HOT BUTTERED NOODLES

8 oz. cooked egg noodles
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
1/8 tsp. whole nutmeg (grated will work, too)
¼ tsp. Cayenne pepper
Salt & black pepper to taste
Optional: grated Parmesan cheese
Place pan over medium heat.
Add butter.

When butter begins to melt, add extra virgin olive oil.
Add cooked noodles to butter and extra virgin olive oil.
When noodles are incorporated into butter and oil, grate fresh nutmeg onto noodles.
Add Cayenne pepper to noodles, then salt and black pepper.
Plate up and top with grated Parmesan, if desired.

QUICK BEEF STROGANOFF

1 lb. beef stew meat
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ white onion, diced
1 bay leaf
1 pkg. cremini mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp. dried parsley
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 cups beef broth
1 cup sour cream
coarse grain salt and pepper to taste
optional: ¼ cup cream sherry

Sautee onion in olive oil for approximately one-two minutes. Add garlic and sautee until softened. Add stew meat and coat with olive oil. Be careful not to burn garlic. Whem meat is coated, add broth, bay leaf, mushrooms, parsley, thyme, and sherry, if using. Simmer over medium heat until most of the liquid is absorbed.

Remove from heat, add sour cream. Serve over hot buttered noodles.

You’ve taken a dish from someone you know, or from a recipe you’ve read, and made it your own, haven’t you? That’s okay. It’s called a signature.

I stood in the kitchen last night, straining noodles for Beef Stroganoff and giving myself an impromptu facial with the steam of the hot pasta water, and my six-year-old, Zoë, says “I just want plain noodles, Momma.” Okay, noodles I can do. But plain noodles, no way! I just can’t serve anything plain or … without my signature.

I once heard an interview with a roadie chef - that’s a chef that travels with bands and musicians so they can eat what they want while on the road - and learned that one of my favorite musicians prefers hot buttered noodles after shows. Reaffirming my belief that food puts us back together again.

So how appropriate that Zoë, my little rock star in training, asked me for noodles to eat after her show last night (dancing and singing to High School Musical, of course).

Imagining a song by Zoë topping the charts one day titled “Nobody Makes Noodles Like My Momma”, I sliced a thick pat of unsalted butter to my Grandmother’s cast iron skillet. When the butter turned a buttercup color against the patina of the pan and increased it’s circumference as if stretching it’s arms, I added some extra virgin olive oil. The butter kept the olive oil from smoking too soon. I would have added some minced garlic but the Stroganoff needed me. So I quickly tossed the cooked noodles to the butter and oil, then stirred the noodles in skillet with a wooden spoon that had seen better days. Medium flame turned off, I grated some fresh nutmeg and sprinkled some cayenne pepper into the egg noodles. With little specs of maroon and sable brown, the olive oil and butter singing the perfect duo called “fat is flavor”, I handed Zoë her hot, buttered noodles with my very own signature.

Cayenne and nutmeg for me have made some simple and outdated dishes refined in a home cooking sense. The cayenne gives my dishes a piquant something-something with regional Southern traits. The nutmeg lends what I call a milky earthiness, almost sweet against the heat of the cayenne, with elegance to balance the attitude of the cayenne. Cayenne pepper and nutmeg may be an unlikely pair, but they cooperate for me. These signature ingredients have graced roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, meat sauce, even fruit salad with a complexity that is not commonplace at our neighborhood restaurant or even Grandma’s. Exactly my intention.

Signatures aren’t unlike secrets, as in “secret ingredients” or “What’s your secret?” … well, the decision to disclose your signatures is entirely up to you. I’ve just told you mine and I hope you run to the stove right now to make some hot buttered noodles, or at least scribble down your own signature ingredients/processes on a 3×5 recipe card for your children to inherit one day.

Cooking gives us a chance to keep what we want and create what we need. It’s a chance to leave a legacy. It’s a way to leave your mark, tastefully.

This rich, creamy sweet soup is better the next day, and stays warm in the right container.

¼ cup butter

1 large acorn squash, peeled, seeded, diced

3 cups chicken broth

1 cup 100% apple juice or apple cider

1 cup heavy whipping cream

½ tsp. curry powder

Coarse grain salt and pepper to taste

Fresh parsley, washed and cut up (dried parsley can be substituted)

Optional: Meat from 1 store-bought, cooked rotisserie chicken-torn, or diced

Melt butter in large sauce pan or stock pot over medium-high heat.

Add onion and sauté for one minute, or until onion begins to soften.

Add squash, chicken broth, and apple juice and bring to a boil.

When soup begins to boil, simmer, covered until squash is tender, about 15-20 minutes.

Puree the soup with a hand blender, or in batches in a food processor or blender (it will be very hot).

Strain the soup into another large pot and place over medium heat.

Add heavy whipping cream, curry powder, salt and pepper, and stir until blended and heated through, about 5 minutes.

Add parsley (and torn up chicken if desired)

Reheat in microwave before putting in portable lunch container.

1 pita bread cut in half

2 tsp. mayonnaise

2 tsp. yellow or Dijon mustard

Sandwich vinaigrette to taste - can be purchased at the store

4-6 oz. sliced chicken or turkey meat

½ avocado, sliced lengthwise

Alfalfa sprouts

½ tomato, sliced thin

Open pita bread halves and add 1 tsp. mayonnaise, 1 tsp. mustard, half of the meat, avocado, sprouts and tomato to each pita half. Sandwich vinaigrette should be added over top last. Wrap sandwich immediately.

So, here we go - back to school. I won’t lie. I will miss summer, the staying up late, sleeping late, non-structured days at the pool or beach.

And whether I like it or not, soccer practices and games, homework, early bedtimes and structure will dictate our family days and nights.

I think I will have a harder time adjusting than my children. My almost three-year-old will start preschool and attend three mornings a week. My daughter Zoë begins first grade, and my son Alex will be in fourth grade. I will have a lot of free time, something I have talked up all summer long. I just feel that fitting all of our family’s things into each day is going to be as challenging as getting into my button-fly Levi’s I used to wear to Pearl Jam concerts in the early 90s. That is to say, nearly impossible.

Nearly. It can be done, with a little work. The kind of work that I avoided all summer long.

This is when I turn to food. I don’t mean eating sixteen Godiva truffles in five minutes, but planning dinner, organizing lunches by shelves in the fridge or pantry, and defrosting and marinating two days out. This gives me the sense of control I need, even if it does involve structure, at least it’s on my terms.

