Food Seasons...and other Crazy Concepts

As the heat and humidity of summer melts into the cool crispness of autumn, I look forward to the comfort food that comes with the cooler weather. While the bounty of summer and its sweet corn, juicy tomatoes, and bounty of produce grown virtually in our own backyard is a constant culinary inspiration, by September I am ready for cool evenings, sweaters, football, and fall foods. Winter squashes, oysters, soups and stews, and gingerbread have their own charms on cool evenings, and crockpot cooking becomes the norm in our house at least once a week once the nighttime temps are in the 50s.

Which brings me to a discussion my husband and I have every once in awhile when I suggest something for dinner that he says is "Fall food" in the summer, or "Summer food" in the winter. He has a very rigid way of categorizing foods based on when he feels they are best eaten. For example, taco salad is a "summer food" while any kind of pot pie is a "winter food". Roast turkey is a winter food, but roast chicken can be eaten year-round. His categories go beyond the logical, natural seasons of food, and don't always make sense to me, but apparently he is not alone. I have spoken to some other home cooks who also categorize foods this way and they have their own lists of what constitutes seasonal dishes. Here are some of our seasonal foods (according to Gavin), and please share with me how you approach the change of seasons- does it change the type of foods you plan?

"Spring/Summer foods"

Gazpacho (this makes sense to me!)

Taco Salad

Barbecue chicken

Italian Sausage (Kielbasa,however, is a "fall food" in case you were wondering)

Pork butt (picnic)

Ribs (babyback, but short ribs are a fall/winter food)

Lemon meringue or key lime pie

"Fall/Winter Foods"

Roast turkey

Leg of lamb

Any soup except gazpacho

Pasta Fagioli

Chili (any kind)

Pot pie

Squash (except zucchini which is a summer food)

Any stew

Gingerbread

Competition Kitchen (or NFL for cooks!)

Summer's here and along with barbecue, and Dave Lebovitz's ice cream, it is time for competition in the kitchen. Whether you like the urbane Top Chef, the commercial The Next Food Network Star, or the R-rated Hell's Kitchen, this is like the NFL playoffs for foodies! And I have to say that I like them all (If I watch them all, I'll have no time to cook...) At least if we have to be subjected to reality TV, it is great that some of it takes place where a lot of our reality happens... in the kitchen!

Since Top Chef comes on at 10 PM, I rarely get to see it, but I take advantage of the weekend marathons while I am cleaning up or folding laundry (or blogging).This is actually one cooking competition show where home cooks can learn something and get ideas. I love the approach to cooking competition on this show, because it is meant as a growth opportunity for the contestants as they are weeded out and most of the drama comes from the challenges, not from back-biting (though there is some of that) or histrionics. And where but Bravo could you see a challenge where the contestants had to each cook a dish that represented each of the seven deadly sins?!

The Next Food Network Star is a more commercial cooking competition with a focus as much on personality as food, since the winner will actually get his or her own Food Network show. Now I know there are a lot of people out there who think the Food Network is like TV culinary junk food, but it has created interest in home cooking in the generation of X-Box and I-Pod, because it makes cooking accessible for cooks of all experience and skill. For that, they get my kudos.

That brings me to Gordon Ramsey and Hell's Kitchen. It seems so appropriate that Gordon is on in the summer since it is h-o-t in his kitchen. Watching this show is a lot like slowing down to stare at an auto accident- you know what you see might be painful and someone may be hurt, but you can't stop watching. And Gordon Ramsey... honestly, I think Beelzebub would be easier on aspiring chefs. He uses the f-bomb enough to be a headliner on Death Row records! The redeeming factor in this show for me is to see people who are really passionate about cooking and food pulling out all the stops and enduring constant abuse to realize their dream. I always root for the fry cook or a line cook from the Waffle House (kind of like being a Redskins fan!)

So get yourself a perfect scoop of ice cream, and when it gets too hot in the kitchen or out by the grill , get the remote, and settle in for a long hot summer in the competition kitchen!

Stress Eating and other curses...

Stress is a part of everyday life, but there are times when it gets the better of you. When I was younger (much!), and the stress in my life was tests and presentations, a date (or not having one), a bad haircut or a breakout, my body reacted by not eating. I had little or no appetite and the less I ate, the less I wanted to eat. Before eating disorders were "extreme dieting", I didn't eat because that was one of the few things had control over in my life.

