But I Digress....or A Break from the Slow Cooker

I’ve been watching a lot of food tv lately. Chopped All Stars and Top Chef All Stars have captured my attention and my heart. Sadly, they are both over. For now. But I suspect they will be back.

But watching all of these highly trained, very talented chefs compete, cook, and explore their culinary roots has made me question “Why do I cook?”

Beyond the obvious reason of needing to eat, that is. Because if I didn’t want to cook, I really wouldn’t have to. There are plenty of places where I could get prepared meals either already hot and ready for me, or requiring very little other than a pop in the microwave to call them dinner (or breakfast or lunch). And for a while, I did that. It was hard to find time to cook with such a busy life.

Some have said that is the 83-year-old Jewish woman inside me that makes me not only want to cook, but to feed people. Now, I’m neither 83 nor Jewish, but I do love to feed people. I love to make people happy and watch them enjoy something I’ve taken care and love to make for them.

It’s why I’ve made wedding cakes for family and friends. It’s why I used to do a little small-time catering in college. Why I used to make candy at Christmas time and why I still try to give something yummy and homemade for the holidays today.

The next question that begs to be asked is then, “What or who instilled this love in me?”

That’s an easy answer. My parents. My love of food and cooking and baking is ultimately tied up in them. I think one of the reasons I haven’t cooked as much the last few years is because it was hard to cook without thinking of them and I missed them both terribly. As the years go by and the sting of loss dulls, it has been easier to try to be creative in the kitchen again.

Still, many of the things I really love to make are the things I watched them make when I was a child. The crock pot extravaganza is really sort of a tribute to my mom, who was the Queen of the Crock Pot. She made these things called Tijuana Sandwiches. The recipe called for ground beef, refried beans and seasonings. You let it cook for a few hours and right at the end, you add crumbled Fritos. It was so wrong and yet so delicious.

When I cook fried chicken or chicken livers or when I put Tabasco on my eggs or when I cook biscuits and gravy, that’s when I pay tribute to my dad, the King of Skillet Suppers. He taught me how to make milk gravy (for such applications as the fried chicken, sausage gravy for biscuits or the ever popular shit on a shingle) so long ago I don’t measure anything anymore. I can eyeball how much fat, flour and milk need to be combined with the crispy bits in the pan to make nirvana in a skillet.

Pork tenderloin sandwiches? Mom again. She cooked them all the time when we were kids. I remember when the sight of French’s sandwich rolls would make my mouth water because it meant we were having tenderloin sandwiches for dinner.
What makes them so special, you ask? Perhaps it’s that they’re Iowa soul food. A medallion of pork loin pounded very thin, dipped in flour, egg wash and cracker meal, then fried crisp and served with A-1 (and later, American cheese) on a sandwich roll. I’m whimpering a little right now just thinking about it.

When I eat a dill pickle, I long for my dad’s spicy hot dills along with the pickled pearl onions and pickled garlic cloves in the jar. I’m certain I was a stinky child because of it.

I’m sorry, Mom, but you know I never liked your sweet pickles.

But I did admire the work she put into them. And some days I wish I had gotten one of her pickle crocks even though I would never make a 14-day pickle in it. Fourteen days? Yes. Seven days in the brine. Take the plate off the top, scrape off the mold. Rinse the pickles and put them back in the crock with a hot, spiced sugar syrup. Each day for the next seven, drain the syrup off, bring it to the boil and pour it back over the pickles. On the final day, while the syrup heats, put the pickles into pint jars and then ladle the hot syrup into the pickle jars. Apparently, according to the kids from my high school drama picnic, they’re good dipped in cheese whiz.

So along with sharing crock pot recipes, which I know we will all get bored with after so long, I will be sharing food memories as the mood strikes. One thing I learned about people who have a passion for food in the past several weeks, it is a visceral, soul-deep feeling. And the more often you tap into that place when you’re making food, whether it’s for yourself, for your family or for a panel of judges, the better and more satisfying the experience is going to be.

I think the same goes for writing about it.

Thanks for reading, everyone!