It’s not just that, when I plan ahead, we eat well. When we eat well, we can meet the pressures better. And who are we kidding, there is a lot of pressure, I don’t care who you are. Either someone puts it on you or you put it on yourself.

Rescue me from that pressure, food. Hearty, tasty, home cooked food. Packing lunches (even for my own flesh and blood) isn’t one of my favorite things, but when I pack good food they happen to like into their lunches, I recognize who they are when I pick them up. When they don’t eat the lunches I pack (it could be a meal worthy of an Olympic athlete), they look and act like trolls under a bridge at pick up time, begging me for after school snacks filled with sugar and carbohydrates, usually the same snacks they’ve tried to paw off their friends at lunch time. No kid will benefit from what they don’t eat. I have the scratch marks to prove it.

So I do what I’ve gotta do. I bribe, they bargain. They plead, I negotiate. Some days are better than others. I make pita sandwiches but also add one of those 100 calorie snacks to the package. On another day, I’ll use whole wheat bread for their sandwiches but add a small bag of chips to the lunch sack. I also pack hot soups they like, but give them an oatmeal raisin cookie.

I tell my kids, if you end up trading your lunch, just don’t tell me. If your friend Noah says to me: “Great soup, Mrs. G!” I promise not to wonder why. Furthermore, what other kids have in their lunches, I don’t want to know. Who needs to compare themselves to others? We, as a family, come to agreement on what goes into the lunch sack based on favorites, circumstances, and quirks. And guess what? That is perfectly okay.

If the thought, energy, and justification of making school lunches drain me, getting into the kitchen to make dinner fills me up. There is nothing like peeling, chopping, sautéing and serving at the end of the day to revive me from everyone’s everything. No matter how loud the house gets, no matter how many baths need to be taken or how many minutes we need to read, the sounds and smells of the kitchen is my sanctuary.

I enjoy it while it lasts, because ten hours later, it all starts over again.

3 butterflied boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 large can San Marzano stewed tomatoes in juice

1 tbsp. diced fresh ginger

2-3 cloves diced garlic

1 jar roasted red bell peppers, drained and diced

2 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil

salt & pepper to taste

Dash of cayenne pepper

Fresh, chopped Italian parsley for garnish

Accompaniment: 2 cups cooked rice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat non stick pan over medium high heat.

Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper.

Pour 2 tbsp. olive oil in pan.

Add seasoned chicken breasts, cook on medium-high heat 4 minutes each side, or until both sides are browned.

When both sides are browned, remove chicken from pan and set aside.

Add 1 tsp. olive oil to pan.

Add garlic and ginger, cook for about 1-2 minutes, until softened, on medium high heat.

Add diced roasted peppers.

Cook another 1-2 minutes.

Add tomato juice from can of stewed tomatoes and deglaze pan.

Add chicken breasts back to pan.

Cook over low heat while dicing the stewed tomatoes.

Add diced, stewed tomatoes to pan and finish off in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes, until internal temp reads 165 degrees.

When chicken is fully cooked, remove breasts from pan to rest.

Add rice to soak up the pan sauce, mixing well.

Scoop rice onto serving platter, then chicken atop the rice.

Garnish with fresh, chopped parsley.

Bon apetit…bon nuit!

Firstly, they are simple and fun to grow. A tomato plant is rewarding and reliable. My daughter Zoë and I plant a new tomato plant every year on Mother’s Day, a culinary tradition. This year it was a Black Prince tomato plant. And the varieties are endless. Tomatoes are cultivated easily, making them interchangeable and one of the most recognizeable, powerful flavors in the food kingdom. Tomatoes deserve respect - I’m talking about drizzling them with first, cold-pressed olive oil and aged, quality vinegar. I mean slow-roasting in an oven with whacked garlic cloves and grey salt. They definitely deserve nothing less than ripening on the vine or growing in the backyard, whatever cultivar you choose.

These days, you’ll find tomatoes in more than soups, salads and sauces. Do an internet search on tomato gelato, tomato sorbet or candied tomatoes. With their high sugar content, this fruit can be dessert, intermezzo, or a palate cleanser, as well as any other course of the meal. With all of the health benefits, it’s a shame to limit the tomato to appetizers and entrees. Make some tomato ice cream - why not? I can think of some things I ate in college that would make a tomato blush (or shake her head disapprovingly).

Then there is melatonin, a hormone produced primarily in the brain that is linked to serotonin, repair of cells and your sleep cycle - also found in tomatoes. Besides being optimistic, dependable and tasty, tomatoes can help you get a good night’s sleep and keep you happy. This is why I cook with tomatoes every season of the year, just about every night of the week. I always have fresh tomatoes on my kitchen counter, canned organic tomatoes in my pantry, and imaginary tomatoes stirring in my head giving me ideas for our next family meal.

Lycopene has also created a lot of buzz for the tomato. Lycopene is an antioxidant that has been studied for its possible ability to prevent certain types of cancer, macular degeneration and other diseases. Better news is, when tomatoes are heat-processed, the lycopene amount increases. So load up on spaghetti and marinara, tomato soup and grilled cheese, everyone. Those carbs can combat cancer.

Lastly, it should be no surprise that with these anti-oxidants, tomato is beneficial for the skin. I have seen tomato as the main ingredient in facial soap and toner - claiming to be good at balancing out the skin’s pH level. I haven’t tried the soap, but I know tomato juice can de-stench a stinky pet that had a run-in with a skunk. Not such a glamorous trait of the glorious fruit, but the multi-tasking status is undeniable. When I’m confident there are no critters around, I may pair the tomato juice with another beverage that derives from a potato, but that’s another column.

It is no mystery why the world is drawn to tomatoes. A botanical sure thing, a rock star from appetizer to dessert, sleep aid, disease fighter, and skin refresher. All that and flavor, too.

The recipe on the sidebar combines not only tomatoes but ginger and rice, all high in melatonin. The food that delicious dreams are made.

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

2 cups cake flour, sifted

2 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. kosher salt

6 egg whites

(1) 3 ox. Box strawberry Jell-O

¾ cup milk

¾ cup strawberry puree

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350º. Grease a 13×9x2 pan, tube pan, Bundt pan, two 9-inch round pans, I have used them all. Dust with flour, discard any excess.

Beat butter and sugar together until you get a fluffy consistency and light color, 3-5 minutes. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Combine egg whites, milk and vanilla extract in another bowl. To the butter/sugar mixture, alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk mixture. End with flour mixture.

Pour into prepared pan(s) and bake 30 minutes (check at 25 minutes). The cake is done when a cake tester comes out clean.

