My Cooking Life
The first thing I ever cooked was a fried egg. I cracked the egg and put it in a frying pan smeared with melted butter. Mom and dad cooked in the kitchen. I saw how they cooked eggs and copied them. One morning I did it on my own. I was 8. Also I could shake cereal into a bowl, slice a yellow banana and pour creamy milk in and eat it.
Mother and Grandma Cromey did the dinner cooking. Dad, brother Edwin and I joined in for dinner. I learned to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread to take to the beach in summer. In high school, camp, and college I ate institutional food paying little attention to what went onto my plate or into my mouth, so long that it was plentiful. I liked to eat and ate mountains of food as a teen.
When Lillian and I married in 1952, she cooked and I washed dishes. She was a good conventional cook. Meat, potatoes, frozen or canned vegetables and puddings or jello for dessert. She made a really wonderful beef stew with potatoes and orange carrots. She did all the cooking for us and our three daughters. Attention to fresh foods, French, Italian and California cuisines were not popular or fashionable yet.
I was a divorced bachelor from 1970 to 1983 and continued to cook for myself, my daughters when they visited. I dated a number of women and I cooked for them.
Judith Ets-Hokin came into my life and I learned from her about fresh replacing the canned and frozen vegetables I was using. She showed me how cooking fresh asparagus and broccoli was just as easy as opening a can or frozen packaged vegetables.Steaming vegetables seems like the healthiest way to cook them. I replaced steak and chops almost every day with chicken and fish. She made zucchini flowers for me and other unusual foods. Sometime I just watched her cook in my home or hers and learned about chopping, slicing and dicing.
She also invited me to dinner parities where soup, salad, main course and dessert were served preceded by cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Well prepared and elegant food was a natural part of her life. She went on to teach cooking classes, write cook books and even selling cookwares. I learned to appreciate good food and cooking just hanging around with her. The fact that we were ardent lovers did not hurt my attention to her fine cooking. I even attended one of her cooking classes where we learned to cook a veal ragout.
In 1983, Ann and I married. Early on I discovered she was a fine imaginative cook. She is a slow and patient cook turning out fine meals. She worked full time as a high school English teacher. After a long day teaching, she took her time preparing meals. I wanted to eat earlier. We decided together that I would do the shopping and cooking as my schedule give me more time to do those chores. The fact that she was a wonderful lover made the transition smooth.
Ann was careful about what she ate as she wanted to remain slim and healthy. I quickly adapted her preferred way of eating. We eat mostly chicken and fish, lots of grains, vegetables, salads and fruit. We eat lamb, an occasional steak or sausage. We also enjoy frozen Indian dinners. We sometimes send out for Chinese, Thai food and a pizza.
We used to entertain a lot with other couples or single friends and family. In recent years we usually order meals to be sent in when we entertain.
I love to read recipes printed in on line, newspapers and magazines. Some guys read the sport’s pages, I read the food section.
Cook books I find useful are Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, Julia Child’s The Way to Cook, Diana Henry’s A Bird in the Hand, Mollie Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook, Jack Bishop’s Vegetables Every Day. Judy Wardell’s Thin Within taught us to eat until we are just satisfied. Sadly, we generally eat until just stuffed. We have an array of other cookbooks we dip into regularly.
There was a time when I cooked using Rummertopf Clay Pots. They cooked whole chickens, leg of lamb Calypso and corned beef and cabbage beautifully. They were heavy and too hot to handle as I aged.
My meals have become simpler and easier to put together. I like chicken that has been in a marinade and then sautéed, a vegetable and rice or a roasted yam. Marinaded lamb chops are delicious, pasta with smoked salmon, garlic, olive oil, lemon and capers is a favourite. Pasta pesto is an easy one.
Asparagus, broccoli, snow peas, beets, and green string-beans are among our favourite vegetables.
I like to make soups. Borscht, vegetable and chicken and mushroom barley are on the list. Desserts now included strawberries, papaya, blueberries and of course my favourite, ice cream. We are not wild about cake but I do love apple pie. Strawberry shortcake with whipped cream is my absolute favourite.
I like cooking because it has a beginning, middle and end. As a pastor and therapist helping people and their problems often leave loose ends and incomplete results. Cooking calls for concentration, enjoyment and a good taste in the mouth and tummy when it is complete.
