1990's Of Chocolate and Artichokes and the Ghosts in my Kitchen

I have neglected this blog, in spite of good intentions.  In spite of the fact I have spent a fair chunk of 2013 cooking my way through the 20^th century.  Some of those occasions were taken from my grandmother’s recipe box or the cookbooks I swear belonged to Rosa Alba.  And certainly each and every one of those meals deserved a blog.  Or, each and every dish deserved a blog. 

 

Any writer is good at making excuses.  I think it is second nature, just as much as the idea of writing.  It is curious, then, that all of a sudden I find that idea itching my fingers to return to my laptop and type up a reflection – before I’ve even finished my cooking.

I wouldn’t have thought the 1990’s would be the trigger.  It’s not really a decade that returns very often with a smile.  It was the decade when I was a teenager and early twentysomething.  When I was very lost and uncomfortable in my skin.  And with regards to food, it was easily when I was taking out that sense of loss and discomfort by losing myself in poor nutrition and the habits I have to undo today.

But it is a decade I remember.  Indeed, the decade when I remember cooking.  Not just as a special treat with my grandmother.  It was one of my every other day chores, as the oldest child of a working two parent household.  I learned and perfected my pizza crust, which I started using to make calzones.  Calzone has been a staple of my entertaining menus… except, oddly, for supper club.

I can make that in my sleep.  And sort of did, actually, first thing this morning before coffee or breakfast.  But I have 8 people coming to sit around the Brennan dining room table tonight… so in Brennan tradition there will be ample offerings at all courses of the meal.  What, of our traditions, I thought came into our lives in the 1990’s?

Maybe it started in the 80’s, but I decided to make my Aunt Lisa’s artichoke dip.  That’s another thing I can make in my sleep… and something I’ve varied every time with types of cheese and adding spinach or spices.  But today I will go back to the original.  With yogurt and more mayonnaise than I want to think about.  I have that in my oft used Brennan cookbook, but I did find a card with Gram’s handwriting to reference.

(the tip about the artichokes was an amusing revelation)

Of course that recipe is as much present as past.  It is a staple.  At every Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, random gathering that suddenly becomes a holiday.  If Lisa isn’t there to make it, someone else will step up and supply it.  And usually the supply is two dishes because it gets vacuumed up within minutes of landing on the table, no matter the spread of other appetizers around it.

The other recipe I did find amongst my grandmother’s cards, written in my cousin’s handwriting.  I laughed because I know the name was changed… probably because it was given to my grandmother.  But I figure its true identity will be excellent fodder for dinner party entertainment.  Sex in a Bowl.

(more notes... and the stains are hers, not mine)

It’s funny.  Getting the ingredients together for this one has put me back a few years.  Maybe not even so far back as the 90s… but to a time when I used instant cake mixes and instant pudding.  I confess I am compromising this recipe by using real whipped cream.  The stuff in a can … gross.

But as I stood at the counter stirring together the eggs and oil for the Pillsbury goo, I reflected on how I spent a lot of time stirring and cooking at that counter 20ish years ago.  I often fantasize about updating this kitchen.  I’m not a fan of the 80’s countertops and the linoleum.  But I love the length of my counter.  And how the light attacks the eating area through the French doors.  I thought of when I might have first had this glorious dessert… wondering if it made an appearance at a 4^th of July cookout, when that kitchen was full of Brennans and the table covered with rotating courses that would fill our paper plates.  Coming in from the pool with water dripping from our hair.  The dog or dogs weaving in and out looking for a crumb that would fall… that would inevitably fall. The volume of one aunt only to be outdone with another’s laughter.  Smoke wafting from the grill.  Faces who are gone now… through death or divorce or distance.  When we were all still kids and the world so unknown.  

Cooking my way through last century has been an exploration of flavor and the distortion of real food.  Of how we cook.  How we eat.  But tonight, the food will taste like those shadows I saw of my kitchen.