Before frosting, make sure cake has cooled completely. I have placed cakes fresh from the oven on moist tea towels, also I have placed cake layers in the oven for 10-20 minutes when I need to cool them fast.

STRAWBERRY BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 tbsp. heavy cream or whole milk

2 tsp. vanilla extract

4 ½ cups powdered sugar (start out with 4 ½, I have sometimes needed to add a little more)

½ cup strawberry puree

Whip butter in mixer until fluffy. Add cream, vanilla, strawberry puree, then gradually the powdered sugar.

I am well-versed in brownie mixes, I know just what to add - cream cheese, butterscotch chips, dried fruits - so as to make them delicious enough that no one cares they’re not from scratch. I’ve taken the easy route and used store bought pie crusts, although I took a six-hour class to learn how to make them. My drop cookies get me noticed, but before I start attempting iced, stained glass or piped-frosting varieties, I feel I must become scratch cake literate.

Cake. First of all, “cake” is one of my favorite words, and they are needed for our usual celebrations. Therefore, my crash course in baking is usefulness matched by desire to fulfill some sort of culinary mission. The mission is to become well-rounded. The byproduct, I have come to learn about myself, is gratification I suspiciously don’t dislike.

My “strawberry cake”, as family and friends have come to call it, is whipped up quickly with the help of Classic White cake mix for spring holidays and summer cookouts. Occasionally I use fresh raspberries in place of strawberry puree for bridal or baby showers. Just recently one of my girlfriends asked me to make her a Red Velvet Cake for her birthday. Oooh, something new. A challenge. I derived so much joy from being asked to make it, became encouraged to learn that it wasn’t difficult, and was surprised when I wanted to try more scratch baking that was more rewarding than I ever expected. Plus, I got compliments. Then, people started expecting baked things from me.

Me? Don’t they have any idea that up until now I was bluffing? Does that make me a cheater, or worse, a culinary liar? What if - oh, gees - what if people ask this of me with recurring frequency? Why do I get so worked up over food?

Maybe it’s because this is my job, I want to be good at it. I get requests and compliments instead of performance reviews. I don’t have colleagues, I have children, a continually hungry husband, and also friends - all of whom are great reasons to spend night and day in the kitchen.

“We’re giving Kelly a surprise party on June 13th, I thought you could do the cake,” said my Red Velvet Cake girlfriend. Let’s see, strawberries are in season, the kids will still be in school, and I can’t in good conscience serve that many of my peers a cake from cake mix. I must - remember, I’m on a mission - must do this the hard way, the right way, and in some strange way, because I’ve already established some crazy standard for myself.

So last week, I visited two local baker’s outlets and used my newbie status to endear myself to cake matrons.

“Gum paste flowers are edible, right?”

“Does fondant really taste that bad?”

“Do you give decorating classes?”

To which they responded in one way or another, “You’ll do just fine, honey.” And I did, although I am still learning. My scratch strawberry cake turned out just right - it was moist, flavorful, and pink - everyone loved it. But my buttercream was too runny due to the fresh strawberry puree. I know now from experience to compensate with additional powdered sugar. I used gum paste flowers as decoration for the cake top, but soon I’ll be fluent in pastry tip cursive (although this skill intimidates me like none other). Cake decorating classes start in August and I will be ready.

I will never discard The Cake Mix Doctor, however. Being well-rounded requires awareness; of how hot a 350º oven makes the house in August, of how air temperature and humidity can alter results, of how kids who want cupcakes just don’t care (or know) if you slaved all day sifting cake flour or hooked up with your old friend Betty Crocker.

And a smart girl has a few shortcuts up her sleeve.

No matter what it is I bake, I’m getting in touch. Somewhere inside of me is a meticulously coiffed, Gingham check apron wearing, post-WWII matriarch who has a tray of cookies ready for her children returning home from school and cherry pie aromas wafting out the kitchen windows to greet her husband as he pulls his Chevy Bel Air into the driveway.

She is a timeless, well-rounded woman. She knows more than she lets on. She is me. (Me?).

I came up with this recipe when Zoë was determined to be iron-deficient. Kale, which I grew in my herb garden, is high in iron, and beets, also high in iron, make the pasta pink. (Enriched spaghetti also is a good source of iron!) I blended the kale (I have also used spinach) in with the roasted beets and topped with Grana Padano Parmesan shaved on top of the noodles and veggies, and Zoë scarfed it up…and she didn’t even know it was good for her, all she cared about was the fact that it was pink.
It also makes other things pink, so before you rush to the doctor certain you have a kidney stone or infection (like I did!), give the organic material a chance to pass through your system.

1-2 bunches beets (I don’t recommend canned)
1-2 bunches kale or spinach
1-2 cloves of garlic
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 package spaghetti (enriched if you can find it)
Parmesan
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400º.
Peel and slice beets lengthwise. Wash spinach or kale.
Chop, mince, or slice garlic.
Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to heavy pan on medium heat. Put in garlic, give it a few stirs around the pan, and when it begins to soften, add beets.
Add salt and pepper to beets.
Push around with a spoon a bit until all beets are glossy with olive oil.
Put in oven, roast beets for twenty-five minutes.
In the last ten minutes of cooking, start boiling water to cook pasta.
When beets are done, remove from oven and add spinach or kale to pan over medium-high heat.

The pasta should be in the boiling water by now!
When the spinach/kale has decreased in volume and leaves are wilted, spoon vegetables over cooked, drained pasta.
Grate cheese over beets and spinach/kale.

2 eggplants
2-3 cloves of garlic
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Crumbled Goat Cheese (Feta will work, too)
Coarse grain salt, to pull out moisture from eggplant, and to taste
Pepper to taste

Slice eggplants lengthwise. Set out on platter and sprinkle salt over slices and leave alone for half an hour.
Drizzle olive oil over eggplant slices, about 1 teaspoon per slice.
Place eggplant slices, oiled & salted side down, on grill pan or grill.
Add a little more olive oil and salt to the other side of the eggplant.
When the eggplant slice has grill marks, after about two minutes on high heat, turn over.
After grill marks appear on other side, put eggplant on platter and top with garlic, then grate some pepper on top.
Put crumbled Goat Cheese or Feta on top of garlic.
You can either serve them like this, or roll them up and put a skewer through them.

Note: If the taste of raw garlic just isn’t your thing, mice it fine and spread onto eggplant slices prior to grilling.

Summertime in my town of San Diego is a hot prospect. Inevitable triple-digit temperatures, sometimes even into October. With the Pacific coastline, arid inland valleys and mountains to the east, San Diego almost has two climates within twenty minutes of each other, which means you can find a wide range of flowers, plants, fruits, vegetables and other goods if you know where to look - in addition to weather conditions that have their own moods.

