As we ate, the talk turned to cooking. One of the dinner guests told a story about when she was a newlywed and was cooking for her parents-in-law for the first time. Her mother-in-law was a formidable Southern cook with a towering personality and my friend was, understandably, intimidated.
She put a lot of thought into the menu and finally decided to serve Cornish hens with Stovetop dressing and a couple of vegetables. After spending the day preparing, she finally pulled the hens from the oven and was happy to see that they were perfectly browned and beautifully crisp. As she carried them to the table, she breathed a relieved sigh, knowing that all was well and that her mother-in-law would surely be impressed by her son’s new wife.
After grace had been said, her newly acquired father-in-law took the first cut into the chicken. Much to my friend’s horror, blood spurted out all over his plate. The beautifully browned birds were completely raw inside. After witnessing that unsightly spewing, no one at the table that night ate a single bite.
My friend is a delightful lady who told the story in a purposefully funny way. But long after the story and the laughter had faded away, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The incident took place almost five decades ago and yet she told it like it was yesterday. Her closing summary about the experience was that from that moment on, she has never enjoyed cooking. Even to this day, she rarely cooks. And to me, that is sad.
Sure, cooking can be fraught with crises. If you’ve ever cooked, you have no doubt experienced a kitchen snafu or two.
Hard-as-granite biscuits. Scorched brownies. Exploded potatoes. Raw fish. Collapsed souffles. Unrisen bread. Mealy mashed potatoes.
And also, if you’re like me? Those unhappy culinary happenings tend to occur the most often when you have company. Oh, the pain.
But culinary catastrophes aside, I love to cook.
And while I am not a gourmet, Julia Child-esque, crack-the-egg-with-one-hand, flip-the-omelet-in-the-air kind of cook, I do find great satisfaction in opening the doors of my cupboards and pulling out items that–eventually, magically, with a little effort stirred in–show up as a tasty meal for my family. In some ways, I even view cooking as a creative outlet and certainly, as an expression of love,
I am fortunate to have sprung from a long line of good cooks.
My two grandmas were never happier than when they were feeding someone–preferably large, noisy groups of someones.
In my maternal grandma’s case, she used to feed large groups of field workers on their farm. (They were called threshers, which birthed a saying from my mom, “There is enough food here to feed a whole group of threshers!”)
In my paternal grandma’s case, she would feed anyone she could get her hands on—family members, church folks, strangers in need–it really didn’t matter. If they came within three feet of her, she put a fork in their hands.
My mom’s cooking specialty was preparing delicious meals for a family of eight on a budget more suited to a family of four.
I owe so much to those three women. They taught me more through their example than their words could ever communicate.
Without the options of microwavable entrees, pizza deliveries, or steakhouse dinners, they faithfully put meals on the table–day after day after day. It wasn’t glamorous work but it was honorable work, providing food and nurture for the people God had put in their lives. The three of them served food and love and gentle words to whoever crossed their paths.
The meals–those countless thousands of meals they served over the years–always started with prayer. Sometimes a short prayer–if a hungry teenager was asked to pray. And sometimes a long prayer–if Grandpa Clemmerson was asked to pray. He was of the persuasion that praying for every missionary in the eastern hemisphere was vastly more important than serving gravy that still contained even one scintilla of heat.
I miss those prayers. I miss those meals.
I miss those days when you could eat a meal without cell phones inhabiting a place of honor beside every plate. The chaotic cacophony of beeps, chimes and ringtones had not yet been invented and people spoke and listened and laughed and chewed, all without any sort of urgent need to check their Facebook status.
No one took a picture of grandma’s mashed potatoes and no one shot a video of the baby trying green beans for the first time. In that simpler era, they lived life in real time, not squirreling away the present moments for future consumption and thereby missing the moment altogether.
It’s easy for me to miss the now because I get so focused on the then. It’s easy to count off days on my iPhone calendar and wish away my current moments in pursuit of happenings that are yet to come.
Today is all we have–this crazy world of today that is noisy and complicated and distressing, a world where there is too much knowledge and not enough wisdom.