Food is more for humans than just survival and sustenance. It is comfort, security, nostalgia, and love. We use it to fill other holes in our lives, to stop pain, to relive better times. It is a way to celebrate, to share good times, create friendships and cement family. It can even help win over enemies. Breaking bread together has been a way to build alliances since Biblical times, and sharing a meal is a universal way of showing mutual respect.

We live in a world now that glorifies thin-ness over healthiness, where bony protuberances are preferred over gentle curves. We are a nation of extremes- home to both obese children with growing diabetes rates and young women starving themselves to meet an ideal they can never attain. There must be a middle ground... a place where children can enjoy a variety of foods, an occasional snack or dessert or guilty pleasure, where we can all enjoy bacon, or a juicy cheeseburger, or a potato chip without overindulging. This is one of the reasons I started Play With Food, to encourage families and young people to get over their fear of food and cooking, to help people to use food as a part of a way to meet their needs for fun, community and family as well as nutrition.

Which brings me back to where I started- stress and eating. Contrary to my teen years I find the older I get, the more my response to stress (6 kids, 2 jobs, 3 mortgages, 2 dogs, 1 blog...) involves junk food. When I am down or overwhelmed I crave a can of Pringles or a bag of Cheese Doodles or a box of Fiddle Faddle no matter how much peanut butter and celery and carrot sticks are in my fridge. I don't know if it is the trans fats, the sugar, (the crack!) that draws me, but I honestly don't know of anyone who eats healthy food when they are stressed! Whether it is cookies, french fries or Ho-Hos, it is junk food that stressed people crave. How does stress affect your eating habits and what calls to you when you've had a bad day (week)? I've fessed up.... now it's your turn!

On the Same List as Ruhlman?!

There are two types of validation for writers (even if they are food bloggers)- internal, when you are satisfied about how something you wrote turns out , and external, when someone other than you (or your friends and family) recognizes what you do. This week brought both to me and Play with Food. First of all, in my visits around the blogosphere, I saw a food blogging event over at Ellie's Kitchen Wench that spoke to me. She was hosting a one-off event to write about a recipe that had some nostalgic story attached, that brought back some significant memories (and you know how I feel about food and memories). I knew exactly what recipe and its story was waiting to be told. The post virtually wrote itself and when it was done, I felt really good about how it turned out. My feelings were confirmed when my husband read the post about his father and said (in a broken voice) "You really captured what may father was like". You can check my previous post and decide for yourself (but frankly, your opinion won't change how I feel about it!)

The second came this morning when, after checking my "staple" blogs, I went to Technorati to check my ranking and links (okay, I know I'm a sucker) and saw that there was a new link on Epicurious (which I had just checked). I went back to find that in the list of Tanya Wenman Steele's list of "Food Blogs I Like", there was Play With Food, right above Ruhlman (albeit the listings are alphabetical)!!! I'm not kidding myself, I am no Michael Ruhlman, nor do I want to be (sorry, Michael), but to be on the same list with bloggers like him and Cooking with Amy, Becks & Posh,Chocolate and Zucchini, and 101 Cookbooks, is a bit overwhelming. These, along with Tanya's blog, are ideals to which I aspire, and frankly makes me feel like a "marching band girl" who has become a varsity cheerleader!

How do I explain this? I can't possibly. I know it is not my beautiful food photos, since I am the rankest of amateurs. It is not the beautiful layout of my page, since I am still on a Blogger template. I hope it is because readers want to visit me like they would a friend, or a favorite aunt or cousin, or a close neighbor in a small town. They know I am here to listen and to share a laugh, a recipe, a memory or even a tear. And with it, a recipe or idea that they can take back to their own kitchens. If that is the reason Tanya listed me, then whether my pictures are fuzzy, or my layout is clumsy, or even if my writing is not always what it could be, I will consider this blog a success.

If you are here for the first time, please come back, the door's always open and there is always room at the cyber-kitchen table for new friends, and their comments. If you are already a regular reader, thanks for supporting this blog and its purpose and don't be shy, speak up, share. More than talking or preaching or teaching, I want to listen!

The Greatest Chicken Salad I Will Never Make Again

This post is in response to Kitchen Wench's one-off event challenging bloggers to share a recipe attached to some event in your past in a substantial, yet bittersweet way. When I read this challenge, I knew immediately the recipe and its story that I wanted to share even though I cannot include a picture (you will see why!). It is the story of the greatest chicken salad I will never make again.