On any day of the week except for Monday, you can find at least three farmers markets throughout the county. On Sundays, I take my family to the La Jolla farmers market at the La Jolla Elementary School. My kids play on a shady playground under the cover of Eucalyptus trees with my husband while I shop the local, organic farms that sell their crops. I find sunflowers the size of pillows, sweet coastal strawberries, flavored olive oils from olives grown locally, and baby vegetables of endless variety.

Food is also prepared and sold - there is Mississippi/North Carolina barbecue run by an older man from the South, with two usual helpers. When I watch them I get the impression that the older man, the middle aged man and the younger man represent three generations of one family, at least they appear familial to me…slicing and plating brisket, pork and chicken together in perfect harmony. The meat is smoked, and let me tell you on a hot August day those men are working pretty hard to get you the best ‘que west of the Old Miss. But they have a smile on their face for everyone as they wipe the sweat from underneath their baseball hats. I would love to wait around until the market closes, give those guys tall, cool beverages, and listen to them tell me stories about their recipes, their history, things they have seen in their lives.

When I am not in the mood for barbeque (which isn’t very often), I stand in a line which is on average ten people deep, sometimes deeper, to get a handmade crepe from scratch made by vendors with thick, French accents (”Oui, Madame, with many strawberries”) The crepes can be made either sweet or savory, I prefer savory, although watching Monsieur Vendeur top blueberries, strawberries, and bananas on chocolate above the base of the crepe makes me reconsider my usual choice of the baby Brie crepe (Brie and mushrooms) or the California crepe (smoked ham, cheese, spinach). What a gift not to have to travel to France with toddlers to get an authentic crepe. I can just sit and let myself be transported to Europe while eating the delicacy, my kids screaming on the monkey bars.

A little further inland, towards the brush covered mountains of rural San Diego and farther away from its rocky coast, there are different vendors. The farmers markets of the sleepy inland towns attract vendors who sell fresh-picked zucchini blossoms, and they’ll give you tips on what to stuff them with (goat cheese is the best bet) and how to fry them up (in olive oil, of course). My favorite picks there are the bread from nearby Native-American Indian reservations, and the fresh salsa and chips. When I grab a bag of tortilla chips, I can feel the warmth of the chips through the bag, and I can see the salt still resting on the surface of the chip like sand on a sea cliff. The salsa is not just the typical mild, medium and hot tomato-based salsa, but salsa with black beans, corn, red peppers and jalapenos that send your taste buds reeling. The hummus is also worth its price, as are the sun dried tomatoes with fresh mozzarella packed in olive oil and pita chips heavier than golf balls. Depending on their mood, pita and hummus or tortilla chips and salsa, I can unload the bags of produce in peace when my kids are feasting on their farmer’s market favorites. That makes a mother happy.

Going to farmers markets just puts me in a good mood. The bouquets of flowers seem more colorful, not to mention cheaper, than the bouquets I see in chain grocery stores. The flowers were recently picked by the vendors selling them, you can see it on the tough skin of their hands that they have been working the fields. There are no pricey vases or air conditioned display cases, you simply pick a bunch of freesia, tuberoses, or bouquet of your choice from the white plastic buckets and the vendors wrap your flowers up in newspaper for you. It’s a simple transaction and you don’t need your club card to get a fair price, which is refreshing.

The produce has so much more personality when you buy straight from the grower. It is from the same neck of the woods as I am. Its grower has a zip code in my county. It didn’t have to be flown or picked before ripening, it got a humble start in the soil not far from where I stand, which means I have captured something at its full potential…and it won’t need much more than salt, olive oil or bread to make a hearty meal. I realize I am silly when I say the fruits and vegetables take on visible characteristics of their environment. When I see a Pineapple Heirloom tomato, I can count four different colors blending into each other, like a southern California sunset.

But the most attractive feature of a farmers market to me is the fact that I am doing what the people of ancient cultures did. The plaka in Greece, the mercata in Rome, all the markets all over the world where people traded goods for other goods or for money in order to survive. Thousands of years ago and into our own time, merchants and vendors sell things made and grown with their own two hands. Now that so many things are mass manufactured and commercialized, it is comforting to return to open air shopping. I seek simplicity when I shop at a farmers market, with the sun beating down on my shoulders.

Whether you want organic, thrive on anti-oxidants, avoid sugar and processed foods or simply love the woodsy taste of red-leaf lettuce unearthed a few hours ago, you can find farmers markets that have diverse, bright, and delicious goods year round, but I think produce peaks in summer. People come out in droves when the sun ripens things to perfection, people like you, like me, and people who are loads of fun to watch. I have seen professional chefs buying produce for their restaurants, people with their dogs in baby carriers strapped to their chests who determine what to buy based on the dog’s reaction to the samples. I feel kindred to the families that go on weekend mornings with their kids in little red wagons, with bags of pears, figs, and herbs piled on top of their tots. My kids know their way around open air markets, which is to say they take full advantage of the samples available. When I take my little girls to the farmers market, I have to watch them carefully. They will walk right up to a table filled with produce and sample beans, tomatoes, plums, you name it. Every vendor I have met is more than happy to let you try their harvest, but I am sure it is rather distracting to find little bites taken out of the fruits and vegetables they are trying to sell. They usually end up selling them to me.

Now that I am a very brave home cook and farmers market aficionado, I no longer plan menus in advance for dinner parties. Whatever is freshest is what I buy. Since I can get several types of fresh made pasta my local farmers market (my favorite is basil pappardelle), I love to roast my vegetables with olive oil, sea salt, and pepper and toss them with the pasta, and topping with the parmesan I bought from the Italian vendor, or the feta I bought from my soft spoken friend Mr. Petrou. The berries I buy can stand alone, but for a more satisfying dessert, I let them macerate in vanilla sugar and spoon onto a (store bought, sometimes homemade) pound cake. With a multi-color gerbera daisy centerpiece as the final touch on my table, my marketplace offerings are nutritious, crowd-pleasing, and stylish. I manage to please the picky eaters and delight the senses. I am also helping the local growers and small farms which makes me feel rebellious in a good way…like a modern day Tom Joad or a Mediterranean matriarch resisting a hostile takeover of the land, purchasing bushels of root vegetables with soil still clinging to them from the farmer who had more hungry mouths to feed, rather than from an ambitious grower who took more than his fair share.

