Sun 3 May 2009 10:03 pm
My mom took the train up from Delaware to be with me at the James Beard Foundation media awards in New York City tonight. The theme for this year’s Oscars of the culinary world was “Women In Food,” and, for most of us, our mothers are the ones who shape so much of how we think about cooking and eating.
So, I’m making that the theme of a ticket giveaway to a James Beard dinner coming to Seattle on May 14. It’s a “Celebrity Chef Tour” meant to recreate a bit of the experience of dining at the James Beard House, “featuring the greatest culinary artists in major markets across the United States.” Ethan Stowell will cook at the $175-a-plate fundraiser at at the Columbia Tower Club along with the club’s James Hassell, with organizers promising ”an innovative, one-of-a-kind dinner” and wine pairings.
Want to win? Just leave a comment on this post telling us how your own mother influenced the way you eat and cook. I’ll pick two names, using a random number generator, at midnight Seattle time on Friday, May 8, and give each qualifying winner (that is, someone who answered the question, however briefly) a pair of tickets, courtesy of the event organizers. One comment per person, please — but you can always ask the person who would accompany you to leave a comment of his or her own.
Stowell’s many honors include being a repeat finalist in the Beard’s Best Chefs Northwest category — other Northwest chef finalists, with winners to be determined Monday night at Lincoln Center, are Maria Hines, Joseba Jimenez de Jimenez, Cathy Whims (of Portland) and Jason Wilson, with Tom Douglas up for outstanding restaurateur.
Stowell’s plans for the May 14 dinner include serving up geoduck, hamachi crudo (the man knows his way around crudo), ocean trout, and a creme fraiche panna cotta with rhubarb. He’ll trade off courses with Hassell, who will cook up a storm as well. It’s the second time Stowell’s been a celebrity chef for the event, and remembers the first one as exciting and as “a lot of fun” — and he means that. “I like going out and meeting people,” he said, and he likes supporting a good cause.
Tonight, I was honored at the Beards just to be noted in the same category as David Leite and Kathleen Purvis, let alone to win the award. I think I managed to squeak that out from the stage, and to thank all my colleagues from the dearly departed Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper, where the story ran, because it was a team effort, and we were a good team. (Meryl Schenker and John Levesque, are you listening?) And I’m so thankful that, despite all the other deserving people I forgot in that lovely overwhelming moment, I did manage to thank my mother. What she taught me, intentionally or not, was to make good food a natural priority in life, a way to join family and friends together.
Thank you, all of you, for joining me here in that ongoing mission. And tell me: How did your mother influence the way you think about food?
*updated 5/9 to announce our winners: The random number generator at random.org has selected Nancy White (comment left at 1:30 p.m. May 8) and Donna (comment left at 10:06 May 5) as the two winners. Each one will receive a pair of tickets to the event, courtesy of the organizers. Thank you, all of you, for the wonderful posts! This was a great response, and we’ll do more contests in the future.
First of all congratulations!
Then to the topic. You know, I never thought a lot of how my mother influenced my cooking. Now that I do, I realize we actually ended up cooking very similarly despite following different routes. She learned from my grandmother and my grandmother in law. I did not. Her bar was too high and I could not get her to teach me much, to my disappointment. I am Italian and in Italy your mother is supposed to teach you to cook. I set up for college not very well equipped, but freedom made me experiment with pretty much anything I could afford (little) and could find. When I went to live abroad, I force-fed me all sorts of foreign food because I had to know and appreciate. And then I had to learn it all… But then after all this, my mom and I ended up pretty much the same way, even though we start from different ingredients (I have beets, she would never touch them, but she lives in a place with good tomatoes and I live in Seattle) - we both eat whatever our garden produces and exchange tips on how to deal with overproduction (never waste anything), we both bake our bread, we both would never buy a can of jam or eggs at the grocery store, we both have more salad than most people do in a week on a daily basis, and we both find the time to cook and eat meals with the rest of the family every night despite the hectic work schedule we share with everybody else. How did it happen? I guess what you grow up eating and seeing your mom (or dad) do in the kitchen steers your mind in a more powerful way than any recipe or crash course (or the Food Network) ever will.
Congratulations! You so deserved a second Beard Award!
I’m so happy for you, and so glad your mother was there to share it with you.
Congratulations, Rebekah! I’m sure your mom was proud.
My mother influenced the way I think about food by showing me that it was a way to connect to our family’s heritage.