I can't even remember now where I got this recipe, it must've been from a person, because it is neatly copied on one of my beautiful 4x6 recipe cards for a set that included a recipe box with matching cards that I received as a gift back when I and my family was young. Most of my recipes are torn from magazines, cut from a newspaper, scribbled on random bits of paper, or typed by friends or acquaintances, printed out from Food Network or Epicurious. A recipe had to be really special in order for me to use one of the 50 cards that came with my set, and it had to be something that I was sure would be a permanent addition to my culinary reperatoire.

This recipe is everything a recipe should be - delicious, light, healthy, easy to make, filled with complex, swett-hot flavors and very portable! In fact, I made this Szechwan Chicken Salad several times when I needed to take something to a pot luck and there were never leftovers. Everyone in my family loved it and were always suggesting it, particularly during the dog days of Tidewater summer!

There was nothing unusual on a day, so long ago, when I made a big double batch of this salad. The weather was going to be warm, lending itself to a light salad, and I was planning to take any leftovers for lunch at work in the next week. I had just placed the covered bowl of salad in the fridge when we got a call from the hospital that my husband's father was near death. The Colonel, as he was affectionately (and respectfully) called by all, was an incredible man, with a sharp memory and a knowledge for world history that would have shamed any history professor 4 decades his junior. He had served in three branches of the service during his military career, had served in the esteemed 1st City Troop, and danced with Lucy Mercer in the Roosevelt White House as a young officer. He was full of stories for anyone who would listen, and since most of his family had heard them all (multiple times) , as the newest daughter-in-law, I was a welcome audience. As our family grew, he was a doting grandfather with all of the grandchildren, bouncing them on his knee to the tune of "Gary Owen". The older Dowd grandchildren remember to this day their "Grandpapa" blowing the bugle. He was always an ally to a grandchild who wanted an extra dessert or to stay up past bedtime. A man who was sometimes remembered as stern by his own children, was a marshmallow to his grandchildren.

I will never forget the first time that I met him. It wasn't long after the movie Patton had come out. My father-in-law, who was at that time the Superintendent of the Winchester National Cemetary, was strolling among the headstones and when he turned around, I thought I was dating the son of George C. Scott!! He had the bearing and demeanor (and the posture) of a career military officer. You could imagine that he cut a dashing figure in his younger years (and he delighted in telling you so!).

As young newlyweds, my husband and I moved in with my in-laws in order to save money to buy a house, and allowing our mother-in-law to travel to wherever my sisters-in-law were having their children (and for awhile there was a steady stream). In the years that we lived there I never saw my father-in-law in any state other than either fully dressed (to the nines I might add) or in his pajamas, robe and slippers. When I had my own first child, my mother-in-law was away, so I brought my daughter home to a house run by the Colonel and my husband, who had gone to the commissary to get all manner of food for a new mom... and Guinness stout because he was sure that would help with my nursing!

His pet peeves- Cheap suits or shoes, runs in a lady's stockings, adults or children who were disrespectful, lazy or dishonest people. When he was told by his doctor (he was a Type 2 diabetic) that if he was good, he could have a half-cup of ice cream a night, he picked the largest mug in the cabinet and then used about about 600 psi to spoon in as much Breyer's chocolate ice cream as could be accomodated by the laws of physics!

My mother-in-law told me about his one cooking experience, when she came home from the hospital after the birth of one of their children. She said that he was determined to make her a meal and serve her (despite the fact that, to my knowledge he could only cook hot dogs and toast!). This was when TV dinners were brand new and he said he would make her one. Despite her offers to help (and her strong conviction that he had no idea how to use the oven!), he insisted that he could do it. She ate her words when he marched proudly up the stairs with the foil plate with a turkey dinner golden brown and steaming, smelling delicious and inviting. As he ran to get her a drink, she stuck her fork to take the first bite... and found that beneath the golden brown steaming surface, the food was still frozen in the middle!

The days leading up to his funeral, we put the Szechwan Chicken Salad that I had made what seemed like an eternity ago out with the other food brought by family and friends, and as always, it disappeared. My husband has, since then, associated that chicken salad with his father's death and even though I and my children have tried to convince him otherwise, I have not ever made it again.

While it may seem strange, this blog event gives me the opportunity to share not only my fond memories of the Colonel, and his incredible life, but to share with anyone who reads this a great recipe that you and our family can enjoy. I hope that you will make it and enjoy ...and also remember, in a fond way, a man you never met except through my words.

