Growing up, daily dinner consisted of meat and potatoes. Mashed potatoes...lots and lots of mashed potatoes. I loved making a perfect little pool in my potatoes with the back of a gravy spoon to fill with savory brown sauce. The brown sauce was made from the drippings of a roast. I loved watching my mother make gravy. She always used the same small silver bowl to make a slurry. Of course she had no idea she was making a slurry... she was just combining flour and water... learned from her mother. I would help my mom in the kitchen as often as I could. I wonder how many potatoes I peeled over the years. My mother would boil the heck out of those spuds. The pot would be spouting the starchy water all over the glass stove. Cleanup wasn’t quick.
I grew up in an Irish-American family. My mother had 2 cookbooks. One was boring and the other one was even more boring. I collect cookbooks as a hobby. I just counted my collection...113. I look through them often but never really follow recipes... I get ideas and then do my own thing.
I started really cooking when I was about 12. My mother returned to working full time so I would have to start dinner after school. I didn’t have access to many spices in our pantry and zero fresh herbs. Salt, pepper and the old bottle of poultry seasoning used on Thanksgiving only. I had to be real creative. We never had rice-mom didn’t like rice. We had pasta maybe one a month. A fine red sauce made from cans of Hunts products. I’m not putting my mom down, she just cooked how she learned. I remember always wanting to make fried chicken for my family. I knew I needed flour, egg and breadcrumbs. I would coat the chicken, but when I fried it the coating never stuck. The internet would have come in handy back then...why wouldn’t the coating stick?? It turns out my breading process was wrong. It goes dry-wet-dry, so flour-egg-breadcrumbs. I was doing wet-dry-dry. The flour acts as a glue when combined with egg. It doesn’t work with egg first. I don’t remember how I found out the correct process, maybe one of those 2 cookbooks in the back of the closet.
I started really cooking when I was about 12. My mother returned to working full time so I would have to start dinner after school. I didn’t have access to many spices in our pantry and zero fresh herbs. Salt, pepper and the old bottle of poultry seasoning used on Thanksgiving only. I had to be real creative. We never had rice-mom didn’t like rice. We had pasta maybe one a month. A fine red sauce made from cans of Hunts products. I’m not putting my mom down, she just cooked how she learned. I remember always wanting to make fried chicken for my family. I knew I needed flour, egg and breadcrumbs. I would coat the chicken, but when I fried it the coating never stuck. The internet would have come in handy back then...why wouldn’t the coating stick?? It turns out my breading process was wrong. It goes dry-wet-dry, so flour-egg-breadcrumbs. I was doing wet-dry-dry. The flour acts as a glue when combined with egg. It doesn’t work with egg first. I don’t remember how I found out the correct process, maybe one of those 2 cookbooks in the back of the closet.
Even though our cuisine wasn’t white table worthy, dinners growing up were the best part of my day. Family time. The most important ingredient my mom taught me to use was LOVE. She did that by example. Thanks Mom.
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