Roaming an open air market on a long summer day, watching children climb trees and overhearing elders speak about the medicinal properties of their products…ah, I’m home. I’m also in my favorite history class, and the lessons, like the produce samples, are free.

SLOW COOKED BARBEQUE CHICKEN

3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 cups barbeque sauce, store-bought or homemade
1 cup chicken stock
1 tbsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. red wine vinegar
1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil

Mango Salsa (recipe follows)

Tortillas

Mango Salsa

Can be made ahead of time and will keep for up to four days.
2 mangoes, diced
¼ red onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
½ bunch of cilantro, chopped
Juice and zest of one lime
1-2 tsp. minced ginger (I go heavy on the ginger)
1 tsp. canola oil
coarse grain salt, to taste

Add chicken breasts, barbeque sauce, chicken stock, oregano, and olive oil to slow cooker. Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours. When chicken is done, shred using two forks. Any remaining cooking liquid can be strained and mixed in with rice or beans.

SLOW COOKED THAI INSPIRED CHICKEN

This dish requires a little more work only if you want to make the fresh sauce for the final dish. If not, buy a good Pad Thai sauce to mix into the rice noodles and slow cooked chicken.

For the marinade and cooking sauce…

3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
(2) 14 oz. cans coconut milk
Zest and juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp. fish sauce
1/2 tbsp. dark soy sauce
2 tbsp. Hoisin sauce
1 tbsp. Thai seasoning
1/4 cup miso paste
Dash of coarse grain salt
1 package rice noodles (the thick ones) cooked according to package directions

1 cup unsalted peanuts, smashed
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
1 cucumber, julienned or grated on cheese grater
3 carrots, shredded or grated on cheese grater
In place of store-bought Pad Thai (or other) sauce…
2 tbsp. fresh ginger, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
Red pepper flakes to taste (I used about 1 tsp.)
2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp. Hoisin Sauce
1 tbsp. sweet chili sauce
1 tsp. sesame oil
Juice of 1 lime

Optional: scrambled egg, bean sprouts, dried shrimp

Marinate chicken overnight. Add the chicken plus the marinade into the slow cooker. Cook on low setting, 8 hours, or high setting, 4 hours. When done, shred chicken using 2 forks.

When chicken is shredded, place in bowl and mix with store bought sauce, or add: ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, Hoisin sauce, sweet chili sauce, and lime juice. Mix well. Set aside.

Cook rice noodles. When done, drain noodles and place in serving dish. To keep the noodles from sticking, you may want to add a little sesame oil or canola oil to them.

Add chicken mixture over rice noodles. Top with cucumber, carrots, peanuts and cilantro.

“Feed me!” “I’m hungry, Mom!” “What’s for dinner, honey?”

It never ends, I swear. Especially at this time of year, when ball games, extended daylight hours, activities, school projects and summer planning are at their peak, I have to bring my A-game to secure a winning dinnertime.

Dinner, in my home, is the only time the five of us are really all together under the same roof. After school my kids disperse; one child at practice, the other at a friend’s house, the toddler doing something destructive I will later have to clean, my husband working or working out… you get the idea. From about 6:30 p.m. on, I try my best to gather the cubs and Papa Bear back into the den. It’s re-charging time, and if I pull them back from having fun, I better have something good waiting. It starts with a slow cooker.

I have witnessed slow cookers go from crock pots to digital masterpieces. When I was the hungry child, my Mom would make “Malibu Chicken” in the slow cooker. Her slow cooker/crock pot was round, beige and brown, with vegetables painted on the outside. Do you know the one I mean? It had a thick, black cord and a switch that illuminated red, when it was “ON”, it’s only setting. It wasn’t as sophisticated as the slow cookers now - now slow cookers are high tech and have a following of cookbooks devoted to them - back then, I remember crock pot “recipe collections” spirally bound, my Mom borrowing the cookbook from one of her office mates. Who knew we’d be downloading recipes years later, or buying slow cookers that came with a memory of 300+ recipes, multiple settings, and a “Keep Warm” feature, designed for our busy lives?

Me the Mommy now, I am grateful for such advancement. And my own memory full of crock pot dishes, I believe I do have the slow cooking gene. I am so happy after returning from the beach or ball game to have dinner ready for us. Mirror, mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all…

As busy as life gets, the most joyful days for me are when I relish in the details, when I see them as stones in a path leading me to our family’s evening re-grouping in our castle. Sitting down to dinner, despite the day we have had, is the journey and the destination for me. I feel safe. I feed the ones I love food they enjoy. That slow cooker I romanticize, it’s an enchanted vessel that aids me in my culinary fairy tale.

And it takes me to different lands, too. This past Sunday, escaping a heat wave and heading to the beach, my slow cooker rewarded us with Thai-inspired chicken when we got home, sandy and exhausted. Last week, after my son’s ball game, we came home to shredded barbeque chicken waiting to be wrapped in tortillas and topped with mango salsa. And next week, I’m attempting my Mom’s Malibu Chicken, I don’t know how it got its name, but it is comprised of chicken breasts wrapped around ham and Swiss cheese, slow cooked with Cream of Mushroom soup. I’ll update it by using prosciutto, provolone, and a béchamel infused with dried porcini mushrooms, garnished with some Italian parsley and basil.

I’m saving time. I’m using it wiser. I’m remembering it past. I’m doing something right. And I’m making it taste good…what else can I do?

© Samantha Gianulis, 2008

HAWAIIAN PIZZA

Store bought pizza dough
1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves crushed, diced garlic
1 14.5 oz. jar pizza sauce, marinara sauce, or tomato sauce
1 8 oz. package Canadian bacon or diced prosciutto
1 14.5 oz. can pineapple rings, drained and chopped
3 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
Dried oregano
* Special equipment recommended - pizzas stone (cookie sheet will work fine, too)

Preheat oven to 400º.
If using a cookie sheet, spray with non-stick spray.
Roll out pizza dough onto stone or cookie sheet with pizza roller, until it resembles the crust for your pizza.
Drizzle olive oil over crust and dot with garlic.
Cook pizza crust in oven for approximately 6 minutes, until the edges begin to brown.
Remove pizza crust from oven.
Carefully pour pizza or tomato sauce over pizza crust.
Add pineapple, then bacon or prosciutto.
Sprinkle on dried oregano, to taste.
Lastly, add shredded Mozzarella to pizza.
Cook in oven for approximately another 10 minutes, until cheese melts and before crust gets too brown.

