THE BIO ON THE BACK FLAP OF MELISSA CLARK’S NEWEST BOOK says she has written 29 in all, and for that feat alone, we should celebrate her today upon the publication of “In the Kitchen With a Good Appetite.” So celebrate we will: with a feast of good stories from the latest cookbook by Clark, a popular New York Times food columnist—and with a chance to win one of the two copies I bought to share with you.
Each of her 150 recipes is delightfully prefaced with what amounts to its provenance: a juicy and sometimes hilarious back story that Clark tells in as simple yet deft a fashion as the style of the dish that follows. I sat right down to chapters like “Better Fried” and “It Tastes Like Chicken” and “My Mother’s Sandwich Theory of Life,” the perfect mix of a good read and a good meal.
For me—a flavor-fearing kid who rinsed most of her entrees off at the sink conveniently positioned halfway between the Garland range and the family dinner table—Clark’s childhood tales are positively hair-raising: Summer vacations were spent touring France with her psychiatrist parents, gourmands determined to eat at every Michelin-starred restaurant there. Worse yet (or to Clark, more thrilling): The family rule was “try everything once” (presumably without running it under the faucet first). And they meant everything: kidneys and foie gras aspic and raw quail eggs and vacherin, a real stinker among cheeses.
It wasn’t just Melissa’s parents, either, who stirred the epicurean-to-be in the child. There was the matter of Aunt Sandy of Flatbush, too, a real hostess-with-the-mostest, in whose home Melissa’s parents broke their Yom Kippur fast with on sweet and sour fish prepared in what Clark (left) describes as a “shimmering aspic….a pink-and-ecru mosaic.” (Almost Aunt Sandy’s Sweet-and-Sour Salmon is one of the 150 recipes that made the new book’s cut.)
Later, the chefs she has worked with or admired in her food-writing career have added their influences, helping shape the way that Clark cooks: with ease, and with welcoming flavors.
But even early on, Melissa had a discerning young palate: Early iterations of her mother’s zucchini latkes were fed secretly to the family dog—until finally, the young recipe tester determined, mom got it right (a “smidgeon” of rosemary was the secret, and no potato whatsoever, just pure zuke). That final victorious version: page 313.
I love the story of her first date with husband-to-be Daniel, who almost didn’t make it to Date 2 after confessing that he didn’t eat dairy products.
And one of a backyard pig roast with her ex-husband; her hairdresser, and the hairdresser’s husband and their twin toddlers, who persisted in saying “hi piggy, piggy” and “oink, oink” to the dinner-to-be. Oh, dear; no way to transform that meal-gone-wrong into a recipe for publication, no matter how much spin she added. Oven Roasted Pork Butt With Rosemary, Garlic and Black Pepper stands in nicely; no pit-digging required.
But to my ear the recipes that scream “cook me” loudest are Buttery Polenta with Parmesan and Olive Oil-Fried Eggs and Swiss Chard, or Crispy Tofu with Garlicky Peanut Sauce, or Healthy Homemade Cheddar Crisps. Chapter 2, “The Farmer’s Market and Me,” is a story of the author as determined hunter-gatherer, her harvest yielding the kind of cornbread that’s rich with real kernels, or raw kale salad with pecorino and chiles and breadcrumbs, or another salad of broccoli cured in spicy, garlicky toasted sesame dressing. I could go on; but better that you buy a copy (assuming you don’t win one, below).
More Melissa Clark
- Her website, Melissa Clark [dot] net
- The “A Good Appetite” column in The New York Times
- A tour of Melissa’s kitchen with my friend Sara Kate at the Kitchn blog
How to Win a Copy of the Cookbook
YOU KNOW THE ROUTINE: You have to sing (or at least share) for your supper. Comment below to have a chance to win. But here’s this giveaway’s secret ingredient: Tell us a food memory that has stuck with you—good or bad, childhood or later. Melissa and I would love to know.
I’ll pick two winners at random using random [dot] org on Monday, September 13; entries close at midnight on Sunday. Good luck!