My maternal grandmother grew up with next to nothing in a rural part of Central Florida. Most everything the family ate they had hunted, fished for, or grown on their own land. The “women folk” cooked from dawn ’til dusk together and nearly all of my memories of my grandmother are from being with her and my mother in the kitchen. My grandmother would tell me the tales of our family as she would make buttermilk drop biscuits and chicken and rice. These were stories of people I had never met but were a part of me. I knew it wasn’t just about the food.
My mom still lives in the house where these memories were made. Last Christmas, I took my three-year-old daughter over to “Grammy’s” house to make cookies. As we were mixing the dough, my mom began to tell my daughter about how I used to make dinner with my grandma in this very same kitchen. Without really knowing she was doing it, my mom began to talk about her family and who had taught her to make these cookies, and gave my daughter a sense of connection (whatever that means to a three-year-old) to generations of family she would never meet, through the “simple” act of cooking together.
my mother taught me that the best food is simple and fresh. she didn’t believe in microwaves and always had a garden where she harvested fresh vegetables and herbs to make our meals with. i was lucky and got to enjoy home cooked meals every day growing up.
I unfortunately didn’t grow up cooking with my mother in the kitchen. But I was able to enjoy the well balanced, delicious meals that she was able to provide. And when it came time for me to live on my own, my mother gave me a personal cookbook - a collection of family recipes, childhood favorites, as well as some of her favorites she has collected over the years. I am grateful that today we are able to share in our love of food and cooking. Even though we’re thousands of miles apart.
Congratulations - very deserved and I’m so glad your mom was there to share it with you!
My mom taught me how to cook when I was young, and then gave me dinner responsibility at least once a week from about age 10 on. We ate a lot of spaghetti and meatballs, but it taught me a lot about the joys of cooking. We take pretty different approaches now (her approach is get it done as quickly as possible, while I will happily spend all day cooking if I have the time), but if she hadn’t encouraged me when I was little, I doubt I’d have found my passion as early in life.
Rebekah, congratulations on the award. What a fantastic honor!
You people whose mothers grew up cooking lovely healthy food for you are really lucky. My mom is a terrible cook (and she admits it readily). I grew up on plain fish, sprinkled with paprika and baked; plain chicken breasts, sprinkled with paprika and baked; and frozen mixed vegetables, served steamed plain. We had margarine, not butter, in our house. Never a sauce on anything. Cereal for breakfast. No home-baked cookies. No home-baked anything, in fact (except the paprika-sprinkled protein, noted above).
I think I learned to cook more out of frustration and deprivation than anything else. My mom, even now, hates to cook and rarely does anymore. She does like coming to eat at my house, though!
In my family, it seems that the cooking genes skip a generation. My grandmother was possibly the most influential on me with regards to cooking, but that influence came through my mother. I never really knew my grandmother, as she died when I was 8 and lived across the country. However my mother’s attitude towards food was very simple.
Food is necessary and food really isn’t something worth her time. She is a phenomenal cook, when she wants to be, which is exactly 3 times per year.
She influenced me though, by telling me stories about my grandmother. She’d tell stories about the types of food that my grandmother made, and how my grandmother would shoo her out of the kitchen whenever she tried to help.
These stories taught me a few things. First, food and the preparation of it, is meant to be shared. Second, if I ever have children, I will share my love of cooking with them to break this skip a generation cycle. Third, I can talk to my mother now, about food, in a way that I never could before. I have realized that cooking is not a preclusion for professional success as my mother might have once thought, and I am slowly teaching her that as well.
So really, my mother taught me almost everything I needed to know about why I cook by hardly cooking at all.
Congratulations, Rebekah! You deserved it, and what a nice contest. Even us males learned to love good food from our mothers.
Congratulations(!) for yet another James Beard win. Truly inspiring. My mother’s cooking taught me that a sense of humor, regardles of what you do, goes a long way. Food can, and should be fun.
Congrats on the Beard award!
When I was growing up in Orange County, CA, my mom would only cook Chinese food. She is a great cook, but never even attempted “American” food. Since my mom is from Shanghai and my dad from Hunan. I learned a fair number of noodle and dumpling type dishes, as well as many spicy dishes. I think the most important thing about cooking my mom taught me was the importance of prepping everything beforehand and removing things from the pan only to bring them together in the end to achieve perfect doneness.
Congrats on your award, Rebekah! (I made sure to RT @dailyblender) Way to represent the Northwest!!