FISH TACOS

2 Pounds Wahoo (also called Ono) - Halibut or Tuna will work too
Whole Wheat Tortillas (or white, it’s a matter of preference)
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
½ head of green and ½ head of purple Cabbage, chopped
Juice of 1 lime
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
Diced tomatoes optional
Lime wedges

FOR SAUCE
Sour Cream (no more than a cup)
(Best Foods) Mayonnaise (no more than one cup)
Juice of 1 lemon or lime
Lemon Pepper
Pinch of Salt

Make sauce:
Put equal parts sour cream and mayonnaise in bowl. Squeeze juice of one lemon into bowl; add a pinch of coarse grain salt, and about half a tablespoon of lemon pepper. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Season fish with salt and pepper prior to sautéing. Coat pan with olive oil. Add fish, grind some additional pepper to taste. Squeeze lime juice over fish. Cook fish 4-5 minutes on each side (note: if grilling fish, cook 4-5 minutes on each side as well) Next, warm up tortillas.

Serve taco by placing fish on tortilla, adding cabbage, and finally white sauce with lime wedges on side. Tomatoes and cilantro add the perfect touch.

Fish taco recipe from Little Grapes on the Vine…Mommy’s Musings on Food & Family by Samantha Gianulis (Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing, 2007)

The year was 1984, I was thirteen years old. My best friend Kari and had traveled up Interstate 5 North from San Diego to Laguna Beach, California for a week-long vacation with her family. A thick marine layer had moved in on the coastal city, it was June, and we walked towards the beachfront hotel with alongside Kari’s older sister, Kathy whom I worshipped. Kari were sipping sparkling cider out of glass bottles, our hands strategically wrapped around the labels. We were pretending to be older and glamorous like Kathy, and that our cider was actually beer.

During the day that preceded our adolescent pretending, Kari and I giggled like the little girls we still were as we chased the waves. Nearby, a radio (”blasters”, we called them back then), played The Boys of Summer by Don Henley. We were aware that in the black and white Boys of Summer video shown on MTV, a man and woman chased each other in and out of waves on a beach that remarkably resembled the one in front of our hotel. But we had no boys chasing us, we knew we were just kids, and we spent a good portion of that summer day discussing what we thought our future husbands would be like.

Life seems so simple when you are thirteen. At least, it should.

I had not fallen in love yet. I wasn’t thinking about college. My family was intact, and I didn’t have a job yet. No major rite of passage was on the horizon for me, either - but I did find an integral part of my identity on that trip. I discovered twenty-four years ago, in some fine restaurants and rustic beachside snack shacks in Laguna Beach, California, my inherent sense of culinary adventure.

It went something like this at dinner that night…

“What’s that they put on the peeeht-suh? Pyyyne-apple…and hh-what? Bay-cuhn?” Kari’s father, a Texan, said this in his finest drawl. I had never heard her father surprised about anything, it made me giggle. And I don’t know what possessed Kari and me, maybe we wanted to be rebellious, but we ordered a pizza for just the two of us (we were going through a growth spurt, no doubt) with those unheard of toppings. Everyone else stuck to pepperoni and sausage.

In 1984, the Hawaiian pizza, as we know it now, was not mainstream. It was, as I recall, almost sacrilegious. And our exploratory attitude served us well; we succumbed to the pineapple sweetness and Canadian bacon saltiness married atop a blanket of earthy mozzarella.

I have ordered only Hawaiian pizzas since summer, 1984. Every time I order or make a pizza pie, I taste the independence first encountered at that pizza snack shack by the water.

The following evening on our vacation, Kari’s parents took us to a Japanese restaurant next to our hotel. I expected white tablecloths, white napkins, and tea steeping from a ceramic pot brought to us, set in the middle of the rectangular table, with tiny white cups dotting the crisp linen setting. I expected chicken with a dark, tangy soy sauce and sticky white rice, steam rising from the plate. Instead, someone put baby octopus and raw fish in front of me.

So I ate it. I simply could not think of a reason not to try it.

I hadn’t taken the SAT test yet, decided what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I felt strongly I should not turn down a culinary dare. I loved the chewy texture of the octopus, the cold wetness still clinging to it from the sea. I loved the pinkness of the raw fish, the thin blackness of seaweed wrapping around the avocado, crab and rice in the California Roll. I ate a lot of sushi and then I ate some more. I felt brave, proud of myself in a silly way, and I hadn’t broken any rules. A win-win for the foodie to be, me.

I was content with the simple contradiction of daring paired with obedience.

***

The year was 2004. An August morning in Laguna Beach, California, I was experimenting with champagne, mango juice, and star fruit. Cinnamon rolls were baking in the oven, and as I poured heavy cream into whisked eggs, my husband Pete sat on the sofa of our vacation rental with our children, watching a baseball game. Watching, as it were, the boys of summer.

Life felt simple. The imaginary husband that I concocted at the same place twenty years ago waited for his breakfast. He was, and is everything and nothing what I expected him to be. Another contradiction that I couldn’t deny enjoying. Beyond the open windows overlooking the beach, I watched young teenage girls in modest bikinis not straying far from their parents, and laughing, laughing with abandon, whispering in each other’s ears, and drawing hearts and initials in the sand. I smiled and remembered Kari, who slipped away from me years ago, and moved to Texas. I wondered if she still ate Hawaiian pizzas. I made myself a note to e-mail her older sister Kathy, whom I was still in contact with.

Pete and I spent our vacation days in Laguna Beach much like other families do, families who traveled to the beach for recreation and escape. We built sand castles, glided on skim boards, and stopped every four to six hours to reapply sunscreen (I got burned enough as a child). But most importantly, we introduced our children to non-traditional cuisine. It’s our job as parents to instill certain risk-taking behaviors in our children, we agreed.

So we geared up and headed out for fish tacos at a roadside place called Wahoo’s. They specialize in the “surfer’s hamburger”; grilled fish wrapped inside a tortilla, with cabbage, tomato salsa, avocado. Squirts of lime as well as Tabasco - total necessities for a fish taco - ran down the back of our anxious hands cupping the seafood treat. Fish tacos were no different than chicken or beef tacos to our kids, and for that, we reigned happy and indulgent. Cultivating palates that were non-conventional in culinary wisdom would serve them well. Risk-taking that didn’t endanger. A win-win for our little foodies.

My introduction to fish tacos - during a baseball game, the third date my husband took me on - was the only time since 1984 that I had taken a culinary dare. I had eaten sushi, broken tradition with pizza, but hadn’t been challenged by anyone since I was thirteen years old. So I ate the fish taco, married the person who wanted to partner with me in calculated, flavorful, and secure adventure, and have eaten a thousand fish tacos shamelessly ever since.