Szechwan Chicken Salad

Dressing:
1/4 cup peanut or sesame oil (I used sesame)

4-5 tbsp red wine vingar

1-2 tbsp honey

2 tsp sesame seeds

2 cloves garlic
3/4 tsp hot pepper sauce, adjust to taste

1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger

1/4 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients above until well mixed and then toss with the following:

1/2 lb bow tie pasta, cooked and drained

3 cups broccoli florets

2 cups cooked chicken cut in chunks

1 cup fresh or frozen snow peas

2 green onions, cut up

Once combined, salad is best if it sits for 4-8 hours or overnight.

The best food smells

Over at Epi-log, I noticed that Tanya Wenman Steele was getting a lot of traffic when she asked for foods people hate, and I thought I would post about another very powerful part of the food experience - smell. Several years ago I had an incredible sinus infection that affected my smell and hearing for a couple of weeks. Without the sense of smell, almost everything tasted the same. Think about your childhood. Some of your most powerful food memories also involve smell. You might remember the smell of baking bread or cookies, or the smell of cabbage rolls. It might be the smell of Friday's fried fish, or banana bread, or a pot of simmering spaghetti sauce that evokes a feeling of comfort and warmth, or nostalgia. I'm going to share mine and invite you to share the food smells that take you back .

1) Roasting Turkey - This has got to be my personal favorite. I would buy an air freshener that smelled like that!

2) Frying bacon - I guarantee that this is the smell that will get everyone out of bed in the morning, particularly if you are camping. Just smelling it will make your mouth water!

3) Coffee - I know it is not a food, but this is another smell that will pull people to your kitchen or campfire. I will never forget the first time we went camping and we took a speckled-ware percolator with us (we draw the line at instant coffee) and when our coffee was percolating all the people on the surrounding campsites came out of their tents sniffing the air like animals.

4)Baking bread- This is one we don't smell much at our house but I remember my Grandmother McKinney baking loaf after loaf on the weekends, and the smell was incredible. I do make a loaf from a recipe in The Joy of Cooking called Brioche Loaf Cockaigne. It doesn't need to be kneaded and it has that wonderful yeasty smell.

5)Garlic - I love the smell of garlic. If you have ever made 40-clove garlic chicken you know what I am talking about. It fills your whole house with the smell of roasting chicken and garlic and wine- pure heaven!

6) Applesauce cake - My Grandmother Knighting used to make these incredible applesauce cakes with black walnuts that she baked in heavy cast-iron bundt pans. I have never been able to recreate her recipe that came out as dark as brown bread all moist and full of plump raisins, cloves and cinnamon. That was the only thing I would ask her for at Christmas and I would eat it slice by slice for a week or two after Christmas.

What are the food smells that take you back?

Jumping on my soapbox

Normally my inspiration for a post comes from my family, my friends, something I've tried or tasted, but I guess it was only a matter of time before I was inspired to post as the result (or in response) to another blogger's post. I came upon this post in my usual morning rounds of some of my favorite food blogs. I was browsing posts at An Obsession with Food when I came upon a link to a vitriolic post regarding kid-food and picky eaters. I will not provide a direct link to the post because after checking out the site and the post, it was not a site I would frequent and I don't want to do anything to increase the traffic to this particular site (a shock-jock of bloggers), but it has made me want to climb on my soapbox. And so, humor me.

First of all, part of the reason I started this blog was to fill what I see as a void in our society (big job, huh?) that has been left by our not having the benefit of extended family and strong neighborhoods that provided "food mentors" for our parents and grandparents. I strongly believe that many of our food-related issues such as anorexia, obesity, allergies, etc. are contributed to by our reliance on convenience foodnot because we are lazy or stupid but because many of us have not been raised or taught to be comfortable with food, its preparation and enjoyment. That is why I wanted to create a cyber kitchen table that could help replacein small measure that resource to encourage a new generation to play with food.

That said, this post blasted parents for "giving in" to children regarding food and how parents who could not hold the line had no business having children. It is a post that shows an elitist, judgmental, and non-productive attitude that is exactly what I hope to fight. You can read my response to the post on Obsession with Food. I am posting here because I think there is a lot to be said for being part of the solution rather than part of the problem. I hope that you will not be intimidated by food, but will learn and experiment and enjoy. Encourage your children to have fun with food- that's what McDonald's does. You can make ethnic finger foods, teach your family to eat with chopsticks, serve dinner in front of the fire on cushions, making meals a fun occasion.
I want all readers to stop being intimidated by food and model that behavior for their children, family members, neighbors and co-workers. I don't believe that ridiculing parents who are struggling already with the many pressures of modern life and not enough support systems is helping. Are you a bad parent if you once in awhile serve your children chicken nuggets or a Twinkie? I don't think so, as long as it is an occasional part of a varied and healthy diet, not a daily occurance.