The kind of wisdom that comes from a grandma in an apron who dispenses cooking tips along with life advice to a 13-year old granddaughter.
The kind of wisdom that comes from parents who taught the value of waiting for what is important and not expecting the hard things of life to be accomplished in a microwaved minute.
The kind of wisdom that elders not only pass down to the generations, but also pass around–right along with the roast and the potatoes.
The kind of wisdom that is wrapped in the words of a praying grandpa who is far more interested in the hardships of missionaries in Asia than in the constant quest for more, and better, and faster.
Wisdom like that is easier to dispense when people sit still for a while. And so often, that sitting still happens at a dinner table. (And whether your food is usually cooked from scratch or provided by Pizza Hut, the most important thing is to share it with others around a table.)
When the last bite has been chewed and the chairs have been pushed back from the table, you can actually feel the moment expand as people lean in, learn, listen, nod, dream, wonder, question and laugh.
Meals together provide space to live real . . . in real time.
Here some photos from one of the years we had the guys from Dare Challenge over for Thanksgiving. Few things illustrate the power and beauty of a shared meal more than these photos. (Scroll beneath pictures for the remainder of the post.)
What about you?
Do you have cooking stories to share that are funny or poignant? Were there cooks in your life that have influenced you in more ways than one?
In closing, I want to mention that my mom fell on Monday and broke her humerus bone and several small bones in her elbow. The doctors had to wait for the swelling to go down before they could do surgery yesterday; they did a shoulder replacement and put pins in her elbow.
This is Mom before surgery; thankfully, it all went well. She is such a trouper! Love you, Mom!
Stefanie,
Steve used to talk about when his family would move somewhere with the military and everyone would adopt each other as “family” for as long as they were all in that particular locale. Sounds like such a nice custom; I’m glad you got to exerience that.
I am not quite as glad that you got embarrassed by your undercooked pecan pie. 🙂 I never would have thought of the Celsius/Farenheit difference either!
Bless your neighbor for popping it back into the oven and rescuing the moment–and the pie.
I remember cooking a roast for my parents one night. It was hard as a rock and we could not cut it. I bought another one and we cooked it which turned out well. Wish I had paid more attention to my Mama when she cooked.
Ann,
I’ve been there, done that! 🙂
Prayers for your Mom’s healing. My husband had rotator cuff surgery last November, retore it and had another surgery in March and infections three times, apparently from the sutures. Very painful. It seems that a shoulder replacement would have healed quicker and been less painful, but they have to try the rotator repair before doing a replacement! He is finally now doing better.
My Mom and Nana (maternal grandmother) were both very good cooks. Every holiday that was at another relative’s house, my Mom was always asked to bring the pies (always homemade crust) and to make the gravy. I too, can bake good pies and make excellent gravy (along with other dishes). I don’t make pies much because it’s just the two of us. Lucky for me, my husband loves to cook and grill so he does most of our cooking now that he is retired. I still make the more time intensive items like Lasagna, Beef Stroganoff, Pastys, Stuffed Cabbage, etc. Just don’t have me use the barbeque grill – not my forte!
Dinner at my aunt’ s house – My husband was asked to carve the turkey, the neck and bag of stuff was still in the turkey!
Kari,
I have never been real successful in making a good pie crust; sounds like you’ve got it down! Nice you can follow in your mom’s Good Cooking Footprints!
I imagine finding the “bag of stuff” in that turkey made it a dinner to remember! 🙂
Quickest and kindest healing ever for your mama, I pray. Such a sweet strong lady. I love to cook. Don’t do it as often as I used to but there is nothing like a table full of people and food. There is also nothing like the gathering to clean up. The kitchen is full of stories and laughter and a lot of chores but it is part of the gathering. So many meals when I was a child left me and my cousins in a kitchen stacked from floor to ceiling and every flat surface available with pots and pans and dishes and glass but soon the sink was full of bubbling soap and the dish rags and towels were flying over those dishes and utensils while the laughter, silliness, conversations and wisdom were filling the room. I miss those days. I value those days – we solved so many problems, shared so many dreams and just had fun – doing the dishes!