My family moved from a suburb of New York City to North Carolina when I was five years old. I was always embarrassed to invite friends over for meals because my mother’s cooking style was so different from the traditional Southern cooking at their homes. With five children in the family we were left to fend for ourselves when it came to fixing our school lunches. One day I made myself a sardine sandwich and can still remember the reaction I got at school. To this day I haven’t touched a sardine. My husband, however, has a great fondness for them. Whenever I’m out of town, sardines are his meal of choice.
A tomato from my Italian Grandfathers garden. I have spent the last 40 years trying to grow a tomato as good as I remember eating in the middle of my grandfathers garden. I’ve yet to find one.
When I was little girl I would watch my grandma make homemade stuffed shells and cabbage while my mom was making homemade cookies. Watching both my grandma and mom cook/bake inspired me and today I have to say I am fantastic chef because of the lessons learned while growing up in Carteret, NJ. I love to entertain and have BBQs often in my new fabulous backyard. My nickname is the master griller! My grandma also loved to sew and I would watch her make all sorts of things. I first learned to sew when I was seven years old and have been sewing ever since. I sure miss my grandma and cherish those wonderful memories. That’s why I cherish every day I spend with my mom who inspires me in everything that I do today, yesterday and tomorrow.
As a small child, my family shared our Fourth of July celebration every year with two other families we considered to be our ‘best friends’ (fifty years later, we’re still in touch). One mother made fresh homemade peach ice cream for dessert every year with the first peaches of the season. We made it in the old fashioned hand-crank type of ice cream maker – everyone had to take their turn. I’m sure part of the reason the ice cream tasted so good was because we had to work so hard, so long for it (at least it seemed like it in the mind of a child). :-)
I can still taste that peach ice cream – fruity and smooth and sweet. And every year on the Fourth I think – “I should make peach ice cream!” But I can never find ripe peaches!
It’s a fond memory.
My favorite food memory is Sunday dinner of roast beef and cauliflower in a creamy cheese sauce …yum!!
When I was in Jr. High school I would go each spring break to the home of my best friend’s English great Aunt. It was an hour ride from our homes and my friend’s father used to smoke his cigars with the air conditioning on for the entire duration of the ride. By the time we arrived at the beach house I was green and a bit car sick but it was worth the ride knowing that for an entire week we would enjoy the gourmet dinners of her Great Aunt. Each night we would dress for dinner and the table would be set with more sterling silver than I had ever seen in my life next to a dinner plate. The best dinner that I vividly remember is of prime rib and Yorkshire pudding and for dessert also served in a beautiful sterling serving dish with a lid that slid back to reveal a light and airy, most heavenly chocolate mousse.
Mom’s friend chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy…
What a treat this thread of conversation has been already — with more still to come. Thanks to all of you for such wonderful memories.
Those of you who are regulars know that I normally welcome each first-time commenter personally, but with these contests that would be difficult…and also mean that I’d have more comments than anyone here and win the books in the random drawing, or at least have the odds in my favor! So a group welcome will have to suffice. Those whose names come up as “new” on my dashboard (which sometimes means you’ve typed in a slightly different ID than last time, and sometimes means you are really new, sorry if the former!):
Welcome to Mystica, Ellen, Ronnie, Kate, Sarah, Carolyn, Treva, Holly, Katie, Lauren, Julie, JEDI, Susan B, Aik, Leilani, Caroline, Michelle, Heather, Karen, Julie, Inspired Kathy, Becky, Susan, Rene K, Susan, Fog City T, Linda, Karen, Daphne, Barbara H, Barbara, Sandy, D Walker, Evelyn K, Eric, Rose Red, Suzanne, Susan, Ann, Nan, Mary, Anna, Lauren, Poppy, Anitta.
There are so many food memories that stick with me to this day. I sometimes suspect that I was really born right on the kitchen table. My childhood days were often spent watching my Greek grandmother cook, often with others working alongside, chattering in Greek and “broken” English. A flurry of hands, ingredients and laughter with a tear or two sometimes thrown in. All problems, all worries, all joys and all sorrows were settled in our tiny kitchen.