Let me know what you think.

Food memories we'd rather forget

Part of making memories with food is that, like in life, there are sure to be some that are not so good, and since making memories with food was one of the drivers for starting this blog, I decided that sharing a few of those... and encouraging you to share yours would make for a fun post (and a run-on sentence).

I have already shared my own cooking disasters, but I am not talking about our own culinary mis-steps, but things from our past that were part of our diet, that we couldn't wait to grow up and get rid of. For many of us it will be things like Spaghetti-Os or Minute Rice, that were food trends of the past. It may be family traditional favorites that you did not want to incorporate into your reperatoire. I want to share a couple of mine with you and then encourage you to share as well. Somehow I know I will hear some interesting (and humorous) tales.

My first story is about my sister-in-law and a country ham. Ginger was having a holiday reception and had a whole menu planned including country ham biscuits (a staple here in the South!) - sounds good so far, right? For those of you who are not from the South, country ham is a salt-cured ham that is soaked and cooked to remove some of the salt and then sliced very thin as you would prosciutto and served. Well when the night of the event came, the table was beautifully set, with the ham biscuits as a centerpiece. Sure that these would disappear very quickly (it is the South, you know!), I grabbed a few of the delicious-looking biscuits, and began to make my rounds. As I took the first bite, I knew why there was such a pile of biscuits left untouched... My sister-in-law had simply cooked the ham without soaking or boiling so that the taste was something like eating a handful of kosher salt (actually, saltier!). She was mystified that time after time she had to refill the punchbowl(she later commented that people were drinking so much it affected their appetites!), and the drinkables ran out far before the ham did. And you know what? No one had the courage to tell her! Well-meaning guests continued to take biscuits and then deposit them in the trash or some were even hidden in potted plants (found the next day!)Note: In her defense, Ginger was generally a good cook and the rest of her food that night was very good. We just all had to be reconstituted the next day.

I thought I had heard about every misguided attempt at saving money on food until I had a conversation with my former boss about his mother's cooking when he was growing up in Basel, Switzerland (I'm thinking linzer torte and chocolate!). He regaled us with the story of how his mother would take leftover salad and make it into a lettuce soup, a tasteless, greenish broth with lots of unidentified "floaties" in it. I have actually thought of threatening my kids with this if they don't eat their salad, but given that this bad food memory still stays with my 76-year-old friend, I thought the better of it. Note: Food can also be used as an instrument of torture- In all the years we worked together any time we had an office pot luck Hermann would threaten to bring in beef tongue, another dish he remembered fondly from his youth! Needless to say, we told him to bring the paper goods!

With 32 years of marriage, you can be sure there is lots of compromise involved and some of that involves food. To come up with your own family's food style you have to take the best of both your food histories. In our case, I incorporated my mother-in-law's stuffing (I have posted this incredible recipe), and her coconut cream Easter Eggs (this one will be coming) into our food traditions. From my mom, her macaroni and cheese,"mess of beans" and cole slaw recipes are ones my family always asks for. However, there are some things that become so ingrained in you that you need to break free of. My mom used to make Navy beans quite often (my dad loved them with mustard!) and it has been only recently that I can incorporate bean dishes back into our diet. And my mother-in-law used to make a ground beef dish... all the time... that I can no longer bring myself to make. It was not a bad dish (patties of ground beef with american cheese in the center covered with tomato sauce),it just suffered from over-exposure, a lot like Paris Hilton. Maybe one of these days I will make these "grenades"(my husband's term, not mine) for my kids to let them make up their own minds as to whether they want them to be part of their own developing food traditions.

So just like you remember the time your mom lost you in the department store, or how your Uncle Al drank too much at Christmas dinner, we collect bad food memories as well. Which is why you should play with your food- to make sure that you have created enough good memories to outweigh the bad! Let me know your darkest food memories... you will realize you are not alone, and can move on to develop your own fabulous food style!

5 Things about me

Okay, I am not a nationally known blogger, but in my morning rounds of my favorite blogs, I saw that Amy responded to a meme that asked her to share 5 things about herself that people didn't know. She was tagged by Pim of Chez Pim. Even though no one tagged me, I was intrigued by the meme and am going to post my five things in order to allow my readers to know me and hopefully they will share some fun and unusual things about themselves as well. If I am inviting you to my cyber-kitchen table, we really should know each other better. And I will be tagging some of you to share your five things as well.