Mary,
I love the pre-automatic dishwasher memories you described when several people worked for an hour to get all the dishes cleaned away. You’re right–it was the best time for laughter and discussion, and problem-solving.
I miss those days, too.
I like to cook but don’t a lot because it’s just me. I get tired of eating the same thing for 4 meals. I have taken over the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for my parents, two brothers, sister-in-law, 2 nieces and a nephew though and actually moved them to my house last year. It was a little far for everyone when I lived in Florida. My maternal grandmother was an excellent cook, sadly I lost her the year I turned five. My paternal grandmother was an okay cook, she was an excellent bread baker but the rest was just so so. She liked to do things like telling us we were having fried chicken but for some reason the chicken had four legs (rabbit). Or the time she put spinach in the lasagna but swore there wasn’t any. The best was she liked to have goose for Thanksgiving but she put it all in the dressing so you had to eat it to get any meat. My mother was a good cook, she doesn’t do a lot anymore though. She made sure that I learned to cook though. Last Christmas, I cooked lunch for my team at work – there were 12 of us. I live 1/2 mile from the office so it was great for everyone to be able to sit around and not worry about the waitress wanting to run us off so she could seat someone else.
One funny story about my cousin. She had gotten married around the age of 24. Unlike me who was cooking dinner for 5 people before I was 15, she never did a lot of cooking. So she decided to make fried chicken for her new husband. She browned it real good and then served it to her husband – much like the Cornish hen in your story.
Phyllis,
Sounds like your paternal grandmother was an “interesting” cook; I imagine you never knew quite what to expect when you ate her cooking.
I agree that it is so nice to eat a meal at home instead of a restaurant because there aren’t the constant interruptions by wait staff. I know they are just doing their job but it makes it hard to get a good conversation or story going.
Hope your Mom has an uncomplicated and speedy recovery! I’m always amazed at how you can throw together a few things from your fridge and cupboard and come up with a meal…..I never seem to have anything that goes with anything else 🙂
Frapper,
Sometimes my cupboard ingregients “play nice” and sometimes they don’t. 🙂 It’s always fun to try, though.
Oh – bless your Mama’s sweet precious heart! I hope she heals quickly and with minimal pain and discomfort!
I, too, have a “raw” Thanksgiving cooking story. I was 26 and had just moved overseas with a toddler when my then-husband was transferred to Germany. As is (or was – with Facebook and the Internet it may not be the same now) customary, many of our neighbors “bonded” into a “local family.” Several families in our apartment complex had decided to get together for Thanksgiving dinner at M&D’s apartment, and I was tasked with bringing a roast (for those who wouldn’t eat turkey), mashed potatoes, and pecan pie.
The roast and potatoes were super-easy for me, as pot roast is my go-to “specialty” – in fact, there’s one in my fridge right now, and I have a hunk of it in my lunch box for today’s lunch.
I had never made a pecan pie, but I followed the recipe I had been given by a neighbor to a T. Everything measured, chopped, mixed, etc. Baked it per the directions and was amazed at how good it smelled and looked.
We loaded our food into Abby’s little red wagon and made our way down the elevator, across the courtyard, up the elevator… Had a wonderful meal in M&D’s small apartment. If I recall correctly, there were probably thirty people there, including couples, small families like mine, and single soldiers (I was always ALWAYS feeding single soldiers, no matter which duty station). The roast, turkey, potatoes, veggies, breads were amazing.
Then we brought out the pies: apple, chocolate, pumpkin, and the lone pecan pie. D cut into my pecan pie, and the filling ran EVERYWHERE. It was not done. Not even close. I was embarrassed and in tears. D quickly put it in her oven to finish cooking, and asked me about my recipe. I rattled it off, including the part about “bake for 45 minutes at 175°.” What the recipe didn’t say: that’s 175° Celsius.
I think I’ve made a couple of pecan pies since then but they’ve been OK. 🙂
But, like your dinner companion – I don’t like to cook. There’s zero enjoyment in it for me. It’s just a chore that I liken to scooping the litter box or scrubbing toilets: something that must be done. Luckily, Mike loves to cook and is excellent at it. 🙂