family – Make me eat my words.

The hunting season widow

November 6, 2016October 16, 2016 Darcy L. HooverLeave a comment

Every November I lose my husband. While he’s out wandering the woods hunting, I eat alone. Even for an introvert there has to be something to look forward to in extended alone time, and for my hunting season widowhood that something is eating the foods my husband won’t.

A November Hunting Widow’s Menu:

Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Sage Sauce

The first time I had this was nine years ago in a tiny San Francisco restaurant. I came home and immediately worked on duplicating it, which turned out to be fairly easy.

I just melt the cheese into cream and add a couple sage leaves. Easy peasy.

I use Cambozola, which is somewhere between Camembert and Gorgonzola. I am incredibly lucky to live near Edmonton’s Italian Centre Shop. They carry this and every other cheese my heart desires.

Pebre

Pebre is a fresh salsa I learned to make from my son’s father’s Chilean family. There are many family specific versions.

I use corn oil, lemon juice, tabasco, minced onion and cilantro. It tastes better the next day.

I usually make myself some fried fish Chilean style and rice to go with it.

Spaghetti Squash

Another thing the Italian Centre shop always has is nice manageable sized squashes.

I steam the squash and pull the strands away from the rind. I mix that with olive oil, salt, pepper, finely minced or crushed garlic, red pepper flakes and some good quality shredded mozzarella. Bake that until it turns golden brown on top.

Beets

Last of the hunting widow menu items is my roasted beets.

I peel and slice the beets, and toss them in a mix of olive oil, finely diced or crushed garlic, and balsamic vinegar. I bake that until the beets are tender. I like to eat them as a side a dish with perogies.

Curry

As for the curry, that I leave to the professionals.

Fun food finds

October 9, 2016September 19, 2016 Darcy L. HooverLeave a comment

In mid September on the way home from saying a final good-bye to my grandmother, my husband and I stopped in Bonnyville for a break and a coffee. We didn’t have time to get much off the main street so when we passed an old house with a sign saying ‘cafe & antiques‘ we parked and headed in.

The coffee was fine. Hubby got an americano, I got a hot chocolate. The fun part was what I found wandering through the rooms of collectibles.

This is a 1929 version of the White House Cookbook. It’s obviously well used, but the binding and pages are intact. There are some annotations next to a couple recipes.

With recipes like lettuce sandwich, creamed tuna fish, pickled chicken, prune and peanut butter sandwiches, chicken pudding, spiced beef relish, eggs in jelly, and brain cutlets I think it will spend most of its time on the shelf as a interesting conversation starter. I may try some of the bread recipes and I already follow some of the health suggestions.

This is a fabulous find. How it ended up in an antique store in northern Alberta I don’t know, but I like to think that it came up in a hope chest with a young bride. A young woman maybe like my Granny Ada Young who came up from Pennsylvania to
homestead near Dunstable, Alberta with her new husband John.

Maybe this was an sentimental buy. The grandmother whose funeral I was coming home from was born to Ada and John on that homestead. I’m less prone to sentimentality than I am to an obsession with history, but this may be the exception.

It is going to be a joy to find this a place of honour in my new kitchen. Somewhere near my other food related kitchen decorations, my mother’s kitschy early 70’s cookbooks, and near the little book that holds my Grandmother’s pastry recipe.

One cook, five palates

August 27, 2016August 31, 2016 Darcy L. HooverLeave a comment

One of the reasons I started this blog is because I have been really struggling to cook for a blended family for the past four years.

My husband and I brought together our teen aged sons to form what I have to say is a pretty successful family unit. I don’t want to diminish that success, but food has been an ongoing problem.

The first issue has been our differing relationships to food. Everyone has food likes and dislikes. That’s a given. But we all also develop a relationship to food that is dictated by our home environment and how food factors into our upbringing.

I raised my son with the same relationship to food that I was raised with (thanks mom!). He was encouraged to try new foods, but never required to. There was no punishment for not trying, and certainly no punishment for not liking a new food. He was also encouraged to revisit foods he had already tried and disliked. We both have certain foods we simply would never choose first and a few we just avoid, but we’re overall good eaters.

My step sons have a completely different relationship to food. They were brought up old school and dinner was mandated eating. As a result, new foods cause them quite a bit of anxiety and they are very hesitant to try anything new. When they do try new food it’s usually a fake attempt because they’ve already decided they don’t want to like it.

The second consistent issue is meat. I’m not a fan, neither is my son. I started turning away beef as a tween. I now rarely touch pork (but bacon, am I right?). I eat chicken in small portions. My son eats all of those meats, but also prefers small portions in relation to the vegetables and grains offered.

My husband and his boys were raised in meat centric cultures. Pork and beef centric cultures, with some potatoes and veggies haphazardly placed on the side.

The third and last issue is prepared versus fresh foods.
Here again, I cook the way I was raised (thanks again, mom!). I cook from scratch with very few prepared ingredients. This results in far healthier meals. I think they are tastier too because I can’t stand too much salt and sugar.

The real rub is that it also means I put a significant amount of thought into planning and
preparing meals. When they don’t get eaten it feels like I have completely wasted my time.

My son avoids fast food, as do I. We don’t feel good when we eat it. We don’t like prepared foods either because we were raised on them and are accustomed to the taste of real food, without all the salt and sugar.

My husband’s kids seem to gravitate toward prepared foods and fast food. I have serious concerns about their future health based on their eating habits. I’d like to think I can expand their culinary horizons, broaden their palates, and set them up for better lifelong health.

A lot of this blog is going to reference these three issues. I am hoping that they are issues for other cooks in other families as well, and that sharing my struggle helps someone else with their struggle.