Everyone has memory of someone who influenced the way good food is perceived. There was that person (or persons) who you can still visit their kitchen via the sounds you once heard, the smells you once took in deeply, the visual memory of certain dishes, the tastes you have never been able to replicate. Whether you are conscious or not of how important that person was as in influence in your life, it is now time to give a little praise and worthy appreciation.
So who was your influence??? Or maybe you were fortunate enough to have many of such people. I dedicate this entry to these influences... Of which I was/am fortunate to have a few.
The key component to cooking influences is a simple concept: when you think of the person you want to be in their kitchen and savor everything they make. Their food is made with love and care. It's like a little bit of their soul is in every bite you remember.
My mom is definitely one of my influences. I know she is aware that she is good with food, but I don't know if she knows how it really affects people around her. Whenever someone visits her house, whether it be friend, family, or even the handyman... The kitchen is where all transactions of life take place. Enter from the back of the house... enter from the front if the house... go down the hall to the kitchen-- it's mandatory and routine. My mom makes the best lasagna. The best salads ever. The best cheesecake. She can follow a recipe, but it just comes out better. Why? Maybe. Because she uses eating spoons for measuring. Her cupboards are disorganized. Her refrigerator has relics from years past (sort a museum if jarred delights). But I think somehow all that adds to experience. Not only do i enjoy her food, but I love watching people eat her her food. I can see each bite pausing time and fueling lively conversation. Her food creates energy with its color and vibrancy. Thanks mom.
My friend Dora is one of these special people that influences people with love through her food. Everything she makes is so wonderful. Dora can make a bologna sandwich and it just tastes better than any other bologna sandwich ever. Dora is from a small town in Mexico. I imagine that all women that come from this little village must be wonderful in the kitchen, teaching each other each day their secrets of labored love. But it could just be a story I tell myself, to justify the beauty and perfection of her food. Regardless, her food makes you verbally make noises of mmmmm out loud while you eat it. It makes all the world disappear from around you and a feeling of safety and protection as you sit at the mercy of her red chili. Her pozole can cure any ailment if sickness or malady. Her tamales... Are worth millions. When Dora cooks, you can see her love and soul and heart move into her food. There is nothing but pure goodness. I can only hope to someday cook like that. But I'm not sure that is a skill perfected with practice. It is just something that is only is a state of being.
So who were your influences??? What did they make that captured your heart? Share their love with the world through this blog. We all owe it to them just a little.
3 comments:
Happy birthday mom!!! You have now earned your seniority in life. It's official. Thank you for sharing your love in your food. It is something that I will cherish and pass on forever.
Many people have influenced my cooking. Soo many, and they all had that special quality of love that you could TASTE while eating their food. My grandmother Lorena will always be remembered for her wagon wheel spaghetti, and the sauce that was heavenly. She taught me to add just a tiny bit of sugar to make the flavors of the sauce "pop." It was a simple dish, but so good that there were never any left overs. My other grandmother, Marylib, excelled at huge, formal family holiday dinners. Everything she made was not only delicious but had a flair to it! I remember the fun of making the most fluffy potatoes and mashing them through a conical "ricer" that resulted in potatoes that looked like a bowl of rice, but were unbelievably fluffy. She also made cold, gazpacho soup, using avacados, and wonderful spices, and her french dressing, made right in the ketchup bottle with the left over ketchup, adding mustard, spices,vinegar and oil, was the best I have ever tasted. My first teacher of really great Mexican food was my friend Delia Noriega, who brought her ingredients directly from the garden, and made her own corn tortillas with a huge wooden press. I prefer corn tortillas to this day because of Delia's creations in her small little kitchen in a railroad camp where her husband worked. Must not forget Pedro Espinosa, who made everything from scratch, and taught me how to make the best enchilada sauce using three different types of dried chiles, garlic, minced onions, salt, and the water he softened the chiles in over a slow fire, blended together in a kitchen blender and simmered slowly on the kitchen range. His specialty was enchiladas made with that same sauce, rolled inside a corn torilla after it was softened in hot oil and dipped in the enchilada sauce, and inside was raw cabbage, parmesan cheese, oregano, finely minced raw onions, and a sprinkle of lemon juice....everyone who dubiously took the first bite never seemed to stop until they'd eaten close to a dozen. Pedro was one of those rare cooks whose inspiration came from the mountains of Michoacan, and was always unbelievably delicious. From my father I learned to make the best deer meat jerky dried slowly in the kitchen range, and how to dress and butcher the whole deer. My mother made the best soups in this world all from fresh ingredients, much of it from our garden. She could have become rich if she'd had a restaurant that sold only soup and her wonderfully fluffy biscuits. And, I can't forget my dear friend Jimmy Wilson who will always be remembered by thousands of people form his salmon freshly caught from the Puget Sound, and cooked on alder stakes, butterflyed over an open alder fire outside, or Art Humphrey who made the best clam chowder in the world with his secret ingredients, but full of love. (By Rebel Harjo)
So beautifully said. But I am sure we both could never fully express the beauty and gratitude in just words. However, I thank you for sharing their gifts here today. Legacies only live as long as they are remembered.
Post a Comment