My own mother influenced me by always keeping it simple. Growing up in rural Iowa, my grandparents always kept meals simple, and my mother has certainly passed it along. Using fresh ingredients at every meal, sticking to family favorites and wonderful comfort foods, Mom always kept it more about the family gathering and less about frou-frou meal options. To this day, a grilled cheese and tomato soup still reminds me of home. And Mom.
My mom is an awesome cook. Unfortunately, she’s also one of those people who does not make it easy to be in the kitchen with her. She’s a bit of a …shall we say… control freak.
My siblings and I all developed a love for cooking, but none of us learned from her, cook in her style (Vietnamese), or allow her in the kitchen when we are cooking…cuz she makes us crazy.
But we all come running to the table when she busts out the carmelized pork.
I hate to say that my Mom was a terrible cook. However, we grew up on an orchard and always had our own vegetable gardens and from this she taught me how to be self reliant, preserve the food (canning), and to have an eye for fresh food.
On the flip side, my mother was a great baker. We always had fresh biscuits and pies and cobblers made from the fruits of the orchard. I think that is why I still have a sweet tooth to this day…
Congratulations, Rebekah! I was raised by my grandma, who immigrated from the Philippines right after World War II. She taught me the traditional dishes of my heritage while cultivating a curiousity and appreciation for different cultures’ cuisines. At six, she began teaching me how to cook dishes like chicken adobo, lumpia and pancit, which I’ve adapted over the years (much to the delight of my friends). At the same time, she was a devoted watcher of Julia Child and we’d watch her show religiously. Each month, grandma would embark on a new culinary adventure, buying ingredients and cooking dishes we’d probably never be exposed to. She is my culinary inspiration and her spirit lives on in my heart and my kitchen.
Congratulations, Rebekah!
My mother was a horrible cook. She tried, she really did. When she died 10 years ago, my mom left behind more than 200 cookbooks — mostly Southern Living hardbacks and those spiral bound church cookbooks with recipes swiped from chocolate chip packages. Despite all the cookbooks, and a sporadic interest in trying new dishes, my mother was like most homemakers in the 1970s and 80s. She cooked out of a box.
Because of that, my mother didn’t have too much ownership of her kitchen. She let me run wild. My attempts weren’t always successful. I remember the valuable lesson of using a glass bowl to cook cornmeal mush on the stove. It explodes. All over the place.
Like a lot of people who didn’t grow up among foodies, I’ve taught myself to cook using cookbooks by Julia Child, Alice Waters and even Better Homes & Gardens.
So, no, we don’t have a great food tradition in our family that stretches back several generations. But I’m starting one now and turning my own kids loose in the kitchen, no matter how messy it gets. The one food thing I learned from my mom is: Try anything at least once.
Congratulations, Rebekah! That is a great honor.
My dad was the ‘dangerous’ cook in the house, and I always thought the bigger influence, particularly in the cretivity arena. But I have recently realized that my mom was the cooking anchor of the house. She did the consistent food that became traditions. She taught me the pride of making something from scratch even if you could buy it (lemon curd springs to mind) or the joy of bringing ingredients from your backyard to the table. And mostly she was the center of family gatherings, teaching us that food brings people together, and that is the most important part of cooking.
That said - pick me! I would love to join you next week!
My mother carried family recipes (mostly baking) through generations. My great-grandmother was famous for pie, and her mother was known for cheesecake. My mom made sure these recipes survived time and has passed them to my wife and sister-in-laws.
My mother taught me that food is love - caring, nurturing, and delicious. You not only feed the stomach, but the soul with a good meal.
My mother was (and still is) a horrible cook. She rarely actually “cooked,” unless you call a jar of spaghetti sauce and pasta cooking. She taught me by inverse example, and I now cook almost wholly from scratch. My dad was a more competent cook (poached salmon!), yet did not cook very often; he did try gardening, however, yet. Again, the example is by opposites, and we (my wife takes the lead) eat from the garden more often than not. If my mother did convey a message it was a common-sense, Jane Brody-esque one about balanced, low fat/sugar diets. The “balance” part stuck, if not the draconian aversion to sugar (to be fair, my dad had diabetes). Not too rag, though: teaching by opposites can work just as well as the ‘nana in the kitchen method,” and my mother did leave me with much creative leeway to create fresh culinary traditions for my own family.
