Passing it On

In Southern families, recipes and cooking tips are often passed down from mother to daughter; there is something very powerful and important about the way that works. It’s way of passing not only family traditions, but also preserving the memory of someone you love. I’m writing this entry because I am losing the person who inspired me to get into baking and cooking in general. My mom can cook, but she doesn’t have the same ridiculous obsession I seem to have with food and cooking and baking; I think it skipped a generation, and my Nanny (maternal grandmother for those of you who don’t know) passed her love of cooking to me.

When I was younger and my Pa (my Nanny’s third husband and the man I counted as my true maternal grandfather) was alive, Christmas Brunch was done at their big house on the farm, and it was huge. My Nanny would cook so much that you would think she was feeding an army. Massive piles of homemade biscuits and bowls of homemade gravy, plates full of sausage, ham, and bacon, plenty of scrambled eggs, a huge turkey, real mashed potatoes, corn, pinto beans, rolls, macaroni and cheese, and so much more. There were probably twenty of us back then, maybe a few more, and the spread was always more than we could eat; on top of that she made desserts, pecan pie, chess pie, chocolate cake, plus a variety of candies she’d made. Thanksgivings and Easters were similar, though breakfast food was not prepared. Her habit of cooking large meals was not deterred when the number of people was smaller or when it was just a Sunday dinner; my Nanny always cooked for an army. I honestly think her enthusiasm inspired my own interest in culinary attempts, and I will always be grateful for that. There is a picture of me, when I was no more than a year old or so I think, sitting on the counter, covered in flour, while my Nanny made biscuits; I know for a fact that I was the only grandchild who was ever permitted to do such a thing, and I remember her excitement when I first expressed interest in learning to cook.

Mama is often full of advice when I need it, but often, when it comes to cooking, Nanny is the person I need. I always ask my mom things like “How did Nanny do this?” or “Do you remember if Nanny had a recipe for this?”, and her typical response was to tell me to call her; now I won’t be able to do that. My Nanny is very ill, and she is not going to get better; she was such a big part of my life, and now she is going to be gone. It’s breaking my heart, and I am barely handling it. I was so proud of myself for making her “No Fail Chocolate Pie” on the first attempt, and when my biscuits turned out perfectly for the first time, but I only got to share the pie moment with her because by the time I attempted biscuits from scratch (for some reason I never got around to it until just recently) she was already far too ill; it killed me that while I could tell her all about it, she couldn’t laugh and joke about how easy it was and suggest something new for me to try. Soon I will only have her recipes and the memory of her voice, and I’m not sure how to handle it. I love my Nanny, and I will miss her so much; I already miss her. That is why I’ve made up my mind that the bakery and sweets shop I plan to eventually have will be called “A Taste of Joy” in honor of Barbara Joy Smith, my Nanny, the woman who opened my eyes and introduced me to the joy of cooking. This blog has officially been retitled permanently as “A Taste of Joy”, and hopefully I will get the money to purchase a decent domain name as well.

Where Have You Been or Kitchen Remodels Make For Bad Bloggers

Since just before Thanksgiving, when I wanted to do a huge food and cooking post I have been without a kitchen, quite literally. I have been making do with an electric skillet, a dual burner hot plate, and a crock pot for almost two months. Crazy? Absolutely. So now that I’ve made that explanation, let’s get with the content.

What Have I Been Cooking?

Ok, so just prior to the destruction of the kitchen I used my Nanny’s cherry chip cake recipe, which I am not including here because I’m not actually going to talk about it in detail, to bake my mother a birthday cake. I put too much pudding in the batter, making it too moist and it fell apart. It still tasted delicious, but I was so disappointed by the fact that it was a crumbly mess that did not look pretty, even with my soft pink icing. Food failure!

At Thanksgiving, I attempted to make two pies, both of which lead me to the conclusion that I will not be buy Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts (the kind you roll and put in a pan) ever again. They tasted strange, like they had some kind of chemical taste, which is not something I look for in a pie crust. I tried working with an entirely different pecan pie recipe, and it was too syrupy sweet for my taste. I guess I will just stick to my Grandmama’s tried and true Southern Pecan Pie recipe. I also tried to make my Nanny’s No Fail Chocolate Pie, which I can normally make without problems; lesson learned, do not use a brand of cocoa powder you are not familiar with. Neither pie was spectacular, and I was very disappointed.

