Revised Memoir Draft

Food Memories

Peeking over the counter top, I watched my father’s hands as he flipped through a cookbook and kneaded dough absentmindedly. The dry chalk of the flour coated his hands and the counter, rising into the air when slight breeze came through. My childhood is filled with many memories like these. My father worked nights and would babysit me during the day when my mother was at her job. A joke often told between my parents was, “Baby, baby, who's got baby?”. I was the tag along to all grocery store trips and to Half Price Books, conveniently located close to each other in the same strip of shopping mall. Inside, the shelves of the bookstore leaned up like giants. The colorful spines filling the spaces looked like teeth and the vanilla scent of old books pervaded the space.

My father collects cookbooks. Each one speaks of its own era, and good ones have thick pages and added notations like “needs more milk”. The ones now are new and slick with big photos, and never have food stains on them. Instead his favorites are local ones composed by women’s clubs with plastic spiral spines. A chocolate smudge on a favorite recipe, turned oily with time, will catch his attention faster than a hungry bloodhound. His favorite era of Joy of Cooking is the 60’s, and he will scour Amazon by ISBN number to get exactly what he’s looking for. The market for old cookbooks is growing again, part of the slow food revival movement in America.

No matter what anyone tell you, a lot of cookbook combing goes on in Goodwills. The dirtier and the nastier, the better. My mother has an inherent dislike of any thrift stores because of the perceived germs on every surface. Notice the conflict of interests already? When my mom was unfortunate enough to be kidnapped on trips like this, say on vacation, she would humor my father but never touch everything. My own love for cheap vintage clothes amused her, but I believe that was because clothes could be washed. A book was a bit harder to disinfect. Her breaking point hit one day, when it was so humid outside the interior widows of the store had condensation on them. She hid in the car with the A/C, and never really went treasure hunting with us again.

My parents continued their work schedules, his at night and hers during the day, but their hours got a lot longer. My mom would come home when it was dark, and my father would come back at eight in the morning sometimes. We had moved, and their commute increased, which left me to my own devices quite a bit during summer break. If I wanted to be fed, I had to do it myself. If I wanted my mom to eat, I had to make dinner as both parents were too tired to cook, though my dad could scrape together a breakfast for himself. I began digging through my dad’s library and sorted through cookbooks.

I had never really payed his collection any sort of attention before, because I was part of the online age of convenience and was used to pulling up what I wanted instantly.  The theme, I noticed in retrospect, was dessert cookbooks. I had to throw up my hands then, because there was nothing I wanted to make unless I smothered myself with sweets. So I scraped together my memories of cooking classes my father made me go to as a child and taste memories of good meals. Fresh red snapper? Sure, with a raspberry vinaigrette sauce. Or chicken alfredo with once frozen green beans. American food. Easy to remember and make food. Things that could be added to a grocery list and be quickly bought.

Some nights my mom worked so late, and my dad had left for his job before dinner was made, I would put the leftovers into plastic tupperware. Part of cooking for another person is knowing their likes and dislikes. My mom hated mushrooms, and if I was feeling somewhat malicious about being left home all day, I would use cream of mushroom soup in the base ingredients.The best meal I made though was white wine braised pork chops, which took the least amount of attention because everything was left in the oven for two hours. Not that I was bitter about that, but effort did not always correlate to quality of meal.

When I went back to college, my cooking dropped off a cliff and my mother switched to frozen dinners. Wonder why American have large refrigerators? Convenience. My father has a Kenmore lay down one in the garage. Most families believe in having a few frozen emergency meals around as a time saver. If not meals, then out of season fruits, or large quantities of meat. We freeze bread in my house so it doesn't go stale or mold before we finish a loaf. The only other person I know to do this is my bachelor uncle. I’m sure there are jokes about times of famine somewhere in there and the use of stale bread.

I haven’t cooked in more than six months, and I know from experience my skills tend to deteriorate. Why make something terrible if you can buy something better? Money, which tends to be the universal answer. If you can’t make a cake, Duncan Hines is a good place to start. Yet look at America’s foodscape. We have everything from Chinese to Jamaican to Greek. Everyone is this culture is learning, whether about buying, eating or selling. The supply chain of consumerism rests on our stomachs and the choices we make. Dine out or eat in?

