Sunday, November 20th

Not every Sunday has to consist of following other people’s recipes and spending hours executing directions. In fact, some of the best time spent with my family doesn’t include instructions or guidelines of any type. The best kind of dinner is one spent outside on the back patio, surrounded by my grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, and cousins. Together, we all enjoy the last of the warm evenings until winter makes it too cold to play and eat outside.
It seems as though in my family, hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill are always the food to fall back on when nobody feels like cooking anything else. That’s not to say that they are any less delicious than a fancy meal, because they aren’t; they are staples of carefree evenings spent leisurely sitting outside and laughing with family. This Sunday, my mom cooked her famous baked beans which include an entire pound of ground beef, a cup of bourbon, and maple syrup. My little sister has been working on her Deviled eggs recipe for quite some time now, and you could really tell that it was finally coming together. After the men pull the meat off of the grill, we all gather together at the rod iron tables to enjoy our simple Sunday meal together, and trust me, it’s just as memorable as the rest.

Battle of the Dips

So my stepdad, Rich, makes the best dip known to man. In fact, its so
good that it stirs within people their deepest and darkest desire to
“out-do” Rich’s dip. It makes the people who eat it so upset that they themselves
haven’t created something of such magnitude that they willingly
put their credibility on the line to compete against the “Famous
Cordery Dip”. The ingredients (or at least the ones that I guess,
since the recipe is a long-lasting family secret) are not even
complicated: its perfect blend of smoothness without being too
creamy is a result of milk and cream cheese, there is plenty of
green onion for color, and definitely a few pinches of salt.
Other than that, the ingredients mix into the oblivion of
deliciousness. Such simplicity drives people absolutely mad,
but for the rest of us, we happily enjoy eating it.

So anyway, my uncle decides that he will compete against Rich’s
“Famous Cordery Dip”. For days the family received harassing mass
text messages that said something like “be prepared for the
ultimate takedown of the FCD!” It became a huge production,
and everyone became anxious for the competition. My uncle arrived
with his version of the FCD, and after setting it beside Rich’s,
peeled back the aluminum to reveal what he believed to be the new
famous family dip. A family friend was blindfolded, handed a Bugle
heavy with each kind of dip, and voted for their favorite. The new
dip received a high score, but the FCD remains sturdily maintaining
its place as the family’s favorite.

Sunday, October 2nd.

     So this Sunday was a bit different than the last-
I wouldn’t exactly say any of the cooking was “smooth sailing”, and we were
all pretty much exhausted by the time four o’clock rolled around. At least
I can say that the good thing was was that there was only one recipe to be
followed, and now that its committed to memory, it will be that much easier
next time. Although it was a long, hot day spent over the stove, it was all
worth it.
     There has always been a thing in my family about
the biscuits: mom gets them frozen because she gave up on her homemade ones
a long time ago, and mine typically fall flat and taste like hard dog
biscuits. But my brother, on the other hand, learned from the master himself–
Jack Fincher. Our next door neighbor, Jack, has always had the most chemically
balanced, perfectly crispy and fluffy (all at the same time) biscuit recipe.
As he is a local pharmacist in town, he has had many years to perfect his
process, and that is obvious in the product of his scientific method. He
taught my brother to make them just the way he does, which is something
that my mom and I have both been a tad touchy about. We aren’t touchy
because he taught my brother, but that my brother can do such a good job
making them. So on an occasion such as this, Mom and I have to call in
the big man himself.
     All of that went alright, but then Mom started
making her pie crust that she raves about every time someone says they’re
going to make a pie. “Jaynie!” she says, “you have to watch me. You’re
going to die when you try this crust!” She was totally wrong. Almost to
the brink of tears, she remade the pie crust twice with no success. I’m
still not really sure if we know what went wrong, but it took a good two
hours for us to finally give up and go to the store for a ready- made one.
Despite the store- bought crust, you could still taste all of the love in
our apple pie. It was served for desert with a large scoop of French vanilla
ice cream.
     I don’t mean to brag, but my fried chicken is seriously
delicious. It’s the only recipe that I’ve ever made my own and perfected.
Jack Fincher taught me that the most important part of making good fried
chicken is to let it brine over night (brine means to let it soak in salt water).
This way, the chicken is tender after it’s fried, instead of the tough, dry meat
you can get sometimes especially after a lot of cooking. So in a plastic bag,
I season my flour with whatever I decide that I like, which usually includes a
bit of cayenne pepper. There is a secret ingredient, too, that makes for the
crispiest and lightest breading, and it’s a pinch of baking soda in the flour.
After I’ve done that, I beat together a few eggs and some buttermilk, and if
you’re feeling crazy, add a bit of beer. You can even use the beer that you
found lying around the house from last night and skip the buttermilk if you’re
not in the mood to go to the store.
     Mom and I had two iron skillets going at once. This way,
you don’t get stuck frying chicken for days! Typically, using just regular
lard is the best way to fry chicken, but ours was a vegetable based Crisco.
If you notice that the outside of the chicken is cooking faster than the
inside, turn down the heat and cover the pan with whatever lid you have lying
around, or even a cookie sheet. It helps with the splattering and with thorough
cooking.
     From the left over grease, I made my rue and cooked
it until it was ready for milk. Whisking constantly for nearly five minutes,
our Sunday night meal was coming closer to being ready for the table. The only
thing was, after cooking for such a long time and using the rest of our energy
singing Natalie Cole, we were almost too tired to eat.