Where am I with the Remodel?

Good news, as evidenced by the pictures below (I apologize for the poor quality but there are no lights in the kitchen at the moment), we are rocketing right along now. Walls and ceiling have been painted, cabinets and counters have been placed and are almost set, oven has been mounted, sink has been placed, and the refrigerator is where it belongs. We ran into quite a lot of problems along the way, and entire walls have to be replaced; it turned into a nightmare.

    

   

Here’s hoping that we finish the kitchen today, as we have planned. However, I do not hold out a great deal of hope, all things considered.

This is Halloween (Just a Picture Post About Pumpkins)

So as per usual, we carved pumpkins tonight, though instead of my father doing them, it was my brother and I. Here is a picture post detailing the carving. I feel slightly guilty, since this post is not food related, but I wanted to show off my pumpkins.

 

 

  

 

The pumpkin that looks like it wants to eat you is my brother’s work, the slightly tipsy wobbly creation is mine. I decided to give him a bad eye.

Testing Out Live Writer

I am sitting here eating Cheetos and drinking sweet tea, contemplating the dinner plan for tonight. There may not be pictures, but I can at least promise that we will have our first actual cooking related post tonight. While I'm sitting here thinking about things, I figured I would give the Windows Live Writer a try and talk about pros and cons of the actual program. Then I will talk about some goals and plans for the blog, since I hate to start a pattern of blogging off topic. On the topic of the actual blog, I am still working on customizing it, adding gadgets, putting the CC License up, creating a grab button that you will find in the right side bar. So you may notice it changing frequently until I get settled. I do apologize to the Firefox users who visit, because for some reason, probably due to the theme I have to use, some of my headers like the date and the gadget titles have blurs around them like ink that has gotten wet. I haven’t figured out how to fix that yet. According to the site where I got the background, I should be using minima or photowindow, but with the old minima theme I lose customization, and it appears that when you use the other themes (include photowindow) you are putting the theme on top of the background and it looks horrible. I will say that I am not a fan of the limited themes and what not in the design tab.

Moving on, let’s talk about Live Writer, which basically allows you to type up blog entries and publish them to your blog without going to blogger. I’ve been told that it has tons of features and plugins, but I have not tried them yet. You can get here for free. Hopefully I will be able to use these features as I continue on my mission. So lets talk pros and cons so far:

Pros

Spell check is automatic so there is no need to click the button each time.

Familiar work space if you are used to using Microsoft Word 2007

Your posts will look exactly as they will when published

If you have multiple blogs, like I do, you can write posts for both in the same program, simply switching between them with a click.

Useful plugins that allow you to edit photos

Word counter, for those of us curious as to just how much we write.

Edit, preview, and source tabs allow for easy editing.

Cons

It picks up the theme, but not the background images you may have added, meaning that you may have to work in the source tab instead of edit to see your posts

Too many functions and plugins may be a distraction.

Sometimes the program is slow to change tabs.

Now that I have rambled on about my publishing software and the like I guess I should talk about some of my plans for the blog, specifically how I hope to go about all this insanity. The grandiose explanation, which I may put in a side bar, is that I intend to prove that there are still people out there who enjoy the experience of food both making it and eating it. The simpler explanation is that I want to talk about cooking, baking, and eating.  I figure that this will be best explained in bullet points really, since there is a lot to lay out.

Detailed posts about cooking and baking, complete with recipes and pictures whenever possible

• Clever remarks, helpful hints, and useful, interesting information are also a part of this plan

Clever, insightful posts about food in general, cooking, baking, and eating.

• In general I’d like to be able to talk about the experience that is food.

Tag posts so that they can easily be used to find a meal or specific ingredient.

• There will be a page that explains all tags

Have this blog be both entertaining and useful, complete with my own snarky incites and “the more you know” posts that help out

Ok, I think I have rambled quite enough. Tonight there will be a food post with some pictures of the beef roast that is now simmering in the crockpot in the kitchen. There will be few pictures than I’d like because my father took over the searing of the beef and in general was in the way.