Dad's Cooking

A perfect foil for the very windy day – snug inside the living room watching a marathon of “Chopped” episodes on Food Network. I'm always glad that I'm not the one having to figure out what to do with all the odd food items they put into the food baskets for the chefs! I did my own foray into the cooking world today with a pot of steamy potato soup for lunch. I may not have won a $10,000 prize, but I did get rave reviews from hubby.

If you're not familiar with “Chopped”, it's a competition between professional chefs. They start with four chefs who are given a basket of four ingredients to create an appetizer dish in 20 minutes. There's always one very weird item in the basket that doesn't go with anything else. They have to use everything in the basket. One is eliminated and the remaining three have 30 minutes to create a main dish with another mystery basket.....and in the final round the remaining two have 30 minutes to create a dessert from a third mystery basket. The winner receives $10,000. It's fast-paced, stressful, and creative – and it makes me feel so much better about myself in the kitchen when I see the contestants present a dish to the judges with their pasta undercooked or their fish overcooked!

Some days I feel like the “Chopped” competitors when it's time to fix lunch. Normally I have some sort of plan from one day to the next when it comes to meals. But every so often, I hit a culinary wall and draw a blank. On those days, I'll stand in front of my pantry with a look that's partly dazed and partly confused. And inevitably if I finally get the glimmer of an idea, I'll be missing some major component. That's when your creativity kicks in – or not. Sometimes there's just not anything that can be used “instead of” - and sometimes, the substitution turns out to be genius.

Dad was a creative cook. Mom was not. So things could get a bit interesting as I was growing up, depending on who was cooking. The only kitchen disagreement I remember was over pancakes – each of them thought their own pancakes were good and the other's, well, wasn't. I thought they were both okay – all you had to do was use enough butter and syrup to mask the taste!I was always okay with trying new foods.

Dad did create a few memorable dishes. They really couldn't be defined or put into a box – mostly because he would start with a few basic ingredients, then he would start adding whatever looked good to him. By the time he was done, we would have a huge pot of whatever it might be. I usually thought it was good. Mom wasn't always a fan. The worst was one fall when Mom was gone for a few days, and Dad opted to make a pot of stew instead of the food Mom had planned for us during her absence. For reasons I never quite understood, once Dad had the stew going he decided to throw in some macaroni as a starch component. When that didn't quite get it where he wanted, he added rice. By the time that puffed up, he had to add more water and go to a different pan. He kept alternately adding macaroni and rice, then adding the necessary water, until we were into the biggest pan in the kitchen. Mom was almost speechless when she came home several days later and we were still eating that stew! I guess we should have shared it with the dog.

There were a few things that Dad really liked that Mom didn't care for. So he would wait until he was really hungry for it and then head to the kitchen. Cornmeal mush was one thing he would make – cooking cornmeal and water together until it was thick, then pouring it into a loaf pan and refrigerating until it was cold and thick enough to slice and fry. It was yummy with eggs. He would also make custard and sometimes bread pudding. I was usually a willing participant for whatever he was craving.

I enjoy those times in the kitchen now that bring back a memory of Dad cooking – they always make me smile.