of life a light turns on.  “Hank what are you doing?”  My mother asks.  “I heard footsteps in the living room” he replied.  With all the answers my mom says, “It is just the kerosene heater cooling down because it ran out of fuel.”  “Let’s go back to bed.”  Before you put the knife back on the hook, you flick your thumb across the blade ever so gently, then a bit harder, a bit harder.  At this point, or lack thereof, you realize there is no edge on this knife.  You check the others, with no difference, dull as a bull’s ass.  You think to yourself, how in the hell do we even get food on the table?  You know for a fact that there is no sharpener on the premises and we have no secret stash of good knives.  Could this representation of cutlery actually be for real or are they ornamental?  You go back to bed and think about the ironic situation in the kitchen.  I know it’s a knife, it looks like a knife, is it really a knife?  What if I really needed the knife to do some damage?  Could it have been used in self-defense?  Would the intruder just laugh at me like Vincent Price at the end of Thriller, knowing full well our cutlery wouldn’t damage a stick of butter?  Or maybe your thoughts would go down other avenues.  No wonder we buy everything pre-cut.  How come we never eat steak?  I know I’ve seen Marie use these.  Or did I?  Have I ever eaten a slice of tomato?  I know I have.  But was it here in my house or somewhere else?  You finally fall back asleep and go onto other more interesting dreams. 

There was never an intruder in our house.  I just think about our cutlery and how we prepped our meals.  No accidental cuts were witnessed in our house, no stitches, nothing.  Our knife set was as harmless and useless as false teeth sitting in a glass.  This makes me ponder.  Does every house possess decorative cutlery?  If so, how do they survive?  Check your knives boys and girls.  If they won’t cut through the skin of a tomato, they are not sharp enough.  Put yourself in my father’s shoes and think about this.  What if you have an intruder?  Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies.  No cutlery needed.

Who Gets the Credit?

At the age of 11, I began cooking dinner for our family of 6.  My two older sisters were busy with after school activities and my younger sister would be dropped off by the bus about an hour after me.  I was the first of 4 to come home after school.  My mother would have everything written down for me; the recipe, start times even the tasks easy as opening the refrigerator.  I would begin chopping, slicing, seasoning (S & P only) and putting meals in the oven, electric skillet whatever the case.  If I had any questions/problems I would call my grandma.  Land line rotary phone only, no cell phones back then, how did we survive?  She was my culinary authority and continued to be so throughout my life.  My grandma cooked with a purpose.  Her quest was to make everything fresh and pleasing to the palate.  Her cooking is what I hoped for myself.  Cook like you love what you’re doing.  If your meals taste like you've put some love into them, they will be appreciated.  I would continue prepping and cooking until my mom finished her bus route.  She would come home and finish dinner, or take it out of the oven and place on the table.  She would get full credit regardless of the outcome of the meal.  I didn't understand it then, but the timing was impeccable.  My mom knew exactly when to begin and end prep tasks.  She knew how long to cook something.  She could convey these directions on a note for me.  Why couldn't she understand how to make something taste good?  It baffles me to this day.  Nonetheless dinner would be on the table just as my father walked through the door.  How did she manage this?  Knowing now what I didn't know then, about my mother’s cooking skills, it was probably better timing on my dad’s part.  My father somehow knew by the amount of smoke coming out of the house, just kidding, how long he had to make it through the door.  Or maybe he knew the routine going on inside the kitchen and planned his trip home to match the meal for the night.  He knew his meal because my mom had the menu for the week posted on the refrigerator.  He also realized early on in the marriage that it was better to eat Marie’s cooking hot.  Hot and mediocre is much better than cold and mediocre.  Good or mediocre our family didn't go hungry.  My mom took the credit and I gained valuable kitchen skills.  I continue to hone these skills and pass them to my daughter.  Although she is not prepping the family dinner by herself, she has learned many recipes and simple ways to fend for herself.  I’m not sure if my mom had the intentions or the intuition to see my potential in the kitchen, but I thank her for the opportunity.  Maybe I was convenient for her as I was the only one able to get things started.  Through my childhood experiences and further into my adult life, I have been fascinated by the culinary art.  I continue to gain valuable skills, knowledge and passion for cooking.  Thanks mom for getting me started, regardless if it were intentional or not.  I appreciate the effort you made for me.  My family, neighbors and friends also thank you. 