Because I believe that potential favorites come unexpectedly, and almost any food is worth trying once. It’s sanctioned jeopardy. Breaking culinary boundaries can change the way we eat, the way we look at food, the way we see ourselves, and provide hints of kinship within others.

At the table, I never say never. It’s a simple, reliable recipe.

It’s not so much “you are what you eat” as it is, you are what you feel like eating.

If I feel adventurous now (or if I’ve had too many star fruit Mimosas), I may try Menudo. If I covet the feeling of safety, I’ll fall back to cinnamon rolls. If I feel nostalgic, I’ll go out for California Rolls.

Later today my husband, three children and I are driving to Laguna Beach for the holiday weekend. We’ll do Easter Brunch seaside. I foresee Eggs Benedict in my near future, but I could change my mind - about food - at any time. That is so much fun for me.

It might sound simple, but the culinary choices I am free to indulge in provide the fixes I need, that I can take without consequence - whatever age I happen to be.

Life tastes better when you know yourself.

3 cucumbers, peeled and sliced1 cup rice wine vinegar1 tsp. sesame oil1 tsp. soy sauce

½ tsp. canola oil

Coarse grain salt and pepper, to taste

Dash of red pepper flakes

Toasted sesame seeds, to taste (but no more than 1 tsp.)

Place sliced cucumbers in bowl.

Add vinegar, oils, soy sauce, and salt and pepper.

Mix well.

Top with red pepper flaked and toasted sesame seeds.

Serve.

PASTA WITH CILANTRO PESTO, PINE NUTS & GOAT CHEESE

I know Zoë and I made basil pesto, but we made cilantro pesto the following night and we like it more! It’s a brighter green than basil pesto.

1 bunch cilantro (leaves only), washed and roughly chopped

¼ cup toasted pine nuts, plus 2 tbsp. toasted pine nuts reserved

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (an additional 1 tbsp. if you like)

½ cup grated parmesan cheese (it can’t be powdered or powdery, get the real thing)

Dash coarse grain salt to taste

½ package (8 oz.) pasta of your choice (we used cellentani)

½ cup crumbled goat cheese

Get water for pasta on heat to boil.

To blender, add cilantro, pine nuts, cheese and salt.

Puree/blend until mixture is like a paste.

While blender is doing its thing, pour olive oil through the top spout, in a trickle.

If your blender does not have a top spout, stop the blender and add olive oil a little at a time, pulsing only with the top on.

Let pesto rest.

Finish cooking pasta, and when it’s done, drain and pour into serving dish.

Top pasta with pesto.

Mix well, don’t stop until all pasta has greenage!

Top with remaining 2 tbsp. toasted pine nuts and goat cheese.

For years, I have chased everyone out of the kitchen when I am in there cooking. It’s my happy place, my escape. Come 5:00 p.m., I pour myself a glass of wine, light some candles and tune out the noise in the rest of the house. I dismissed all of the “Cook with your kids!” literature because I affirmed the kitchen is where I relieve my stress; why would I want to create more stress by letting my kids practically set themselves on fire in front of my gas stove, or cut themselves on one of my paring knives? We had a nasty incident once when Zoë reached across a frying pan and burned herself when we were starting off with the basics - a sunny side up egg - and her forearm did not heal for weeks. That kept her out of the kitchen for about six months. But now, she’s back. Six months has made a tremendous difference. All of a sudden my baby girl is a sous chef, and when I say to her “Thank you for your help, baby,” I really mean it.

Last week as I slid in between the pantry and the fridge for the ingredients needed in my cucumber salad, Zoë hopped off the couch and ran towards me, stopping at my socked feet. She is much smaller than me, it is so clear when she stands facing me, her toes mirroring mine. “I wanna help you, Momma.” I leaned down to kiss her forehead, knowing, I couldn’t deny her. I had no good reason to. It may take me a little longer to get dinner on the table, to explain my methods as I go along, but I had to foster this yearning of hers. Covering all of the lessons she’d learn while in the kitchen, I made notes in my mind…

Self-sufficiency

Creativity

Stress release

Sense of accomplishment

Avoiding take out food

Tradition

Healthy living

Time well spent between us

That last one really got me. Time well spent between us. All too often I get wrapped up in writing, in chauffeuring, in laundry; mundane tasks of everyday life that keep me darting around the house and neighborhood like a matriarchal automaton. There is heart in everything I do for everyone, and I carry on like that is enough, but it’s not. I have to smile once in a while. I have driven Zoë to me; especially on the days where the kitchen is the only place I can be caught smiling.

I do nurture our mother-daughter relationship, of course. Every Mother’s Day, we plant vegetables in our garden. It’s become a tradition. But that is once a year, it comes and it goes. What is there in between? There is a little girl who needs to learn how to take care of herself, how to receive love, how to show love. I braid her hair, I allow her to choose what to buy for dinner when we are at the market, and help her with her homework daily. But are all of these details adding up to a larger emotional impact inside of her beating little heart?

Last night, Zoë’s homework packet required her to “Compare two foods that have been cut, one into equal parts, one into unequal parts. Talk about their differences and draw a color picture of each.”

We can do that. We do it every night, matter of fact.

On our white cutting board, I placed a basil leaf the size of my palm next to a basil leaf the size of a matchbook. “Take a look at this basil leaf, Zo-zo. How does it compare to the other basil leaf?”

“It’s bigger. And also because it has a longer stem right there,” and she pointed to the bottom of the fragrant leaf.

“What about if I cut the bigger leaf? How is it different now?”

“It’s in two pieces now, but the little piece still looks like the big one it came from.”

“Okay, I’ll finish trimming the basil for the pesto, and until it’s ready for the blender, go draw a color picture like your homework says to do, okay?”

Hopping down from her chair, her smallish hand on the back of the chair, she said “Okay, Momma.”

She came back with a picture of her and I. She didn’t draw two basil leaves and use a green crayon, she drew the two of us in the kitchen, using sienna brown, goldenrod, aquamarine.

Evidently, she and I are basil leaves.

Come Mother’s Day, I imagine Zoë and me planting a basil variety in the garden. For the rest of my life, I imagine us cooking together in the kitchen. In between all of the particulars of our busy lives, you know the ones I mean, the kitchen will remain the place that centers me and brings me back to my mental happy place. But from here on out, I’ll have nightly company. I’ve started culinary rituals with my daughter and that is one of the cornerstones of our relationship now; there is no turning back. I always knew she’d catch up to me in the kitchen, get the cooking bug, it just seems like it got here a lot quicker than I expected. She is growing up, but she is my little basil leaf, from a larger plant, and she will never outgrow the need for her colorful surroundings.

