I must have at least a dozen posts in which I mention that I really don’t enjoy cooking. Roland does. If he was not in my life and it was only Jenna and me – well, we’d be living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and milk. I can follow a recipe, but cooking requires heat. I hate the heat.
Most of the time I have cooked dinner
Roland doesn’t like
it. It surprises me that there are two
things he does request of me. Two
Separate dishes: Potato salad and Ham chowder.
Neither which I have a recipe for but have done from memory.
My mom was not the greatest cook – but then I’ve never had a
sophisticated pallet and so never saw my mom as a lousy cook. She wasn’t lousy. Her food was edible, but it was mostly
survival food – at least
compared to Roland’s. I never
thought of mom’s
food as bland until after I was married.
I
remember seeing seasonings in the cupboards though not a lot. I don’t think she seasoned or even salted
her food. We had family staples such as spaghetti, hamburger-rice casserole, and
ham chowder for instance. She seemed to
do a lot more cooking when Patrick and I were younger than she had after Corey
and Kayla had come along.
I remember mom teaching Patrick and I how to make different foods. We each made a loaf of French bread as she demonstrated. I also remember her teaching me ham chowder. She said you start with a rue – a flour and butter base. You make a ball and slowly add canned milk and stir it in to keep it thickened. When I told Roland that was how you start, he didn’t know what a “rue” was. I don’t know if that was the word my mom told me. The spelling that I used does not have a definition for cooking thickener.
[The correct spelling is R-O-U-X. I now understand why I couldn't find it.]
I have made potato salad more than I have ham
chowder. It has mostly been spontaneous because
the potatoes need to be used up. I prefer
olives in my potato salad though olives have not always been available at the
time Roland wants me to make potato salad.
Not everybody likes olives. I
know my youngest daughter-in-law does not.
Roland’s latest request was for ham
chowder. I personally think it’s too hot
for soups or hot chocolate. Nonetheless I made chowder yesterday. I think it is one of the better ones I have
ever made.