My mom learned to cook after she got married, by following recipes. She was open to trying most cuisines and I took leftover beef teriyaki sticks for lunch as often as tuna sandwiches. She mentioned for years wanting an old James Beard cookbook - The Fireside Cook Book. I found a very used copy in 1978, 1949 edition, which I later inherited. Not something I cook from, but a sweet memory. Full circle if we could attend a Beard dinner.
Congratulations, Rebekah! Okay, so you get to keep all the prize money, right?
My mother definitely influenced my cooking–I don’t! Cook, that is. Although my mother can cook well, she hates it, and always hated it. But when you have a husband and three kids to feed–basically four kids–you don’t have much choice. She complained constantly about cooking, even as she cranked out nutritious and sometimes delicious meals.
But I proudly carried forth the legacy of her culinary distaste by flunking junior-high Home Ec (a semester of cooking, and a semester of sewing to boot!) and by never learning how to produce a good meal. After I got married, I tried briefly to cook. I developed an interest and dove enthusiastically into cookbooks. Finally, delicately, my husband begged me to stop. He’s been the cook in our family ever since.
Congratulations Rebekah!
My mother was (and, at 86, still is) a fabulous cook. She instilled in all seven of us kids growing up the importance of healthful, whole foods creatively prepared, followed by scrumptious baked desserts that left us cooing in delight between mouthfuls.
As a teenager in the kitchen, I bonded with my mom over desserts. Usually pies we’d make together out of her stained and tattered Fannie Farmer cookbook — banana cream pie, strawberry rhubarb pie, chocolate meringue pie.
In February I flew home to Texas to visit her on her 86th birthday and brought a recipe I thought we could make together: pumpkin cheesecake with bourbon sour cream topping out of Ruth Reichl’s The Gourmet Cookbook.
We divided our duties. However, I soon realized that while I was huddled over the recipe, carefully measuring out each ingredient, my mom had finished her part way ahead of me — measuring solely by eyesight and the expertise that comes with a lifetime of baking and cooking. The cheesecake was the best one yet I (we)ever made, and I’m pretty sure it was because of the “more than the recipe called for” bourbon my mom poured in when I wasn’t looking…
I learned to cook from both my parents.
Baking and learning to follow recipes from my Mother. My Father hardly ever looked at a recipe, but always had some unusual “item” simmering away.
I do most the cooking in my family today, and wouldnt want it any other way.
Bon Apetit everyone!!
Some of my earliest memories involve standing on a stool in the kitchen, “helping” my mother roll out pie crusts for her famous lemon meringue, pumpkin, and strawberry yogurt pies. When the crusts had been shaped in the pie tin, she always gave me the leftover scraps of dough to roll out again and cut into miniature animal shapes, which we’d sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and make into cookies. My mother taught me the value of creatively using leftovers, a skill I try to utilize every time I cook.
I would spend hours poring through her recipe books, massive binders chock full of worn, stained copies of recipes she’d found in magazines, photo copies from books, or hand written after trying them at a friend’s house. To this day, I am a compulsive recipe clipper and horder, even if I do, like my mother, rely on a handful of trusty standbys for most of my cooking.
My Mother was a working mother so she taught me the basics of cooking early so that I would be able to make dinner for everyone. A good skill to have. On the weekends however, my parents loved to cook and hold dinner parties and included us in the events. So we learned how to appreciate good food and a wide range of ethnic foods. We were encouraged to experiment with food and were also taken berry picking and corn picking - and as such established a respect for local farm produce. However, the words I live by the most in the kitchen come from a story from my Grandmother about my Father - whom she discovered had made bananna bread by him self at the age of 7. When asked how he replied - if you can read - you can cook.
Mom was such a typical baby-boomer chef. Frozen and canned veggies and uninspiring Joy of Cooking recipes. Add to the mix that she only ate cheese if it was on pizza, all meats were cooked to well-done, and ketchup was a staple for most meals, you’d think I was doomed.
I guess my rebellion against this food was to become a chef. Because of the foods I ate as a youth, I now choose to work only with the freshest and best ingredients available. I’ve read hundreds of cookbooks and worked for some great chefs to develop my palate.
When my mom visits, I still cook for her what she likes - although more recently she’s enjoyed some local artisinal cheeses.
My mother is a wonderful cook,although having to feed 4 children every day certainly took some of the joy out of it for her. She gave me the single best piece of cooking advice I’ve ever gotten from anyone: always add a little extra of everything. These days she’s more devoted to exploring great restaurants than to cooking wonderful food herself, but it still gives us a lot to talk about.