Food Muse

Some of my mom’s special talents include descriptions.  The process of describing certain things may take hours.  It may be a meal, a talent, a chair or a picture, yes I said picture.  Why on earth would you need to describe a picture?  If memory serves me well a picture is worth a thousand words.  I would guess for posterity purposes you may need to document names, dates or places to preserve the memory.  Back in the day, photographs were not automatically dated, especially in the case of the Polaroid.  Ah yes the Polaroid, remember snapping the picture, the heat of the flash bulb that burned your dad’s fingers when he changed bulbs to take four more pictures?  Remember the sound of that little motor churning out an undeveloped square which would magically turn into a photograph?  Because of the sometimes inconsistent development there was a need to verify in writing the actual picture.  Marie has yet to figure out modern technology.  My mom is the Queen of photograph documentation.  Now you may be wondering what the hell this has to do with the subject matter of this blog, I’m getting to that.  She would take pictures of everything at any family function, her little insta-matic clicking away.  She took pictures of relatives, presents, walls, pets and most importantly the food table.  She would take her film to be developed, pick it up and proceed to document the subject matter of the picture on the reverse side.  This process would be completed before anyone could view the pictures of the most recent family function.  This documentation of purely visible subject matter makes very little sense in my world.  Like I said before, some notes are needed.  But really, does every picture need a description?  The day following my wedding ceremony my mom had a small party.  She did everything as aforementioned.  Once the pictures were developed she sent Sue and I the memories, all with her personal descriptions on the reverse side so we would clearly understand what the picture actually represented.  The kicker, which made laugh hysterically, was the pictures of the food table.  There on the reverse side of the picture, Marie’s handwriting, “12/23/1995 Ham sandwiches.”  C’mon mom, really!  Do I really need clarification of this?  Ham sandwiches!  What else could they be?  I keep these memories safe because I may need to reference the subject matter in case I forget what a ham sandwich actually looks like.  Marie has the cure for amnesia!  Her picture documentation is unparalleled.

Victims of Convenience

Who hasn’t eaten or opened a blue box of Macaroni and Cheese?  I know some of you probably have one or more boxes in your pantry right now.  I have no problem with this as I was a blue box junkie.  I used to eat this stuff by the box, yes the entire box.  Macaroni and cheese for lunch, dinner whenever.  This was my meal, one pan, one spoon, and one colander.  Easy clean up, total time start to finish about 20min, eight to make, eight to eat and four to clean up.  I’m not bragging, but once in college I prepared this box without butter or milk…it was a mistake but it still tasted like the description on the box, go figure.  My next favorite as a kid were the little round frozen pizzas; I remember them being about 10 or 15 cents each.  My mom would buy 4 or 5 dollars worth at the grocery.  Three of these frozen cardboard delicacies would be my lunch.  I remember eating these before going to one of my first jobs as a lifeguard at the local swimming pool.  Again about 20 minutes and this is a one cookie sheet deal.  I didn’t know any better, this was good eating for me and I would serve these to my friends, apparently they didn’t know any better either.  I can now appreciate the difference between good eating and not so good eating.  My macaroni and cheese recipe is loved by my daughter, but it doesn’t come from a box.  I know where all the ingredients I use come from.  If your cheese is in dry powder form you may want to be leery.  Fresh still only takes about 8 minutes.  I even do a grown up version with bacon, green onion and jalapeno.  One of my favorites is to take this recipe, put it in a pan and allow it to cool.  I then slice the cooled Mac and cheese into 3 x 1 ½ “ rectangles, coat with egg wash and Panko bread crumbs and deep fry.  What could be better?  Deep fried macaroni and cheese!  This sounds kind of hillbilly, but it’s very tasty.  If you take this to your next party, be prepared to be complimented and many will ask for the recipe.  Some will hesitate to try but once they taste, they will be hooked.  Pizza, although a bit more tricky; all you need is a dough you can handle and the rest is easy.  It’s a hell of a lot cheaper and again you know where the ingredients are coming from.  Frozen cheese just doesn’t melt the same and no delivery person to deal with.  Tip yourself instead!

Here’s my recipe:

  Begin by cooking your pasta according to the directions on the box.