Secret Ingredients Reading for Tuesday

I noticed the overarching theme of the readings all involved saving time. In The Secret Ingredient, the author regrets the lack of recipes people are willing to follow if they don't cut time, even if it sacrifices taste. In Nor Censure Nor Disdain, the casserole as American phenomena seems to come about because of lack of servants. The author bemoans the bad quality of food put into a casserole as its main detractor, and instead wishes to champion the food of harried housewives. This, of course, is a dated dialog, and is even funnier for it. The story of the dinosaur meat heart compounds her effort to be cheap in lieu of her father, and gives the piece an absurdist feel. In terms of narration, the author in Good Cooking feels distant and almost clinical. Julia Child becomes a figure, not a person. What's even more jarring is the use of "spoke recently" etc. when Julia Child has been dead for ten years. Nonetheless, the autobiography style is informative and paints a journalist view of the whole event. In An Attempt to Compile a Short History of the Buffalo Chicken Wing, a somewhat true autobiography of the chicken wing, the author struggles with oral history and subjective truth. He cannot distinguish what the real history is, and instead give three that may be true. The reader must then decide which history of the buffalo wing is most to their taste. 

Memoir Assignment First Draft- Family Relationships, or What I Learned About Cooking

Cookbooks speak of a different era. Good ones have thick pages and added notations like “needs more milk”. The ones now are new and slick with big photos, and never have food stains on them. Most recipes have been uploaded online, all one needs is to go to epicurious.com. There’s still a market for old cookbooks though, in which Amazon reigns supreme. Need a James Beard cookbook? It’s one penny and three ninety nine for shipping.

Where I’m going with this is that my father collects cookbooks. Local ones composed by women’s clubs with plastic spiral spines are his favorite. He often tells me a good chef can look at a recipe and know what it will taste like. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I can remember the way meals taste years later. He’s told me which Joy of Cooking's are the best years, i.e. look for the 60s, and to not laugh so hard at Jello salad recipes.

If you’re looking for a chocolate chip cookie recipe, he would advise to look on the back of a bag of Hershey's special dark, but you have to “fix” the brown sugar. For dishes requiring wine, top shelf is not necessary. Any five dollar plonk will do, as long as it’s not drinkable. Citrus goes with fish, and cream is for both pasta and chicken. With Asian food, he’s terrible and will defer to me for advice. Not that I’m an expert, but I've eaten more Pho than he has. Salmon does well with a mustard and teriyaki glaze, and that’s about as exotic as he gets.

A lot of cookbook combing goes on in Goodwills. One time on vacation, we were scouring a Goodwill from top to bottom when my mother was about ready to explode from perceived germs. It was so humid outside, there was condensation on the interior windows and she had had enough. “I’m leaving,” she hissed and went to hide inside the car with A/C. And that was that.

The more books my dad acquired on his library shelves, the quieter my mom got. If anything, there was barely a side eye to behold at the office door. When we moved, however, that was a whole different story. Forty two boxes of books did not endear my father to my mother, though the moving guys almost rubbed their hands together with glee. 

At the new house, the boxes sat and moldered in the garage while “new” books were strewn on the coffee table. It seemed the cycle would be unbroken. When I came back from college for summer break I had to fend for myself each dinnertime. I sorted through cookbooks and threw up my hands, because there was nothing I wanted to make unless I smothered myself with desserts. So I improv-ed it. Fresh red snapper? Sure, with a raspberry vinaigrette sauce. Or chicken alfredo with once frozen green beans. American food. Easy to remember and make food. After awhile I got bored with my own cooking and turned to online recipes. I made a killer cinnamon banana bread, that was poured into cupcake tins, because a loaf was too fragile. I also consumed copious amounts of tea. Tea drinking is a great indication of mood, because it has less caffeine, thus I had more sleep to make me less grumpy.

Some nights my mom worked so late I would put the leftovers into plastic tupperware. Part of cooking for another person is knowing their likes and dislikes. My mom hated mushrooms, and if I was feeling somewhat malicious, I would use cream of mushroom soup in the base ingredients. Most often though, I would make a baked potato,some sort of beef- usually skillet cooked, and have a wild experiment with the vegetable. The only one who would eat garlic and soy braised bok choy was me though. My most successful dinner was white wine baked pork chops, which took the least amount of attention because everything was left in the oven for two hours.