To go out into the fresh, green forest preserve in late spring is a memory so dear to my hips and my heart. Shopping bags in hand, and determined women plodding ahead, my grandmother leading the way for the sole purpose of picking the leaves off of the wild grapevines; snipping them off, only the most tender, and placing them into the bags, then bringing them home to wash and sort. What delightful memories and scents come my way. The newspaper covering the table, the needle and thread that came out as my grandmother and great aunt sewed the leaves into fragrant garlands that were then hung on basement rafters to dry. My friends and me playing all summer, pretending it was Christmas on the hottest of August days in the cool of the cellar.
Ahhh, but the best, the very best, were the coldest days of January when a garland would be brought up to the kitchen, the leaves unstrung and reconstituted, the wrapping and cooking and the heavenly aromas that filled the air, then the plump and tasty Greek dolmades that were piled on our plates for our dinner . . .
In college (a LONG time ago) I had a friend whose grandfather had a truck farm in New Jersey, when New Jersey was still the “Garden State” (or at least remnants were). He had peach trees, evidently, because my friend would bring back to college, after visiting him in the fall, the most incredible, huge, flavorful, divine peaches. They were so ripe and juicy that merely holding them would dent their flesh. Each one still had the stem and a few peach tree leaves attached. I can, amazingly, many decades later, picture and taste them clearly — my DNA is imprinted for better or worse; I fear that no other peach will ever live up to those. I can approach the flavor by getting the best peaches in the best peach year (this year is a good one where I live) and making a baked dessert, so that the warmth of the oven really brings out the flavor.
Interestingly (and happily), my 12 year old son is an incredible foodie, and he LOVES orchards. We do a lot of gardening and wild food foraging, and whether on a back road or the interstate, he is always scanning the roadside for fruit trees. I’ll hear, “Mom, STOP! Peach tree (or apple, or pear…) on the right!”. Hoping not to cause a pile-up (try explaining emergency stopping for wild fruit to a trooper), we pull over, get out his telescoping fruit picker (available from A.M. Leonard), and go to work. Many trees, and subsequent desserts, stick in my (our) memory, like the applesauce we made while camping in NH, with fruit gleaned from a knarled but productive tree, a remnant from an old orchard. We had to stand on our car roof to get the apples (we forgot — can you believe it! — to bring the picker). However, despite all these more recent wonderful fruit moments, the New Jersey peaches still reign supreme. Or do they? Sometimes I think that they simply occupy a place in my brain where nostalgia, all mixed up with longing for a particular place and time, intensify and color my memory of them.
Margaret
When I was younger, my mother would have my Grandma watch me while she had to work (in the summer). For lunch, I would always request red raspberries (grown by my Grandpa) with lots of sugar on top and a big glass of pink lemonade. Once in a while my Grandma would give in and let me eat just that- the “perfect” lunch… that gave me a belly ache every time I ate it because of all of the sugar!!!! I would never admit to Grandma that I didn’t feel good because I knew she wouldn’t let me eat it again but now, as an adult, I can’t look at red raspberries and not think of the summers spent over at Grandma’s house.
And yes, I do still love both red raspberries and pink lemonade… just not at the same time!
I was blessed to have two parents that were amazing cooks. An army brat transplant to the south, my Dad(first generation Irish American) went to chef school in the army after WWII, my Mom was from North Eastern Italy. He cooked for all the major holidays, she did all our birthday dinners, but her own. No one could ever touch my Dads roast beef and gravy. The best Italian food I’ve ever eaten, anywhere in the US, was in my Moms kitchen, from lasagna to cookies. I never ate, or learned how to cook, southern food until I married a southern boy. My kids had the best of three worlds growing up, Brooklyn Irish,Northern Italian and the Southern U.S., and now I get to treat my grandchildren to the best of all that good food.
My favorite food memory was the roast beef Mom would put in the oven every Sunday before church. Many hours later the house would smell delicious and we would all gather round the kitchen table for dark, tender roast beef served with mashed potatoes and gravy. Sides included fresh cauliflower covered in Chez Whiz, canned peas or beets, and always a salad on the side. If company came over we had a banana creme pie for dessert!
Next day that roast was found in real roast beef hash; beef, potatoes, and onions. Yum.
Here’s my food memory – it sustains me to this day.
