Culinary traditions! I love reading about the evolution of the foodie ways of others. I come from a line of non-cooks, so my contributions are limited.
1. When I had to submit a family recipe for my 4th grade Girl Scout Cookbook, my mother and I went to the Betty Crocker Cookbook and chose at random the Loaf Pound Cake.
2. Coffee. This started in Spain when I was 23. Everyone was drinking coffee, so I did too, and gave it a punch of mocha by mixing Cola Cao (kind of like Ovaltine) with it.
3. My favorite cookbook is The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden. It's wonderful not only for the recipes (we've made the challah so many times the page is hardly legible) but also because it is a history book -- full of anecdotes, research and tidbits about how regional cultures shape what people eat.
4. My Aunt Patty's sugar cookies were the best. She would send tins of them every year. They were puffy and only lightly sweetened, almost like smooth scones. She happily handed out the recipe, but no one could ever make them like she did, so I think she kept some ingredients to herself.
5. Neither of my grandmothers thought much of the kitchen. Mom's mom made only three things (all fabulous): cheeseburgers, toast and fudge, maybe once a year, when the whim hit her. I still haven't seen Dad's Mom cook, but we have a good track record of dining out together.
6. Nutella is a staple item around here, as are hearty soups in the winter.
7. When meal planning fails us, we toss all the leftovers in the fridge on top of tortilla chips, turn it up to 350 and have Nacho Night.
8. Something yummy is wafting from the kitchen (thankfully my husband is a great cook), so I'm signing off.
Suggested topic for next week: one quick & easy design change you could make in each room of your house/condo/apt (e.g. moving a piece of furniture, switching rugs, shoving stacks of paper out of sight) to give it a visual lift. Extra credit if you actually do it.