Congratulations! Good to see nice girls finish first. Hope you’re enjoying New York :-)
My Mom’s culinary influence on me can be summed up in two words:
Rhubarb pie.
My mother was from a big Southern family, country all the way. Cooking and baking are part of how the women in my family define ourselves–whatever else we’ve accomplished, one measure of our success in life is what fabulous things we put on the table. My mother was a magnificent baker, and her pie crusts were the best in the world (no, REALLY!) It’s been my lifelong quest to make pies as good as hers. I have to work a whole lot harder at it–hers seemed almost as effortless as they were divine–but I’m proud to say I’m getting there! My mother inspires me to serve my love to the people I care about, just like she did.
Excellent news to hear that you won! Congrats!
I mostly baked with my mother when I was young–crisps, the best granola I’ve ever eaten (which I cannot reproduce), blueberry buckle. It wasn’t until fairly recently that she began sending me recipes for non-sweets. She has developed a good eye for simple, healthful meals that are feasible to make on a weeknight.
I grew up in Brasil, where upper middle class families had multiple maids. But Sundays were the maids’ day off, so my mother would always prepare roasted chicken, and pasta with tomato sauce. She’d shop for the sauce tomatoes earlier in the week, choosing ones that would be perfectly ripe by Sunday. She’d get up early and start the sauce, using the recipe she’d learned from her mother, who was born in Italy. I’d wake up every Sunday morning to the smell of her sauce cooking. I’m not much of a cook myself, but I always feel connected to her when I make tomato sauce.
Congratulations, Rebekah! That’s great news!
My mother taught me to love simple food, just a few ingredients combined in ways that don’t necessarily require a cookbook. Some of our family favorites were fresh foods, with a simple sauce that would bring out their natural flavors. I still prefer to cook this way; although I DO enjoy more complex foods prepared by others!
My mom is a dietician, and family lore has it that when I was a toddler I would ask for “a protein” as a snack. Needless to say, my mom has a great appreciation for food, and an amazing amount of self control. She set, and continues to set, a great example and still fixes healthy meals.
Fried chicken, corn on the cob and tomatoes from the garden, my sisters and I pressed into service churning a dessert of vanilla ice cream in an ancient ice cream maker. A summer Sunday meal from mom’s kitchen. When fall brought with it memories of the carnival celebrations of her youth, she made us crostoli, little twists of sweet, fried dough,dusted with powdered sugar. On our birthdays we could choose a special meal, how lovingly she indulged us our whims, cherries jubilee, elaborate fondues,cakes bedecked with flowers, cream puffs made from scratch. My mother, who saw the preparation of food not as a chore but as an act of love, left to me and my sisters the gift of keen appreciation for the importance of food, of cooking and eating well.
I came home from a friends house, when I was about 10 years old, and told my Mom about eating Spam for lunch at that friends house. My Mom just said, ‘oh - you really don’t want to eat that.’ Words to live by.
Congratulations on your award! My mother was an adventurous cook. I remember Peking ducks hanging over our washer and dryer, her attempt at hasspfeffer that smelled up the house for a week, but mostly I loved that we always got to design and help make our birthday cakes. I have always loved having a homemade birthday cake and cake baking is my favorite thing to do to this day.
My approach on eating and cooking is pretty equally influenced by both parents, but my mom is the one who put me on a stool (aged three) and handed me a bowl of mushrooms to wash, the one who helped me mix up brownies and tunnel-of-fudge bundt cakes from box mixes (aged eight) and who taught me to cook by having me do something (chop scallions, make scrambled eggs with tomatoes, roast a chicken) without telling me how, and then telling me what I did wrong as we were eating dinner. (My father also joined in on the critiques, but this is not about him). She is an adventurous eater, ordering half the menu just so we can try as much as possible, always eager to try a new restaurant. As a child, I always had to taste everything, even if I didn’t like it, but if I wanted dessert, I had to finish whatever was on my plate. I think - or hope - that I have inherited her taste, and her curiosity.
I’m not sure exactly how I’ve been influenced by my mom, but there’s something there…
There are somethings that she used to make that I believed caused me to unfairly dislike certain foods. Asapargus, Broccoli, Spinach.
On the other hand, there are somethings that I try to emulate exactly. Slightly lumpy mashed potatoes and cream stew come immediately to mind.