Grandma spreads the whitest of linen over the tables on the sun porch and smooths the nests of wrinkles until they lay flat. She sets the rolling pin, flour canister and jelly jar within reach. Then she dons her apron and worries the wispy gray strands on the nape of her neck into the black hairnet.
“Guardi,” she says.
Grandma makes a “well” of flour in the center of a large wooden board and, in the middle, cracks the eggs. She beats the eggs ever so gently, blending the inside wall of flour as she goes. Soon the dough is ready, the creamy ricotta is drained. The scent of freshly chopped mint and grated nutmeg hangs in the air. Grandma moves in and out of the kitchen, gathering a few utensils, a fork for crimping and a bowl of water. It is ravioli day.
I watch as Grandma smooths the dough into a circle, comic blue veins dancing across her hands. With pronounced thrusts of the rolling pin, she creates an unplowed field, a large thin rectangle of dough ready to receive the ricotta mixture. Her deft movements leave rows of milky mounds which she skillfully covers with a fold of the dough. With brisk moves of the knife, she cuts the mounds apart. As she works, she hums and Caruso croons, the faint echo of his wedding canzone coming from the Victrola. Then it is my turn. My job is to seal and crimp. Grandma watches as I invert the jelly jar over each mound and twist it a few half turns. Then I press the tines of the fork in the edges all the way around until the ravioli is made fast. We work together like that for hours, sealed in quiet. Washed in velvet light, the porch cools as the late day sun rests its face on the window sill. The afternoon’s work lay around us, each ravioli the size of a mouse’s ear.
I loved being on the sun porch with Grandma. I worked at her elbow, I pressed against her side, I leaned into her thigh. The shape of her lay like a promise between us. I don’t recall if we talked much during those long afternoons. All I remember is that she hugged me tight and called me “Bella”.
Definitely meals, specific foods, with Grandma. Pears after dinner, cut up, and we would watch Lawrence Welk. Macaroni and cheese, made with sharp cheddar, small elbow macaroni layered with butter slices and then doused with half-and-half…..toasted cheese sandwiches, Roman Meal (?) bread, butter spread on both sides of both pieces of bread, more sharp cheddar…..the best gravy I’ve ever tasted in my life, ever, ever, ever……chicken fried steak…..oh my gosh–dinner was early too, if I remember correctly it was at 5. I eat dinner usually by 10 pm nowadays. All that unhealthy food and I was a twig. Such great memories…..just unforgettable.
Two of my childhood memories were the first salads that would come out of the garden each year, lettuce (which I now know was Simpson), dill and spring onion (mixed with sour cream) and secondly radish and chive sandwiches!
In 1960, I was five years old. We lived in Puerto Rico, outside of San Juan. I played with the neighbor kids, and once in a while they asked me to stay for dinner. My first strong food memory is of rice and beans–fat, red kidney beans–topped with grated coconut, with fried plaintains on the side. My tastebuds woke up that day.
Food memories are special for so many reasons, from evoking memories of walking with my now-husband on a beach in the Florida keys (oysters) to the odd smells of fish and stinky cheese at Haymarket in Boston, to the warm, wonderful smells that always issued from my grandmother’s kitchen. Today I’m remembering her asparagus casserole, rich with milk, eggs, and sharp cheddar cheese and my grandfather’s homegrown asparagus.
The food memories which are the strongest are those of my Grandmother’s cooking. Surprising, in a way, because she hated to cook. My sister and I would spend a few weeks each summer with my grandparents just when all of her tomatoes would be ripening. We would help her shell purple hull peas until our fingers were a deep shade of purple. I could hardly wait for her to cook them. My Grandfather was a cattle rancher and also owned a feed store. Some days we would take Papaw his “dinner” at the store, other days out to the farm. My Mamaw made the best chicken fried steak I have ever eaten. We would carefully present Papaw his napkin covered plate and large glass of sweet ice tea as if we had prepared it ourselves. I can remember watching him eat his meal with gusto and I couldn’t wait until we would go back to the house for ours.
