Lately, while working on my first cookbook, I’ve been attempting to interpret my life through a recipe- wondering what one meal or ingredient could sum me up. Feeling creatively challenged, or perhaps too proud to be honest, I instead focused on another ingredient- whom I cooked for and why…
Growing up I usually cooked because my mother was too tired or because I wanted to go to the movies and it was her bribery. Even as my mom didn’t know her Hungarian Paprika from her Spanish one, I heard the same thing every day- A womans place was in the home and that, of course, mainly meant the kitchen. At age 8, this was as good of a reason to wish I were a boy as any. How was I meant for a life of slavery over box dinners and canned mushroom soup?
I remember often, being in my grandmother’s kitchens, each so different in their style. While my fathers mother never measured a thing, my mothers mom cooked with the precision of a Parisian Baker. I would stand and watch her while she read, measured and poured her way through the cooking. I once asked her why she still needed to read the instructions when she had made those same dishes so often. And without missing a beat she said she wasnt about to miss a single step in a dish that had happily fed her 9 children, husband and grandchildren all these years. Of course that made sense and yet I also knew she would be a given a spot in heaven for her patience and servitude. Either way, I happily enjoyed her casseroles and congealed fruit salads because it was her way of showing us how much she loved us-
Just as the women in my family have done for generations I too have made it my place to be in the kitchen. This place however, fuels the world – bare feet notwithstanding!
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Recent Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
