Sharing stories of food stories we love.
Last week, I wrote about my dad's grilled cheese for Cup of Jo. When I told my dad I had written about him -- touting his rare kitchen appearances as enough to make a French chef weep -- he claimed I may have oversold his talents.
But I really didn't. His trick for adding relish to a grilled cheese sandwich is smart and addictive and makes other grilled cheeses seem lackluster.
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In July, I spent some time at home on the farm. All my sisters came home so there was a lot of sun, bike riding, card games outside in the grass, and enough laughter to make my stomach hurt.
Of course, there was excellent food: huge salads loaded with last fall's pickled beets and cucumbers, zucchini spaghetti, homemade soft white sandwich bread, and plenty of chocolate biscotti. Best of all, I was gifted a jar of strawberry jam. My little sister lives in Portland, Maine (lucky her!) and she picks strawberries in the summer and makes her own jam.
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I spent the spring semester of my junior year in Maine, at a tiny school for environmental studies run by the Chewonki Foundation. Thirty students live in cabins on a peninsula jutting into the Sheepscot River. We studied, did farm chores, mucked about in salt flats, and adventured a lot. We also ate some of the best granola I ever tasted. I don’t know what it’s called, or where to by it. But I’ve tried to recreate it.
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Breakfast has never been my thing, but breakfast foods: yes please. If there is anything better than a slice of toast, slathered with just melting butter, I don’t know what it is. One of my favorite ways to eat toast is this: lightly toasted bread, a very thin layer of salted butter followed by a thin layer of honey, sprinkled with wheat germ.
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My mother makes two kinds of biscuits: cheese drop biscuits and flaky cut-out biscuits. Her technique is effortless -- she makes them without a recipe, by muscle memory. I never considered them to be intimidating, but rather the opposite. They come together in minutes and use only a few ingredients. When done well, the end result is light, airy, and buttery, but in order to achieve that perfect texture, you simply need to use a very gentle touch.
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