Today, as the weather here turned cloudy and cold, I had a craving for my mother’s chicken and dumplings. She’s been gone now for over 20 years and sadly wasn’t much for jotting down recipes or notes. Although she was a great cook having been raised cooking in a cafe in Trieste, Italy, she used those canned refrigerated biscuits (I know!) for her dumplings. And that’s what I use for my family — they are not the fluffy dumplings you may make or have eaten but rather gluey and doughy on the outside and fairly dense inside. I love them.
Despite it all, our southern roots die hard. The things that I learned watching my grandmother cook are still a part of my kitchen habits today (which might explain the overuse of butter…). And it makes me proud to be from the South!
i remember my mim maw smith whipping up a batch of homemade biscuits quicker than you can say bisquick.
A great aunt’s tomato aspic with decorative olives. I asked my mother what it was, and her answer was “Try it, you’ll like it.” I didn’t.
Smoked oysters on Ritz – memere would serve them on her appetizer lazy susan tray. My brothers and I all liked them. We thought we were kinda cool because we liked something so “exotic.” We serve them today when we get together for the holidays – no one else likes them (or touches them!) like we do.
Hot dogs and homemade beans on Saturday nights.
Creton on an english muffin for breakfast.
Hmmmm… can you tell I grew up in a household with a French Canadien influence?
I remember my Mother picking fresh strawberries from my Grandfather’s field and bringing them to the table for my sister and me in plain white bowls with fresh cream poured over them…the fresh cream was stored in a true icebox. My Grandfather had a bakery and my Grandmother had a florist shop. He drove a wagon pulled by a horse to his bakery before I was born. My Grandfather grew the fruits and vegetables as well as the flowers and greenery for the florist shop. What nice memories…over half a century ago and they are all long gone and I have not tasted a strawberry as sweet.
One memory – that’s too hard. Both my parents cooked, usually amazing dishes, though I did know to beware meals on April Fool’s day. I hated eggs as a child, especially after the cotton ball omelets Mom snuck on us one April. The best were all the Sunday meals. As we children dressed for church, Dad was in the kitchen mixing spices into tomato juice for the afternoon Bloody Marys. We’d go to church, then head to Hawk’s drugstore for milkshakes and malts, spinning on the stools. We’d head home, and Mom started making hollandaise sauce, I split English muffins, and people started arriving, Dad handing each a Bloody Mary. The priest, Dad’s best friend, came last after finishing the other services. After a bit, the eggs benedict started coming out of the kitchen. People would be on the porch, in the living room, under the Japanese Magnolia, eating and laughing, Dad and some of the other men listening to dirty jokes from the priest, someone else getting back from buying more ice at Fruit Jungle, the convenience store that was really named Ice Jungle. (Years later it was bought from the original owners and the new ones changed the name to Fruit Jungle; it did not last six months.) Almost every Sunday was filled with wonderful adults and a few children, from twenty to forty, and every holiday was the same, though we’d have up to seventy people for those. Some were men who were cut off by family. We children felt lucky to have so many extra parents, who loved us as their own. Both my parents are long dead, but in my fifties, I have a few of those extra dads. We still enjoy meals together, and laugh about old times.
I grew up in rural Texas the daughter of a rancher so we ate a lot of beef. My mother was an adventurous cook and was always trying out exotic recipes that would require driving to Dallas for some ingredients from the “foreign” stores (early 60′s and 70′s) . Every year at Christmas my father and I would collude to try and come up with a request to challenge her for the next year. She would research for the next year and always find a recipe and locate sources for the ingredients and surprise us. All of our extended family would be there for the big unveiling and dinner each year. She could cook anything beautifully. Even though she came up with some great meals, my favorites were still smothered steak and mashed potatoes. Great memories.
As a child growing up in rural Ireland (now live in Woodstock, NY) we only ever ate what was in season. Blackberries were gathered from the hedge rows in “blackberry season” and mushrooms hunted down in the fields during “mushroom season” – both happened to be the same season: late August/September – ah, the bounty! Farmers never objected to people crossing their fields so long as gates were closed behind you – no “no trespassing signs” – indeed I wasn’t really aware that the countryside belonged to anyone in particular. One spring my oldest sister came home from London where she was training to be a nurse; while home she helped my mother out with shopping and meal prep etc and one day she served us “bought” mushrooms with our dinner (about three each and tiny – I’d never seen button mushrooms before). I shall never forget the consternation, the visceral shock, of having mushrooms out of season – we were uniformly suspicious of them but ate them nevertheless. All agreed it is better to wait for the proper season to get the proper amount of mushrooms, the proper taste properly wild and fresh.