1) I was the choreographer and captain of my drill team in high school. At that time we saw ourselves as the "anti-cheerleaders" and it was a lot of fun and gave me the opportunity to travel to away games and competitions in a school bus, march in parades, and practice in the dark of morning and dark of night.

2) I got an autograph from Lucille Ball. She was the Grand Marshall at the Apple Blossom Parade in my hometown of Winchester, and when I went up to her car with my program, since I too was a redhead, she signed my program.

3) I kissed Richard Dawson on Family Feud (showing my age!) My family went to local tryouts in Norfolk and were selected, and were flown to Hollywood. We saw Rodeo Drive, the Hollywood Hills, and were on four consecutive shows, winning about $13,000 in the big money round.

4) My grandfather never knew my first name. My mother's father started calling me "Slickhead" when I was born as bald as a billiard ball. He and my grandmother were separated so we didn't see each other very often. After he had a stroke in his 60s (and I was about 16), I went to visit him in the hospital and was very upset when he didn't know who I was... until I introduced myself as "Slickhead" Then he knew who I was!

5) Since this is a food blog, I guess one of these revelations should be food-related. Okay, I'm going to say it... I like liver. I liked it as a kid and still do. Calves liver, chicken liver, I have only had foie gras as pate, even liverwurst. Liver has to be cooked exactly right, long enough to not be bloody and Rosemary's Baby-ish but not so much that it is gray shoe leather. I know love of liver is not politically correct these days, but cooked right.. it is fabulous!

So there you are- laugh or cry or stop reading altogether, or even better, write me with some revelations of your own.

And I would like to tag :

Teddy of Help! I Have a Fire in My Kitchen!

Shelly of S'Kat and the Food

Deb of Smitten Kitchen

Kathy of Startcooking.com

Kitchen mysteries

We had guests last night for our usual Wednesday night tapas (and I use that term loosely) night and I was reminded of an essay I wrote in Jay Paul's non-fiction writing class at Christopher Newport University (it was actually a college then) x years ago (I use x here not because I can't remember but I choose not to !). I was a "non-traditional" student (that means in my 30's not my 20's) in a class of fresh-faced 18-20 year olds, and our assignment was to write a short essay about a physical place that was special to us. Dr. Paul thought that it was a good idea for us to read our compositions to be critiqued by the class. You can only imagine my anxiety- I am a woman with two kids and a mortgage who had not written for years! Finally the day came and one by one my fellow students read their essays about walking on the beach, or sitting under a special tree, or gazing at nature from a mountain top. I read my essay last and it was a description of the kitchen in my tiny Hilton Village home (anyone who has lived in one of these 20's era duplexes knows what I am talking about!). It described the furnace in one corner and the hot water heater in another. I told how you had to open the oven door just right in order to keep your baked goods from falling on the floor, and its ugly linoleum floor. My essay was met with silence... then applause. I had taken my entire class into my tiny kitchen with the written word. My point? The point of my essay (and this post) was that no matter how ugly my kitchen, anytime we had people over, they congregated in the kitchen, because there is some kind of mysterious attraction that draws people to a working kitchen.

Back in my Hilton days, I didn't have much room, so I chalked some of this mystery to mere square footage, but that is not the case. Our new home has a good sized kitchen, an eat-in area and a fabulous (by my standards, not Martha's) dining room. My dining room is painted an inviting red, it is full of furniture pieces lovingly selected from Phoebus Auction Gallery and local antique shops, and my pride and joy - my Waterford crystal. So wouldn't you think that people would love to eat there? So would I, but instead they will balance their plates on their laps, and pull chairs from my beautiful dining room into the cramped eat-in adjacent to the kitchen. I really don't understand this, but I surrender to it. I thought about submitting this to Unsolved Mysteries but I decided to ask my readers instead if they could shed light on this (and ask if there is any hope that my guests will ever eat in my dining room!)

Here are some other food/kitchen mysteries that I would like solved:

1) Why does it always take me two tries to get the meringue right on my pie (the first one or two set the smoke alarm off!)

2) Why can my husband always tell me what he doesn't want for dinner and never what he does want?

3) Why do I always crave oysters, ...or grapefruit ...or asparagus when it is not in season?

4) Why can you never buy a ripe pear anymore?

There's a start. Solve my food/kitchen mysteries or add your own. I'll cue the scary music!

It takes all kinds..of food

Everybody has different tastes and nowhere is that more apparent than when you talk about tastes in food. Sometimes your tastes are guided by your early food experiences (another great reason to encourage playing with food in your children). For example, my Mom never made lamb, so I never had lamb until after I was married and I never had a beef roast that was actually roasted - we had either eye roast or chuck roast that was braised. I grew up eating mostly canned vegetables, and usually they were cooked untill they were soft. We did have some fresh vegetables, but that consisted mainly of tomatoes in the summer and veggies for dip. A salad was a once in awhile thing and always included iceberg lettuce.