When I went back to college, my cooking dropped off a cliff and my mother switched to frozen dinners. I haven’t cooked in more than three months, and I know from experience my skills tend to deteriorate. When I’m on my own for study abroad in Rome, I figure I’ll have a month learning curve to recalibrate myself to cooking, but the abundance of good restaurants will probably be a hindrance to my skills. Why make something terrible if you can buy something better? Money, which tends to be the universal answer. If you can’t make a cake, Duncan Hines is a good place to start. Also, let’s talk about refrigeration. Americans have large freezers, we know this. My father has a Kenmore laydown one in the garage. Most families believe in having a few frozen emergency meals around as a time saver. If not meals, then out of season fruits, or large quantities of meat. We freeze bread in my house so it doesn't go stale or mold before we finish a loaf. The only other person I know to do this is my bachelor uncle. I’m sure there are jokes about the atomic age somewhere in there.

Food is a large part of home life, whether good, bad or in between. To travel is to expand those experiences. To go to Italy, to Canada, to anywhere really that’s outside one’s culture and then attempt to carve out a place through food is about belonging. Look, for example, at America’s foodscape. We have everything from Chinese to Jamaican to Greek. People who have come here have brought their food with them. Food is about memory too, so don’t be afraid to throw big dinner parties. Make everyone you know bring a dish that’s special to their family. And if you have to resort to a cookbook? I won’t tell a soul.

Food That Changed My Life

There are some food you cannot recreate. I have a memory of one that has stuck with me for forever.

I was 14 and my middle school was going to Italy. On the plane from London to Milan, the businessman next to me flirted with me until he asked my grade. Mortified, he stayed silent the rest of the trip. Once we landed down in the dusky twilight, it was tourist locations all over the map. In a village outside Cinque Terre we where shuttled inside our hotel, where later two girls would blow the fuse trying to straighten their hair. That meal was served in the hotel dining room, all beiges and red with formal wooden chairs and a veranda overlooking the ocean, the food served family style. The first dish settled in front of us was pesto pasta. The green oil stained the white china with swirling drops, and the first bite into my mouth was like a supernova in my mouth. It sparkled upon the taste buds, and left not flavor but sensation. Every last bit was devoured, and I don't remember the other parts of the meal. I cannot tell you was the pasta tasted like, only I will never have something that good again.

Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour Chapter 1-6

What is the perfect meal, Bourdain asks himself, and by extension his readers. We follow his highs and lows, and the crushing sense of disappointment with being forced to eat for an audience. His trip to Vietnam is filled with bright colors and strange tastes and wonderful people. There are times though, when Bourdain uses a flurry of French based lingo, so deep only an insider would understand the nuances. I, as a straight female reader, am also ejected from the story when he writes "Your first taste of champagne on a woman's lips...". Mentally, I'm going sure okay, wait what? That's not an experience we will share, much like his French background in cooking.  Being a good reader requires empathy and the suspension of disbelief-although A Cook's Tour often challenges me. It reminds me in Stealing Buddha's Dinner, Bich refuses to go to church with the Van der Wals because she knows she will be the outsider. In this sense, there's a generation gap because Bourdian remembers the Vietnam War and has memories that to me are a part of history. Nevertheless, the exchange with Sonya is so real she leaps right off the pages in her rabbit fur jacket.

A farmer's market is a direct reflection of the farm land that surrounds it and the produce that's in season. Washington farmer's markets burst with apples and pumpkins in the fall, turnips and lettuce in the spring.  Boxes and bushels trucked over the mountains from dusty farm land harvested by migrant Mexican workers. The Cascade Mountain range is a dividing line. The left is liberal, wet and city-like. The right is flat, more Republican, and probably wants to be a part of Idaho. Kalamazoo's farmers market, from the one I've been to, had more Mexican food and Mennonite bread and jellies. It was a small affair, but everything I bought I treasured. Good food speaks all languages, though not every country has refrigeration. This brings up the contrast of the necessity of farmer's markets versus the luxury of them.

We, as Americans can go shopping in grocery stores and enjoy the low prices of subsidized food. Others, like Russia,  have daily markets filled with more meat, and more mean haggling. Food is part of a struggle for them, for both buyers and producers. The culture of borscht is grounded in the idea of lacking food, when winter is cold and only cabbage is cheap. In comparison, the food culture of the US is rather lacking.  The slow food movement, with its pomp and circumstance, was the direct rebellion to Betty Crocker cake mixes. One generation wanted fast, and one wanted slow. What then, is the perfect meal? Is it a birthday cake from Costco? Is it a seven course meal at NYC restaurant? Whatever it is, we'll have to keep reading to find out.

First Meal Memories