This website is dedicated to my mother who inspired my love of cooking. So many memories of her materialize as I start a meal and  find myself reaching for a cookbook that often has her handwriting in the margins with her personal commentary on a particular dish. I might see a quick scribble here and there about what she liked about a recipe and often I will see a detailed shopping list that she might have taken with her to the grocery store decades ago. There are times when reading her very distinctive handwriting brings tears to my eyes and other moments when it comforts me in ways I can’t put into words. My mother wasn’t big on verbalizing her feelings and affections, quite often she let you know how much she loved and cared for you by what she put on your plate. She made it look effortless but make no mistake…she put her heart and soul into the meals she prepared for her family and we always knew that this was her way of saying “I love you”.

Mom acquired her cooking style from her Irish grandmother. It’s pretty much classic Midwestern cuisine with a strong southern influence. She was born in Oklahoma and raised 4 children in Kansas. The men in my family all loved to hunt and fish so my mother became an expert at prepping and preparing fish and game. It was simple, delicious food  and you’d most often find a big bowl of gravy on the Lazy Susan that sat in the middle of the table and rotated throughout the meal.  Everything was always made from scratch and with fairly basic ingredients. I still remember the thick strips of pasta that she made by hand and would let rise on newspapers in the bathroom because it offered the best humidity. That pasta became the centerpiece for her Chicken and Noodles, a favorite dish that I made over and over again for my own children as they were growing up.  In her later years my mother expanded her culinary horizons and learned to prepare a Beef Wellington that would make you weep. The pate was made from her own ground meats with fresh puff pastry.  Christmas Eve meant that you would be served her signature Brandied Ice which consisted of a milkshake made with brandy and Kahlua. The only Christmas tradition that I held against her was her tendency to fill our stockings with oranges and nuts that still needed to be cracked…old fashioned but so typical of her adherence to tradition.  Summers meant fresh produce at almost every meal.   A summer time lunch as a child was often a sandwich of garden tomatoes on freshly baked bread with a thick swipe of mayo. Her creamed new potatoes with fresh peas were out of this world. And nothing beats fresh pie crust trimmings cut into chip size pieces and dusted with cinnamon and sugar for a late afternoon snack.  If you were lucky she might serve you a Baby Doll for dessert – really nothing but chocolate milk poured over vanilla ice cream in a glass. Simple stuff and yet she always made you feel as if she was giving you something very, very special.  A “high ball”  (or, years later, a glass of wine for me) often preceded dinner when she might pull out a jar of her very own Jalapeno Jelly and pour it over a block of cream cheese with crackers.

As I grow older I find myself more and more my mother’s daughter. I’m pacing my weekends in much the same way that she did. Saturdays are spent grocery shopping (no small task for a serious cook) and  I always try to schedule in a well deserved and much needed Saturday afternoon nap. On Saturday evening I go to Mass just as she did and in the dark and quiet church, I often talk to my Mother in my prayers.  Sundays are spent mostly in the kitchen making things for the upcoming week and a special Sunday dinner is almost always followed by some sort of homemade dessert.

If you’re reading my blog then you must love food and you most likely enjoy cooking for your family. I hope that you will think about who inspired YOU and pay tribute to that person. My mother passed away in 2002 but I have no doubt that she will be keeping up with my blog from somewhere up above. She was always my biggest fan and I miss her.

Happy cooking,

My Mother’s Daughter