Lessons learned from my mom

My mom may not be what you would call a gourmet chef (although after the kids all moved out, she has been producing some seriously impressive meals--her homemade pasta nowadays is amazing), but I have learned some very special lessons about food and life from watching my mom cook for my family. On Mother's Day, I thought I'd share some of them with you.

1. Use real whipped cream. Special occasions call for special food, and real whipped cream is just better than the fake stuff. Mom believes this. While she is one of the healthiest eaters and cooks I've ever met, that blessed dollop of home-whipped love is pure joy for Mom. It makes special occasions special. It makes fresh strawberries sing. It made her children very happy. You, too, can make your life better by using real whipped cream.


2. Like everything. I have never heard my mother give a blanket statement like, "Oh, I don't like _____" (except once she said she didn't like okra, but I think it's only because she hasn't tried this). With this fact in mind, I really don't understand how she produced the pickiest eaters in the world. Each one of us had long lists of things we didn't like, which we made very clear: no mushrooms, onions, peppers, squash, zucchini, green beans, cucumbers, asparagus, fish or any seafood, spinach, tomatoes, pickles, olives, and I'm sure lots of other things. However, Mom kept making it anyway, telling us that someday we would like them. You know what, she was right (I still think Lin will come around and eat onion one of these days).


3. Sacrifice for people you love. We had seven people in our family, and inevitably any sort of treat or dessert would come in packages of six. You guessed it--Mom never got one. The doughnuts or cans of soda or cookies or whatever would go to everyone else, with Mom hoping that maybe she could just get a bite from one of her often unappreciative children. I'm sorry to say that often, we didn't even notice. However, Mom ate the brown bananas after everyone else took the new ones. She ate leftovers for lunch when everyone else turned their noses up at them. And you know what, I never heard her complain. Ever. That woman is a saint.

4. Eat together. Imagine this battle: 5 children with entirely different schedules + business executive husband with constantly fluctuating hours vs. Mom's shear will. Mom wins. We ate dinner together as a family just about every night (Mom once told me that it wasn't even worth it to cook for only 5 people). We may have fought to the death to be out playing with friends or watching TV or any number of other things, but we ate together as a family. However, those moments at the dinner table together remain one of the strongest forces that built the love and unity we have in the family. Those precious moments with rice pilaf or orange roughy and brussel spouts showed me how much Mom loved us and was committed to us as a family. We belonged together, and she wanted us to know it and eat like it.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you.

What lessons did your mothers teach you from the kitchen?

Do the prep first. That's why they call it "prep."

Life lesson learned: make sure all your ingredients are ready to go.  I have a great big band-aid on my finder right now reminding me that when the onions and garlic are sizzling on the stove, the moment for chopping tomatoes is past.  A very brief glance to the pan in the midst of my frantic, last-minute tomato dicing led to my beautifully sharp Wusthof knife slicing a nice little gash into my left pointer finger.

Seriously, people.  Just chop the tomatoes, then put the pan on the stove.  Your fingers will thank you. 

Raw Eggs

Life lesson learned: too much batter can be a bad thing.

One time I made a lot of chocolate chip cookies. Well, there would have been a whole lot of them had they actually all made it to the oven, but they didn't. I literally ate about half the batter (that's a lot). It's not like I pulled out a fork and just dug in, mind you. Things like this slip up on you unexpectedly. Just a little pinch there, licking the beaters, scraping out the very last of the bowl, that cookie that you thought would fit on the sheet but in the end it doesn't, etc.

Well, right quick my body let me know that it did not appreciate the sudden assault on it. Working in the public health field that I do, I have taken a lot of microbiology classes and read a lot of case studies on food poisoning, so of course my find immediately goes to raw eggs, salmonella, food poisoning, and death. I became concerned.

So, I did the first thing any rational person would do: I called my sister, a nurse. I asked her how long it usually takes for symptoms of food poisoning to occur. She listened intently like the compassionate health care professional she is, assured me that it usually takes several hours minimum for symptoms to appear. "You know, I really think that what you're feeling is just a result of having eaten half a batch of cookie dough. In all honesty, that's pretty gross."

Words to live by.

Oven Temperature

Life lesson learned: calibrate your oven. Who cares what the dial says on top? Who cares if it's gas or electric? Your oven may be lying to you.

I just recently moved. I am very excited about my new house; it has lots of "potential" if you know what I mean.

My last oven was 110-degrees hotter than the dial said. My new oven is 75-degrees colder. Therefore, there is a permanent resident to the inside of my oven: a trusty thermometer. He stands there like a watchdog, warning me when my shady oven is being less than honest.

Unexpected

Life lesson learned: I love food with a twist. Most people have a preconceived idea of how everything should taste, and I think that really great food subtly challenges those ideas. Often times, there's just the tiniest little hint of something unexpected, and that makes a great dish sparkle.

Often times, if you told someone what the magic ingredient was, they might turn up there noses at it, but when creatively just snuck in, they may not even notice. Some of my favorite unexpected combinations include:

• Balsamic vinegar and strawberries: when making a strawberry sauce or glaze, just a hint of balsamic vinegar
  
• Watermelon and lime
• Curry and apples: just a hint of curry in an apple pie, wow
• Orange and broccoli
• Pork and raspberry: I love to put some pureed raspberries in gravy to go on pork
• Balsamic vinegar and vanilla ice cream: if you've never tried it, it sounds disgusting, but a tablespoon a high quality vinegar just right on top of the ice cream is amazing

Please comment and share some of your favorite, unexpected flavor combinations.

Room temperature

Life lesson learned: when a recipe, particularly a baking recipe, calls for butter or eggs or milk at room temperature, they're not lying. Have you ever tried to cream sugar into cold butter? It's destined for failure and gritty cookies. This may require an hour or two of forethought before you dive on in, but trust me, it's worth it.

Fancy recipes

Life lesson learned: just because it's in a fancy cooking magazine with an artsy photo and includes hoighty-toighty steps like "steep the dried lavender buds in the heavy cream until fragrant, about 10 minutes" doesn't mean it's going to be good. Really, it doesn't. Just follow your instincts. Sometimes people just want graham crackers with chocolate frosting on them, and that's okay.