| KEEP ON COOKIN',
DON'T STOP COOKIN' |
| With
strong roots and her passion to guide her, Jackie kept
on cooking. She taught herself from cookbooks and food
magazines. She moved up the familial totem pole. It was
quite an achievement to get passed the Christmas cooking
torch. It meant she cooked the bulk of the meal and her
mother, grandmother and her aunt made their specialties.
She broke what she deemed a silly family tradition —-
the dinner rush! |
"On
Christmas day, my family would walk in the door and
expect dinner within five minutes. After I'd been
cooking for days, I didn't want my dinner inhaled
in three seconds. So I introduced appetizers —
a few savory morsels with enough variety to slow 'em
down. They loved it — a raw bar, a shrimp boil,
crab cakes, or a variety of Asian dumplings. YUM!
"
|
| And the dessert menu
changed as well. |
"Traditionally,
dessert had to come right on the tail of the dinner.
So I'd bake up a storm to further slow them down.
In addition to Grandma's 'ear-smoking' fruit cake
— baked in January and laced with 151 rum for
11 months, I'd make loads of desserts, overwhelming
them at every turn, forcing them to take their time.
A minimum of six different kinds with doubles of the
big sellers. Christmas cookies too. Everybody had
to get a bit of everything and of course everyone
had food to take home. Grandma's tradition has never
changed."
Next
Page - The Learning Curves
or click on headings below.
 
about
us : let em eat bagels
|