Food for Love and Life
"Yes, this is the best apple pie you've ever had in your life!" Visitor of Toad Hill, 2009
Food, to me, is a major component of family life. It is over the dinner table that my family always connected. When growing up, we always had dinner at the table, no TV or newspaper was allowed, and we talked. This was how I knew my brother's interest in art and philosophy, my father's electron theories and my mother's love of pets and gardening. This was also how I knew my grandmothers, who were not present very often, but their favorite dishes were. My great-grandmother Esther spent all her days cooking, harvested her own garden, made her own bread, gathered her own eggs, made her own butter. My great-grandfather raised the beef and chicken that they ate. These dishes, therefore, paint a tiny picture indicative of my heritage.
I have, of course, gathered and created new recipes, but they all hark back to the farm. My parents were the first generation off the farm and mine is the first generation to return to the farm. It is good to know where our food comes from, to add our own creativity and love, and then to preserve that for the future.
I fear that one day pizza and chicken nuggets may be all our children know. I suppose that those of us who strive to preserve a link to our past may also be extinct some day, replaced by a giant, computerized drive through window. I even think that homes far off in the future may no longer have kitchens the way we know them. I honestly believe this is why the Food Network is so popular: it is our culture's desperate attempt to keep alive all of the variations of individuality and family histories in our cuisine.
Take the time, when you have it, to preserve some of this for yourself. And hopefully, you will find a few things to like here. We love these dishes!!
Printable Recipes!
Here's one for
Previously . . .
Hearty Winter Cassolet