Smordampete Nypoteter (butter-steamed new potatoes) was the only Norwegian dish my mom knew how to make (and would actually eat). She learned the recipe from my grandmother, and taught it to us when we were young. I remember feeling so “Norwegian” speaking those foreign words and eating buttery, dilly potatoes.
My favorite food memory is when I was about 8 years old and I picked raspberries at a vacant lot across from our house. My grandmother was visiting and she magically transformed the raspberries into jam! I was so amazed, and this memory probably led to me enjoying canning and making jams, jellies, chutneys and all today.
My childhood food memories all involve blueberries and my maternal grandparents. My grandfather would take us berry picking. He was very good at it and fast and my brother and sister and I were very slow and ate too many. To this day if I close my eyes I can see my grandfather with a bucket, held up by his belt, hands moving quickly to fill the bucket with delicious blueberries. My grandmother and I would make pies, cake and jam, year after year. Together we cooked lots of things but it’s the blueberries I will always remember
I was around 2 or 3 when my dear mom made me octupus in olive oil and butter, sauteed gently and then served with angelhair and marinara. The boys wouldn’t come into the kitchen. Been hooked ever since. People that deep-fry calamari or anything that should be tender just didn’t have my cool momma.
My mom’s potato salad. When I’d graduated from college and moved into my first apartment, I called her to get the recipe. She said there was none, that she did it all by taste. Neither my sister nor I have ever been able to capture the particular flavor, so now I don’t even try, making my own version instead, but remembering with great clarity and fondness my mothers. And her chicken and dumplings. And her “fricadellen,” which I’m not even sure is a real word, but the one she used for a ground meat patty that used up all the leftovers and end pieces of roasts that were in the refigerator at the end of the week. I still remember her old metal meat grinder that clamped onto the counter.
One of my favorite food memories goes back to when I was around nine years old enjoying grapefruit on a quiet Brooklyn evening with my mother. Lost in conversation, and taking care not to break the long outer peels as we carved around each grapefruit, we lost track of time. We found we had eaten almost five pounds of grapefruit and laughed at the peels that formed into tall coiling piles before us.
Never to let anything go to waste, my mother took out a big pot, threw in the peels with sugar and water as she recalled a candy recipe from her childhood in Puerto Rico. I can still smell the scent of sweet grapefruit that filled our house, and still taste the chewy citrus candy I instantly fell in love with and attempt to make with my own kids today.
Thank you for offering up this contest and a chance to relive and share one of the many sweet memories I have of my departed mother.
Grammy Davis’s banana cream pudding. She passed away a long time ago and my brothers and cousins and I are still trying to find the recipe written down somewhere. Nothing compares (to the memory) so far.
My brother is one of the best bakers ever!!! His cinnamon-raisin bread is so good! He lived with us for a while and there was nothing sweeter than coming home to that sweet sell of fresly-baked bread and my brother’s smile, knowing that he had “done good”!!♥
I was born in the South, but have spent much of my life in New England. I was living in Boston and one of my college friends from North Carolina moved to town. She nearly got into a fist fight with a stock boy at the local grocery store when she asked him for “pimiento cheese” and he handed her a block of flavored cheddar cheese. “Pimiento cheese is not a kind of cheese, it’s a CHEESE SPREAD” she huffed. I showed her how to make it at home in the food processor, which takes about two minutes.
I hated Mac and Cheese as a kid, hated it!! But for one of my 3 siblings it was a favorite. A birthday custom in our house was the birthday honoree could select the dinner menu. My, did I work hard trying to convince my sister that fired chicken was a better choice than Mac & Cheese, I never won. To this day I will not eat the stuff.
