Summer Week 9

Oh so many, but I think one of my earliest memories is of my grandmother's German scrapple, fried rabbit and Sunday dinners. We didn't get to eat at her house a whole lot cause they lived two hours away but I remember when we did.

I like them separate but do not serve me mint and chocolate together. Somehow my brain has never been able to overcome this combination.

I think the best thing I have made this year is a toss up between barley noodles with Swiss chard or the peach and wild black raspberry skillet pie that I made while on a weekend getaway. I have been trying to perfect my noodle-making skills by adding different grains to the noodles. The biggest surprise was barley flour. It adds so much to the flavor and texture I can't imagine going back to making pasta with just white flour. The skillet pie was a test of resourcefulness, meaning no pie pan, no rolling pin except for a whisky bottle and someone ate half the peaches but luckily I found ripe wild black raspberries. It was fun to make as well as delicious to eat.

When I turned on the heat lamps at the restaurant where I was working on Mother's Day morning. The chef had put all the fondant decorations and decorated cakes underneath them. In my defense, it was the first thing we always did on arrival and the switch for the heat lamps was not near the heat lamps, a wall divided the two. Fortunately the chef blamed himself for putting them there but I still really felt awful.

Collard greens with home cured ham hocks and black skillet cornbread, made with yellow cornmeal and bacon drippings.

No apron until I was looking for clothes to wear for a casual occasion and could not find anything without stains.  So apron.

The scene where Ratatouille names all the kitchen stations and his excitement at the sense of urgency. I felt the same the first night I worked in a restaurant.

Of course someone like Ducasse,  Keller, or Jean-Louis Palladin but in reality the most fulfilling would be to someday cook my daughters' favorite meals for their kids, my grandchildren. 

I like the idea of cooking with others and do pretty well as long as it is not my wife. And we both get that, she is the bartender/ sommelier. And a really good one at that.

Most definitely I clean as I cook.

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• Thirschfeld's Peach & Wild Black Raspberry Skillet Pie and homemade Barley Noodles
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