Béchamel Sauce- This is one of the Mother Sauces of French Cuisine.  I know it sounds fancy and difficult, but it is very simple.  Once the pasta is cooked, drain and using the same sauce pan, begin melting 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat.  Once the butter has melted and stopped bubbling, add 2 tablespoons of flour and combine.  You have just made roux (a thickening agent used in many recipes).  Pour in 1.5 cups of milk, this mixture will begin to thicken.  Once it is nice and creamy (Béchamel Sauce has been created), add salt & pepper and remove from heat, then begin adding shredded cheddar cheese, about 1 cup, more or less to your liking.  Also feel free to use any cheese as long as it will melt.  The possibilities are endless!  Once cheese is melted add your pasta, mix to combine.  At this point you can go ahead and serve or you can place this in a pan and put in 350 degree oven for 15 min to get piping hot.  It is very easy and like I mentioned, the possibilities are endless with the cheese.  Additional ingredients needing some cook time should be added to the butter or bacon drippings before adding the flour to make the roux.  They can also be cooked separately and then added to the roux mixture.  Don’t be shy, your taste buds will be rewarded and your family will be impressed.

Rippled Potato Soup?

Rippled Potato Soup you might ask?  Yes, Rippled, referring to an Old Dutch (my heritage) culinary delight made from flour and egg.  It kind of sounds like the start of pasta doesn't it?  But that's as far as it goes.  Ask any culinary expert how to make ripples and I’m sure they will be able to tell you about this tasty delight.  Bobby Flay...how do you make your ripples for your potato soup?  No reply, oh ok.  That's understandable Bobby, my mom's recipe is a secret too!  Though she has allowed me this one exception to share her culinary secret that once it’s out I’m sure will spread through kitchens and restaurants everywhere.

Mom's Rippled Potato Soup consists of: ½ milk and ½ water, potatoes, margarine, flour and egg.  Now doesn't that sound tasty?  Minus the water these are well conceived ingredients.  Everything you need to build yourself a nice soup.  So let’s build a soup, shall we?  We begin with the potato.  In our house this was a staple for recipes like this one.  Mom saved our instant potatoes for dishes we served with meat!  So far, you know this means a frozen 1lb package of ground beef.  The spuds we used were always kept with the highest respect in our concrete floored utility room, right beside the trash can and dust pan, adjacent to the dog's food, in front of the water heater, nestled next to outdated yellow and brown packages of DeCon that had yet to poison any mice.  Our potatoes would occupy the space beside our furnace, bottled soda pop and a soldering torch which was sometimes needed to thaw the exposed water pipes of this un-heated cave.  They were free to collect dirt, dust, and grime anytime!  The accumulation of dust I believe is what gave these fresh vegetables their shelf life, which in this case would be when they started growing sprouts!  Sprouts were a sign that the spuds were, "still good" my mom clambered.  All you need to do is peel, pluck or pull the sprouts then chop the potato.  “It was going to be cooked anyway,” she exclaimed.  I know in her head this seemed reasonable because they resemble bean sprouts.  In any case, bean sprouts are not byproducts of potatoes.  This metamorphosis of the potato is the product of the correct and absolute environment to keep them barely alive so they will begin to seed and make baby potatoes.  So as it were she would use 6 to 7 of these science experiments she called good (peeled and chopped of course) and add them to the pot of boiling water/milk mixture until they were at their prime (meaning before they turned to mush) then she would add her secret culinary delight: Ripples.  It’s also very tedious so one must be precise on measuring.  Take 1 cup of flour, add enough water (why water I do not understand) to make a paste-then add 1 egg to the paste to form a dough.  Now this is the tricky part; take the dough and tear it piece by piece into the boiling starchy potato water and let it go!  These Ripples will begin to boil; as they become fully cooked, watch them rise and break the surface of the pools of melted margarine!  Mmmmmm yummy doughy pillows full of spud/milky/water floating around and among those respected vegetables----potato soup she called it?  Oh, and don't forget to break out the Morton salt container and rusty tin of pepper for this special occasion to give it an extra kick.  I beg you, please do not try this in your home.  This is not something you or your family will appreciate.  This recipe takes years to master.  It can only achieve the proper flavor profile if your palate has proper training.  Years of eating my mom's meals will be needed before you can actually understand the subtle layers of flavor.  And one more small tip: find a better place to keep your potatoes.  Your un-heated, dirty utility room is not the place!  I want to also thank my youngest sister for the reminder.  She has co-authored this entry for the soon to be famous recipe.