First of all, Mazel Tov on your Second Beard Award! And as a doting mother, I’ll tell you that I wasn’t at all surprised… There wasn’t a cooking Mom in my life, but plenty of ‘Aunts’ to influence the way I think about food. The food of my youth that has come to be elevated to the status of ‘comfort food’ was, to my ‘Aunts’, ‘Peasant Food’ for which no recipes existed. For this, I am thankful. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to spend time in the kitchen with some really terrific women who influenced me in so many more ways than just the way I think about food.
Congrats!
My mother shows her love in many ways, but mostly by feeding us healthy and delicious food…constantly. As children, my siblings and I were spoiled by the bounty of home prepared food stocked in the fridge and meals on demand cooked by mom. My brother figured out that refusing to eat was the only way to really protest against her. Even now as adults, she always has a week’s worth of food packed up for us to take home. Then and now, her philosophy is that there should always be a bounty of fresh food in arm’s reach, but that overeating was terribly unhealthy. With this constant stock of food, friends and family knew that they could not leave my mother’s home without eating something first. My approach to food is heavily influenced by my mom. I, too, find healthy food delicious, I always cook more than enough, and my partner and I rely on friends and family to share meals with us. Thanks Mom!
Congratulations on your win at the James Beard award. I have enjoyed your column for years!
My mom always said she made “hearty peasant food.” That comment embarrassed me when I was a kid but now I realize what she meant. Mom made non-fussy, healthy food. It was pretty tasty, too. She had 5 kids, a big house and a husband to take care of. I have only 1 kid and a husband but I also work full time so I’m just as busy. It isn’t easy to take the time to make dinner but I know its importance. Not just for nutrition and taste but a chance for the family to sit together, talk and enjoy each other at the end of the day. Mom made us sit at the table when we were done eating to have “light conversation.” I don’t go THAT far but again, now I see what she meant. Mom is gone now. I wish every day she could see my daughter grow up but even though she’s not here, her legacy lives on in all kinds of ways.
Mom taught me my love of good bread, many varieties of which she made herself. Sourdough of many varieties, and she extended her sourdough prowress to pancakes and chocolate cake too. I’m finally making my own bread - not bread machine - and felt great giving her the recipe!
She also was a very adventurous cook for her time, introducing our family to Indian curries when we had no examples to emulate, making granola, eggplant parmesan, homemade pizza (before pizza was an American staple). Food continues to be practically the most important thing in her life. If she tells you of an event she attended, you can bet she will mention what kind of food she had there! Often this is true of events 20, 30, even 40 or 50 years ago. You go, Mom. Thanks.
My mother taught me that every meal doesn’t have to be a big fancy production. She is a very good cook, but did not shy away from shortcuts and frozen vegetables if the alternative was nothing for dinner. My mom wasn’t terrible inventive in the kitchen, but she enjoyed trying to new recipes and gave me appreciation for trying new things. She also taught me the value of food traditions. I’m a much more creative cook and depend more on cookbooks and fresh vegetables than she ever has, but I still return to a few of the old favorites. Surprisingly (or not) I get more compliments for mom’s recipes than just about anything I invent in my kitchen. My mom also gave me an appreciation of great kitchen gadgets, most of which she purchased and gave me as gifts. Thanks mom!
I can say that my mother, while not a prolific or adventurous cook, always cares about what she eats and what she makes. That influence has led me to always be aware of what I am eating, what the ingredients are, and how they might affect my health.
Congrats on the JBA! As for my mom, I think if anything she taught me simple is best. When she stir fried, it was a little salt, pepper, tiny amount of soy sauce, and sesame oil. We should be able to taste our food, not drown it.
My mother is still the greatest cook I know. She is always trying new recipes but has a fantastic repitoire of go to dishes. She makes the best carrot cake and fried chicken I have ever eaten. I am glad that her love of cooking has inspired me to cook for my friends and family!
Congratulations on your Beard award! My mother made me realize that food could be good if you only took a few minutes to think about and plan the meal. She wasn’t much of a cook but she always encouraged me to explore cooking. I’m much better for it!
My mom grew her own vegetable and cooked every meal from scratch, so I come from the “food pyramid” school of dining. Veggies, protein, starch at every meal, and all eaten with the family at the table. Fantastic memories, and a good foundation for life.
Later this month my mom and I are featured in First for Women magazine regarding a recipe we both make for taco soup. We always call each other when we make it, and it makes us seem not so far away. (she is in New Mexico and I’m in Seattle)
Without either of us knowing it, my mother taught me how to measure ingredients with my senses.