I know I must have been about 11 when my dad started allowing me in the kitchen to cook with him. I had been cooking or assisting in the church kitchen at least two years when Daddy finally realized that his littlest kid was absolutely familiar with a potato peeler, and she wasn't going to cut her thumbs off with it. He let me peel the potatoes, he let me add the fillers to the meatballs, but other than that I was banned from hanging out around the stove. He felt that it was too dangerous because of my long hair. Oh, wait, here's a thought - - put the hair up and cook! We didn't think that way I guess. I was happy just to be in the kitchen with my Daddy, standing on top of a chair to be able to reach the back of the sink.
When I would go to the local library I would devour the recipe books. I would sit down in the little hall between the TWEEN books and the more mature books and I'd flip through the slick colored pages of the most recent and even the older recipe books, not just the cook books, no, I wanted PICTURES. I like the way the green vegetables popped out on the page, and I loved how they always had a checkered little cloth somewhere in the photo too; makes it feel more like your own home! Everyone had little checkered cloths I suppose. We didn't, but you know, everyone else, those who had money and could afford things like that. They had them. They had the better spoons too, and the platters, and the matching dinnerware. Heck, anyone and everyone other than our family had matching cups and tumblers. We were...well, eclectic I suppose. I never knew we were poor.
When I was in my teens I subscribed to a mail in type club where you'd pay X amount of money each month, maybe under Five Dollars, and they'd send you cards with recipes and pictures of the finished products on the cards! Oh my gosh, can you imagine? You never really knew what they were going to send you. It was a mystery! You had to collect them all, and I think there were 6 in a pack, and they had 10 or 12 categories like :Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Dinners, 30-minute meals, Desserts, Vegetables, and so forth. If you paid for two or three packs when you first got started they threw in a really cool index box with index cards to separate your recipes and keep them all organized. Wow! I was hooked! I remember asking for extra jobs around the neighborhood so I could do that! I babysat, washed cars, took out trash for people, you name it. I wanted the money. Another way we kids picked up a little extra cash back in those days was to go dumpster diving for bottles. I don't know if you're old enough to remember, but we actually got FIVE CENTS per bottle when we took them to the grocery store and proved to the manager that we were the ones bringing the bottles in! Yes, yes, it's true. We did.
I collected my money. I talked my mom into giving me a check and I paid her the money I had. She deposited the money. I had to wait for it to be posted, but she wrote out that beautiful check, and we mailed it off with my paper subscription application. I used my real name, address, and telephone number and everything - - believe it or not, after over 286 years since that day, I still remember my address, and my telephone number. I guess I still remember my name too, but it didn't seem all that nifty to mention that so I didn't. I know exactly who I am. I just have no clue how I got this old or this far from that day.
Years passed, I baked. More years passed. I cooked and I continued to cook for myself, my family, the church, my friends, anyone and everyone who would dare to sit at my table was fed. That practice hasn't ended. The things that have changed about my cooking would be the way I get my recipes maybe. I still use the old (and I do mean OLD) metal pans and pots because there's just too many years of love in them not to use them. I may someday use some of that grease and gunk remover stuff to see if underneath all that love I could find stainless steel again. It could happen. I'll blog about it if I do. I don't know that I would ever disrespect my pans to remove the love, but I may do it out of curiosity. I have my Granny's big fat crock mixing bowl that barely fits inside the cabinet. It's a honker, let me tell you, but she had a brood to cook for. I don't know exactly how I ended up with it, I may have just snuck it out the door one day - - seems likely. It's been too long ago. She went to see Jesus in 1993.
Today, I go to Pinterest for my food decisions. I look up a thing or two, I pretend I know what I'm doing and I get all the ingredients I think I'll need to fake my way through the process of making something that remotely resembles or could be mistaken for what I saw online. I'm not saying I'm a gourmet, OK, I'm just saying I do OK. I've earned the right to brag a little, so I do. Today, (again with the word "Today", you'd think an English professor could fix that...) Today, I made an Italian Cream Cake with a French vanilla mix, extra eggs, butter, cream cheese, coconut, pecans, and cranberries. Let me tell you - - yes. It came out exactly the way I wanted it to, and my daughter raved!! That's all I need really, just a rave or two. One rave. OK, yeah, one rave and I'm good. After the cake I decided dinner needed to be just as tantalizing, so I went back to Pinterest and found Alfredo meatballs, creamy parmesan mushrooms, hickory bacon wrapped asparagus and for grins and giggles I added cumin, garlic, minced onions and basil to the meatballs; because I can. I'll post a pic on IG.
Anyway, that's my deal now. I'm happy to oblige just about anyone I love if they call me up and ask for something special. It could happen. I mean, I'll need a minute to go to the store, get the stuff and make it, but you can just rest easy and know I'll take care of you - - if I love you. Please don't write to me and ask me to cook for you; no, don't do that. If I don't know you today, this day, right now, and I don't love you like the Sunshine that I would wrangle for anyone I hold dear, please don't expect me to hoist a finger to drum up something savory for you, but I do appreciate you thinking of me. I do. I post what I cook on Instagram and things I'm going to cook. I have a whole week's worth of ideas waiting on me but I'm still over there searching for something new and juicy. Love the juicy. You gotta love juicy. It's ... you know, really good....it's juicy. Dripping and saturated with goodness. Unless I burn it. Then it's gonna be called something Cajun! (Smiles)
Ohhhh, did you see that? No, you don't see it because you're not here looking at my 2nd monitor. I've got cheese and vegetable hors d' oeuvres with amazing cute tiny stars cut out of different cheeses to be all sparkly and colorful. They've ribboned a thinly sliced cucumber and stuck a toothpick through it to resemble a tree and stuck the star...OMG...on the top! It's gonna happen folks. Christmas is coming, and Ima gonna Pinterest the fool out of this holiday season...yep. Damn...I just saw little reindeer toasts with pretzels for antlers....and half a cherry for a nose. Stop! I can't do this. (She clings to the hazelnut spread and marshmallows for more inspiration.) WHAT? Monster burgers? WHAT?
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