Portion Control

If you read the label on every food product there are “suggested serving” quantities listed for your recommended daily allowances.  When I really look at these, I’m unsure if any person could survive on this type of portion control.  If you are an 8-14 year old athletic male, it is next to impossible to survive on these recommended daily allowances.  The two that struck me as in- excusable were Tab soda and Kelloggs Frosted Mini Wheats.  Tab was introduced when I was about 10 may be sooner, maybe later.  Who cares?  At this point in my life I was totally uninterested in diet soda.  But I do remember the total number of servings in a 12oz can being 2.  Are you kidding me 2 servings?  Drink up o’thirsty one, your 6oz serving of soda, quite possibly only 2 swallows if you were really thirsty.  Now for my breakfast; my sisters and I did enjoy Frosted Mini Wheats.  Now I know what you are thinking.  “Man, your mom gave you Mini Wheats?”  “You guys were spoiled!”  “We only had generic Toasty O’s.”  Allow me to continue.  My mom would leave us instructions for our breakfast.  This note would include how much of each breakfast entrée we could consume; i.e. 2 pieces of toast, one glass of juice (Hi-C grape of course), one tablespoon peanut butter etc.  So, on this box of Mini Wheats, the suggested serving size is 4 BISCUITS.  My mom thought this was federal law.  She would also threaten to never buy these again if there were even a suggestion about portion control.  According to her this serving size was plenty and exceeding this recommended daily amount would cause extreme obesity and strain on the family budget.  At a time of my life when I needed valuable calories to get me to my delicious school lunch, I was allowed a mere 4 BISCUITS!  This portion control would barely sustain me until I caught the school bus, let alone until lunch.  My 4 BISCUITS would be consumed in about 90seconds, leaving a yearning for at least 12 more.  Maybe she could have served Tab instead of juice, but we wouldn't want to get bloated for breakfast!  My thinking is that every mom in the United States was doing the same thing.  Why would I think this you ask?  Maybe this is why the fast food chains of my generation thought of the “super size” meals.  This is our way of getting back at those portion control freaks.  Or maybe why my generation is over weight?  Maybe our mothers were smarter than we thought.

New Years Day Tradition

Barbecue spare ribs, the mere thought of these messy, tasty morsels leaves my mouth watering.  There are many different rub seasonings, sauces, smokes and cooking methods.  How does one choose the best of each?  When is the right time to serve this, usually long prep time, meal?  Is it possible to prep, cook and serve without any of the previously mentioned items?  In a typical kitchen setting, home or restaurant I would say no.  This however is not your typical household situation.  My father would have you believe that my mom had some southern cook in her, but that was only one certain style of cooking (Remember Cajun Style) which had no bearing on this meal.  Our New Years Day tradition was the barbecue spare rib, no smoke, no rub, all day cook time.  This process began early in the morning of Jan 1.  First we need to clear up one minor detail; no racks of ribs were actually sacrificed in the making of my mom’s spare ribs.  Again our freezer is full of ground beef, no pork.  Not once did I see any rack of ribs.  No baby back’s, no St. Louis Style nothing even resembling a rack of ribs were seen near or in our kitchen.  The ribs my mom used were indeed “spare.”  This may be why the use of neither smoke nor rub was necessary.  Let’s start with the prep, or my mom’s version of the rub; put all rib pieces in large pot, fill with water (unseasoned of course) and boil for approximately 3 hours.  Instead of enhancing the flavor of the ribs with a seasoning rub, Marie’s method pretty much removed any flavor which may have been left.  Now we need to cook these babies low and slow, right?  Uh wrong, let’s go with the oven at 350degrees (automatic setting of our oven) and place rib pieces on a broiler pan, again no salt or pepper and  smother with Open Pit BBQ sauce and bake for another 3 hours.  Now these were some tender ribs, messy and saucy.  I believe this was my dad’s favorite meal.  I’m not sure why, maybe the fact that it was the only meal that didn’t contain beef.  Nonetheless this meal was prepared for the family every New Years Day.  Traditions are good things; find one for your family.  Even though ours was boiled spare ribs, we still looked forward to New Years dinner.