Jack's here!

Ready for the oven!

After soaking in sugar for a few hours, the apples are covered in a syrup and ready to be put in the pie, except the pie is not ready for them!...

Rolling out the pie crust. Attempt 1.

Attempt 1 failed, and a dry and brittle crust resulted.

Don't be disheartened, Mom!

Three hours in, and I'm totally exhausted!

The end result is a beautiful pie! Mom always draws an apple tree on the top crust.

"Ricing" the sweet potatoes.

Ready for the chicken!

After double breading, the chicken goes in to the lard.

The breading is cooking faster than the chicken itself, so we cover it and lower the heat!

Once the chicken is done, flour is added to the hot grease to make a rue. This is the beginning of my magical gravy.

Whisk, whisk, whisk!

Dinner is served!

Moosewood Collective

     So my mom isn’t a vegetarian, but Moosewood Restaurant’s collection
of recipes is one of her favorites to cook from. As the pages splattered
with old, unknown ingredients and yellowed post-it notes from the people
she has lent it to expressing their love for the recipes prove, its been
one of the more active books from the shelf. Lovingly, she opened it to her
favorite recipe, grabbed my hand and took me to the patio to sit and contemplate
our grocery list.
     Between frustrating me with her crossword puzzle clues and sipping
our glasses of wine, she reminisced of her old garden in Atlanta: acres
of zucchini, squash, tomatoes, and okra filled her summer days with the
joy of growing her own food and old fashioned, hard labor. This is why
she loved the Moosewood recipe book, for her own vegetables starred in
their appearance at the dinner table. Tonight, although they aren’t home-
grown, they once again take the stage in her favorite recipe: Zucchini- Feta
Casserole.
     The first step to cooking with my mom is to turn on Barbra Streisand, and
once that’s done, we put on our aprons and begin with cooking the bulgar and
slicing the vegetables. Of course there is always lots of dancing involved once
the vegetables are sautéing in the skillet. The onions were sautéed with garlic
first until their original whiteness became translucent and then the zucchini was
added. Sprinkled with fresh basil and thyme, the symphony of popping garlic and
sizzling vegetables only complimented Barbra in the background (and my mom’s
singing). The cheeses were mixed separately and added to the beaten eggs; tom-
ato paste, fresh parsley, and soy sauce were added to the bulgar and then all com-
bined. The ingredients were layered in the casserole dish and topped with cheddar
cheese and sliced tomato.
     Once the casserole was ready to be put in the oven, we finished
cooking the Jewish honey bread called lekach. It was very dry and nutty,
and the “shmear” of cream cheese the recipe book suggested didn’t help
its heaviness. The rest of it is still sitting in my fridge and probably won’t be
revisited.
     After an hour or so of dancing and a few hands of our favorite card game
were played, dinner was served. Accompanied with a bottle of crisp French wine,
the casserole was as perfectly delicious as it had been since 1994.

Cooking the bulgar

Caught!

The lekach with its unhelpful "schmear" of cream cheese

Picking fresh herbs from the herb garden

basil and thyme

casserole complete!

dinner is served!