It is funny how some things that you associate with childhood become comfort food to you, but other people just don't get it. One of my favorites is what I call graham cracker cereal, which is basically graham crackers broken up in a bowl, with milk poured over and eaten. See, you don't get it either. Neither do my kids, but for me it takes me back to my childhood.

My daughter Bridget thinks the combination of potato chips and chocolate syrup is great, but she can't eat it in front of me! My husband will take a perfectly delicious serving of shepherd's pie, and slather it with ketchup - I just don't get it. My daughter Katie mixes her juice half and half with water AND drinks milk with ice, neither of which appeals to me.

At least two of my children think mayonnaise is great to eat with french fries and two others mix ketchup and mayo together for their fries! I love asparagus, but Molly says the smell makes her gag.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I remember that my grandfather Knighting loved to top just about everything with vinegar. His house always had that pungent smell - he put it on eggs, greens, green beans. To this day I wonder if he had some type of deficiency that made vinegar taste so good to him. This the man who did not know who I was when I went to visit him in the hospital after he had a stroke... until I told him I was "Slickhead", a name he had given me as a baby (I was bald!)

If you are around weird food habits enough, you even start picking them up. My husband is a great fan of peanut butter... on a spoon! He will fill a spoon with peanut butter and eat it like a lollipop, and unfortunately I have picked up this habit as well, so now there are two of us grossing the kids out!

Okay, so now you know mine (and my family's) weird food tastes. Now it's your turn. What do you eat that no on else gets? It's okay... different strokes for different folks or as my kids would say, it's all good.

Men and food

In a recent post I talked about how my children, most now grown, have inherited a healthy and adventurous attitude about food. When my husband saw this he asked "What about me?" I really wasn't aware of any special recipes that he had, but I didn't want him to feel left out, so we started talking about his cooking and his "special recipes". As the youngest of five siblings, he had really not had to learn to cook because there was always someone to cook for him. And since our marriage 32 years ago, I have primarily been the one playing with food.

However, there are some things about my husband and cooking that I would bet are fairly common among men. The first is a great mystery of men and cooking. Why is it that my husband can cook anything on a grill, but nothing on the stove? On the grill he has made tea-smoked chicken, ribs, steamed oysters, herb-stuffed fish, venison, rabbit, and countless hamburgers and steaks. But once he comes inside... hot dogs and grilled cheese is stretching his culinary ability. It's like once inside, he enters the no-cook zone. This seems to be a trait closely associated with the Y chromosome, because I have talked to many other women who experience the same thing.

I have to say, though, that once inspired, he does a great job. For my daughter's high school graduation, we had the idea of doing a pasta bar with different pastas and sauces to order ( you will hear where that idea came from in another post). We had all the ingredients, and he was better than Bobby Flay at the grill, sauteeing ingredients, sauce and pastas to order for all our relatives, friends and neighbors, and not complaining once even though it must've been 150 degrees at the grill that day. (I'm not sure Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen could have been any more demanding that our guests!)

His grilling skills were put to the test during the 2 weeks we had no power after Hurricane Isabel. Friends and neighbors brought over food their "cook or toss" food and night after night we feasted on cheeses, grilled rabbit and buffalo, whole free-range chickens. While I wouldn't want to experience a storm like that again, there was something special, at the end of a day of working together to clear debris, about the cluster of men cooking outside, while women cooked and kids ran around the yards playing, acting like we were on an extended camping trip.

My husband's indoor specialty is Stouffer's lasagna from our local Sam's Club and fixes when I have to travel out of town or have had a tough day and don't want to cook. But his most popular dinner with the kids (and with me) is when he decides to chuck it all and take us out for a meal as a treat. Then... he is definitely our favorite chef!

Post-Holiday "Live-its"

All right. We have all overindulged in eggnog, stuffing, 15 varieties of cookies and assorted goodies during the holiday season. And...we're feeling guilty... and about 10 pounds heavier. While we were toasting the New Year with bubbly (washing down triple cream brie and sausage balls!), we made the perennial resolution to lose weight, to eat healthy, to finally begin working out.

