Learning to Cook

November 26, 2000

LEARNING TO COOK

I have great admiration for people who start cooking at the same time they start living in a college apartment, stocking a kitchen, shopping often, cleaning up, and studying, and probably working part time. I didn't do it that way. Mother said my business was to get A's in school, that any fool could learn to cook and keep house when he or she needed to. I think now that the A's were easier. My study skills are far better than my housekeeping ones.

Having bullied my parents into a Spring Dance weekend wedding, during senior year, I went to the college bookstore to look at cookbooks. The proprietor assured me that with Fannie Farmer and The Joy of Cooking, I would never need another cookbook. 500 cookbooks and 59 years later, I still think she was right, but I've enjoyed every one, if only to read.

Graduation over, I started learning to cook by walking a few blocks in West Philadelphia to the A&P, choosing something that looked interesting in the meat counter, asking the butcher what it was called, then going home to study it. By starting this process around noon, I could have dinner ready by 6:00. My victim had been motherless since age 9, and had been eating in low cost restaurants for the recent 5 years, and of course the first blush of love helped, so he ate everything with gusto. If he had been critical we might have had to eat out forever, which would have been hard on $26.00 a week. As it was, I dared to try anything, able to count on compliments. The only taboo was turnips, remembered as survival food at his house during the Depression.

One sure success was Night before Payday fish. A few blocks in another direction led to an Acme (he praised the fish but teased me when I said I bought it at the ACHEme) where fresh fish was regularly 10 cents a pound.

Another sensational success was Walnut Cowboy Croquettes. The recipe calls for ground chicken or turkey, but I used a left over hot dog, an economy that fascinated the child of Depression. He didn't think about the cost of walnuts or decorative red pepper strips. I have saved this recipe, with full color photo, for over 50 years and have never made it again, in all its glory, although I have referred to it for hints on making simpler croquettes. Since the recipe feeds 8, one hot-dog served for the reduced version.

I'm still learning. For the years of care giving I had to learn to make healthy meals with everything pureed. Now I have to try to make meals taste like home, but without whipped cream or thick soup, or brownies or angel food, - not even chocolate chip cookies, as people come home with diabetes, and heart surgery recovery diets, or just serious weight concerns. So this year the sweet potatoes did not have butter, brown sugar and marshmallows. Instead they had only a gentle dressing of pure maple syrup. Tasted great. The 22 pound turkey of yore gave way to a turkey breast. I forgot to buy celery for the dressing so I added a little celery seed. Tasted great. My son in law taught me years ago to use boiling chicken broth instead of boiling water to pour over the dressing. Having no chicken broth in the freezer as I used to have, and no salty, tasteless cans of broth on the shelf, I turned to the good chicken soup base, highly condensed. I prepared too much for the dressing, so I buttered the turkey, laid a clean towel over it, and poured the extra broth over it slowly so it soaked into the towel. I poured yet more broth over the towel one during the baking. And there, after 58 dry turkeys cooked all different ways, was my first truly moist and delicious turkey, good to the last sandwich.