That is just fine with me. The possibility that my legacy could be the establishment of a happy place and its eight life lessons takes me to a place where “happy” is merely a simmer. I’m bubbling over being friends with my six-year-old daughter. I can only imagine the impact our time well spent together has on her.

EGG IN A HOLE

(also known as Egg in a Basket)

One slice of bread, with a square or round piece cut from the middle of the bread and set aside

1 pat of butter
1 egg
Salt and pepper to taste

Place a frying pan over medium-high heat, add butter.
Over the melting butter, add bread slice to the pan, alongside it, add the piece cut from the middle.
Crack the egg and add it into the hole in the bread.
Sprinkle salt, grind pepper over egg and bread.

After about thirty seconds, turn egg and bread, and separate slice of bread alongside, over with spatula.

When egg is done, slide onto plate, and use the separate slice of cut out bread to dip into the yolk.

RIGHTEOUS CORNBREAD

Goes with everything, especially chili on Super Bowl Sunday.

2 cups buttermilk baking mix
5 tablespoons cornmeal
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ cup milk
½ cup sour cream
½ cup melted butter
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 350º.
Mix all ingredients in bowl.
Place in a baking pan (such as an 8×8 bake ware dish) and bake for 35-40 minutes, until the edges of the cornbread are browning and the bread pulls away from the sides of the pan.

Menus, like the corners of my mind
Salty, butter-flavored memories
Of the way we ate
Scattered placemats…
…oops, seems I got a bit carried away there.

This happens to me sometimes, I will start to tear over a menu or cookbook.

Tonight at dinner, I really, really missed my stepson, Dillon. He hasn’t lived in the same city as the rest of our family for four years now, but sometimes it hits me - at the dinner table, for instance - he really should be here with us.

This past weekend, my husband and I took our three other children for dinner at a local diner following an afternoon of biking along the water. I was so excited to eat a patty melt and slurp down a chocolate malt  within the kitschy, aluminum walls of a classic American diner (this is usually the case, my appetite overshadows my awareness of things) that I wasn’t thinking about being a party of five instead of a party of six. You see, I am accustomed to my husband visiting my stepson in the state where he lives now rather than my stepson making brief, infrequent visits to see the rest of us. Being a married couple with three children instead of four is our accepted state of family affairs. With text messaging, e-mails, speed dial and low internet airfares, it doesn’t seem so lonely or isolated. It needn’t be this way forever.

Only food can illustrate to me how badly I miss him. Like when I look at a menu and see one of his favorites - something obscure or that I used to make for him - and with a paper menu trembling in my hands, it’s all I can do to keep from asking the waitress, “Can we get another chair for someone who will be joining us at a later time?”

We all miss Dillon, for obvious reasons; he’s an absent son and big brother, he’s that fourth person you need for a pick-up game. Because it’s nice to have an older brother to protect you or show you how to spike your hair. I am the only one who sees our life passing us by when I look at a menu, recipe card or empty frying pan.

“So what’s on the kid’s menu?” I said as we settled into the red vinyl booth of the diner. I read aloud the usual entrée choices…chicken strips, burger, grilled cheese, pancakes, Egg in a Hole…wait, Egg in a Hole?

Uh-oh.

“No, really. What?” He wouldn’t stop until he cracks me.

“They have Egg in a Hole on the menu,” which is all I needed to say.

He registered my emotions and let me alone. He knew I was taking a second here at the diner to remember when I used to cut holes into slices of bread and slide them into a frying pan with pats of pale butter, cracking brown eggs into the middle of the bread slices…and how the egg, butter and bread together emitted a milky scent and crackling sound before 7:00 a.m. on the weekdays or before ball games on weekends, for a hungry kid waiting for his favorite breakfast. For my stepson, Dillon.

“Oh, gotcha. Want to order it?” Careful consideration.

“No, I’m good. Maybe next time.”

I don’t cry by nature; I eat, act nonsensical, and write. This is why my husband asked me if I wanted to order Egg in a Hole; because I have been known to order something for Dillon, my stepson, and have it packaged to go, or take a few bites and set it aside. Why would I do that? Order food for someone hundreds of miles away?

Simple. I have to see if the chef makes it better than I do. And because that all-of-a-sudden, wish-you-were-here energy derived from food can reach my stepson faster than an egg fries in butter and is more tangible than a formulaic text message.

So I got past that culinary memory, the way people put a scrapbook or photo albums back on a shelf. Then I spotted cornbread on the menu, offered with the chili.

“Think they use sour cream in the cornbread like I do?” I asked my husband. He placed his menu down and looked at me, saying with raised eyebrows, yes, I remember when Dillon specifically requested your cornbread with meatloaf, steak and chicken. Enough already, eat something and you’ll feel better.

Rather, my husband said “You want to call and see if he’s eaten well today?” I shake my head from side to side, silently, like a kid about to cry. But I don’t call, and I don’t cry, because I know Dillon is probably working the second shift at the restaurant where he is employed, where his lunch is comped. “Just order the chili and cornbread. Okay?”

Okay. That was a good suggestion, of course, but nothing can replace the feeling of cooking for someone you love. There is no better time spent as a family than sitting around a table together. No parallel sensation of your loved one enjoying what you have made them or the endearing bother of your child liking your entrée more than theirs. And when you can’t have that, you fall back to a time when you did, and you look forward to the next time you can.

I visit this place through menus and cookbooks. For me, the food tells the story. The familiar scent, the coveted flavors, the setting full of colors, and the coincidence that really isn’t (how many places serve Egg in a Hole anymore, anyway?).

Sometimes when I think Dillon is slipping away to his teenage commitment to be as cool as possible, that he’s forgotten just how much he’s loved from a different geographical location, he’ll call our home and ask how I used to cook something. He’ll request “that thing you made us all the time,” or “the side dish I used to scarf down.”

I smile. Who needs the extra entrée now?

I pull out the sixth chair from our kitchen table with the phone in my hand, sit down, and say, coolly, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” I’ve got to make sure he still comes back to have it the way I made it.

“Come on. Tell me how to make the cucumber salad. Please?”

“Alright, get a pen.” I say to Dillon as I look at my husband, who registers this, and listens as I dictate the list of ingredients and share instructions, with that wishful energy traveling great distances, rooted in hunger and in memory.

For me, the food tells the story, and the menus, all of the menus I am lucky to have, could fill a book.