I say we here because I have the same issues. Holidays are synonymous with too much food, rich food, and too much drink, all of which contribute to the number you see when you look down at the scale on January 2. However, I am one of those people who believes that "die" is a big part of the word "diet". In order to establish a healthy lifestyle we need to have a plan that we can stick with, one that does not make you feel deprived. That is where playing with food comes in. At our house January 2 is the time to take all the baked treats and chocolates to the office to distribute among those who are thin enough not to care (or in my case, droves of physicists who will eat anything!), and begin playing with food by exploring new recipes, looking for ways to save calories and cut "bad carbs", and in the process you make new favorites and find new flavors and combinations that you can then incorporate with your everyday living. Our nation is addicted to fast food and the busy lifestyle of of two career couples makes it hard to get excited about cooking a meal. I give kudos to Rachael Ray 30 Minute Meals show for opening the public's eyes to the possibility of creating a meal from scratch in 30 minutes, basically less time than it takes the pizza guy to arrive! For beginning food experimenters, her recipes are a great place to start because they are quick, they don't require complicated techniques, and I have never made a recipe of hers that was not a big hit. I know a lot has been said in the press about the "Martha vs. Rachael" battle, but I think there is room in our hearts for both. Martha Stewart is a refined culinary technician, and I go to her when I want to learn a new technique or to challenge myself. But because Rachael is not a chef, I feel like if she can do it I can do it, and there is something special about making a dish your family loves in only a half hour (especially after a 9-hour work day!)

Food Network is always helpful on fighting the Battle of the Bulge by running programs that focus on healthy eating right at the beginning of the year. Also Epicurious is great for looking up an ingredient and finding a recipe that can be used and their reviews help beginning cooks by letting you know which recipes are worth the trouble, if it tastes as good as it sounds , and substitutions made that may have (or not) worked out. So spend some time this weekend hitting the websites and seeking out recipes you can incorporate into your new healthy "live-it" And remember... playing with food will help keep you from getting bored as you fight to get in shape!

Note: I don't know this guy on the right but I bet he has never been on a diet in his life! I am talking less to the guy with the washboard abs and more to those of you with Michelin abs (6-pack ab wanna-bes)! For those of us who will never be a size 6 again, there is always Stacy and Clinton who can help us dress the body we have!

265,800 served

Many people have encouraged me over the years to write a cookbook, but in exploring the incredible food blogs out there like Obsession with Food, Amateur Gourmet, and Kitchen Chick, I was beginning to wonder "What am I doing here, writing my own food blog?". That is, until I started to calculate how many people I have cooked for. Discounting all the cooking I did before I left home (which believe me, was all very experimental!), I calculated that over the last 30 years I have served at least 265,800 people meals! Some chefs of small bistros and exclusive restaurants have probably not cooked as much. I have made croissants from scratch (never again, my kitchen looked like a cocaine dealer's, with white powder (flour) covering almost every surface), cooked meals of bison, goat and duckling, have cooked (and eaten) sweetbreads, and know how to cook fish that even non-fish-eaters will devour. I make eggrolls and steamed dumplings from scratch, and can cook (if you can call it that) sashimi. I can make French onion soup, South African Bobotie, Buss-up-shut (a flat bread) from Trinidad, great American hamburgers and the best damn eggnog you've ever tasted.

Maybe even more important than these accomplishments is that I have raised 6 children, one of whom himself has become a chef, who have a healthy and adventurous attitude toward food. All of them enjoy cooking and I count them among my first "play with food" converts. I have cooked countless meals of comfort food from meat loaf to macaroni and cheese that attracted not only my own kids but their friends, their coworkers, my coworkers, and countless neighbors and friends.

I know what I do well. I create a warm and welcoming atmosphere in my home, with food as a central player.
I use food as a celebration, as a way to share time and company with those close to my family. Actually, our friends have often said that we Dowds could make a party out of anything, and actually, I am proud of that.
Unlike most high-profile chefs, I have experience feeding a family of 8 on $50 a week (thank God those days are over!), can stretch a ham or a roast for 3 meals without making my children groan,and I can cook to suit a diabetic, someone on the Atkins diet, or a fussy toddler. Two hundred sixty five thousand eight hundred down and I'm looking forward to my next three or four hundred thousand.

I also know what I am not good at. My mom is a great pie crust maker, but unfortunately I didn't inherit that talent, so I give in to refrigerated dough. My Grandmother McKinney was an incredible bread baker, but my talents there are limited as well. I am a professional chef who just doesn't get paid with money. I get paid in smiles, and hugs, in handshakes, laughter and fellowship, and sometimes even compliments. Hmm...now that I think of it, maybe some of those other food bloggers should be worried.