My memory goes back almost 53 years. I was pregnant, just, and my husband and I were driving back to Long Island from a year living in Pueblo, Colorado. We stopped overnight in Pennsylvania to go to a fair in Pennsylvania dutch country and I HAD to have a piece of shoo-fly pie. It was the last piece of shoo-fly pie I ever ate, but the memory of the nausea has never left me. Molasses and the first trimester are not a good mix.
Food memory: My family used to eat a 1970s suburban version of curry that began with cream of mushroom soup. On the lazy susan at center of our dining table, there would be a wonderful assortment of vegetables, fruits, and nuts that we added to the curry sauce. Celery, carrots, peanuts, coconut, raisins, pineapple, mushrooms, onions, and more. It seemed like the most exotic meal ever in a town that did not have any authentic Indian restaurants at the time.
In my 20s, I was an exchange student in Paris. A woman there had taken me under her wing and, being as I was a little homesick, asked me if she could make me a “traditional” American dinner. I didn’t have a real good grasp of the language, so I tried to describe to her “poulet crispe” – which I thought might mean fried chicken. She busted up laughing so hard, tears were streaming down her face, and described to me that “crispe” meant dead – as in rigor mortis – with little feet sticking up in the air. So she made me fried chicken, which we ate in American fashion, meaning, barbarically with our hands, along with a glass of fine wine, of course, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Best dead chicken I ever ate.
My favorite memory is making a traditional Norwegian cake with freshly whipped cream and
strawberries with my grandmother. That always made summer special.
One of many sweet food memories was for my parents 50th wedding anniversary party at my sisters house in upstate New York. All of us kids came in for the party-3 of us sisters from California-one from Florida-and the remaining brother and sister already lived in New York. We all decided to contribute our own speciality dishes for this event. Growing up in the 1950′s with six of us kids our Mom made most everything from scratch and we all pretty much have followed suite. All of us kids worked with and around each other in my sisters kitchen, cooking, talking, laughing, sharing stories and tips about food, and tasting each others dishes to make sure everything was perfect! We found that even though we all live so far apart from each other, we still had a common thread of cooking and making food just like our mother did. And of course the party was a sucess!
My strongest memories consist of my grandfather gathering shaggy manes off the ditches in remote north-west BC while we were camping, and then frying them up with a little butter, and plenty of garlic and chive for camp appies. Strong earthy flavours that continue to endure and develop further as time goes on….
My favorite food when I was growing up was my grandma’s niffla. It was a German concoction of flour, salt and water. She cooked them in a frying pan with sauerkraut. It was so good. I wish I had paid attention to how to make it.
ENTRIES ARE NOW CLOSED.
Before announcing the winners, some hellos to first-time commenters are in order:
Welcome to Margaret and Tom, Michelle, Ozark Homesteader, Martha, Terry, Mandy, Linda, Mary, Jennifer, Kris, Candace, Claire, Ryan, Eileen, Blythe. Glad to have you with us!
And the winner are…Jennifer King (blueberry picking memories!) and Mary (mashed potatoes!).
I actually think I am the winner because you all entertained and delighted me so deeply with these amazing tales of food memories. Thank you all, as ever.
My favorite memory is my mom’s fried chicken fresh from the cast iron skillet! She skinned it andsoaked overnight in buttermilk! Then this fabulous crispy chicken was served with skillet gravey, mashed potaoes and fresh green beans!
Pinto beans and corn bread on Friday nights. We’d top them with raw onions and ketchup.
I grew up in rural Iowa where fresh food was a way of life. Even things that grew in ditches were fair game. As it just so happened, there was a mulberry tree about 1/4 mile down the road from our farmhouse growing in a ditch. When the berries were ripe, my mom would send us kids (dressed in our oldest clothes… because mulberry stains would not come out no matter how much bleach was used) with buckets in hand to pick berries.
About an hour later, we would make it back to the house. There, mom would empty our buckets into a sink of cold water and give the berries a quick wash. From there she made mulberry jelly, mulberry pies, and if we had enough berries on hand… mulberry ice cream! Mulberries truly are a summertime taste of Iowa.
So nice to hear your story, Gardengal. Thank you.Mulberry ice cream sounds *very* nice. :)