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Family dinners are coming back into style. At least, that's what a recent New York Times/CBS News survey reported.
~ http://recipestoday.com
My mother says she’s never been a fancy cook, but rather an adequate cook. As I look back, I recollect that her meals were tasty and scrumptious; she liked to try new recipes she clipped out of the Washington Post or Daily News. She was always budget conscious and tried to prepare hearty, economical meals to nourish her two growing children and her husband that had a physically demanding job as a mechanic. We recently reminisced about supper foods she served the family and here are some of the dishes we recalled: corned beef hash with peas, baked Spam with a brown sugar mustard glaze, hot dogs with sauerkraut and lima beans, spaghetti, fish sticks or the favorite Sunday dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, carrots and onions. I loved the crusty end slices. Yum! Since we had our big meal in the middle of the day on Sundays, we just ate a light supper in the evening and without a doubt one of my favorites was Campbell’s tomato soup with a grilled cheese or fried egg sandwich. There was always a basket of white loaf bread and margarine (never butter) on the dinner table and frequently a tub of cottage cheese, large curd being my particular favorite. My dad and I were the only fresh tomato or tossed salad eaters in our family of four, so in season Mom usually served us a little side salad of iceberg lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes topped with French dressing. A variety of fresh, canned or frozen vegetables balanced out a meal and to this day I love kale, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and beets. Peas and carrots still top my list as all time my favorite veggies.
I’m not certain when I began trying my hand at cooking, but I remember baking cakes or stirring up a batch of stove-top cookies. Thankfully, Mom let me bustle around the kitchen and I’m sure that gave me a good start to cooking for my own family. One afternoon when I was about ten or eleven years old, it was my chore to start the evening meal. As I unwrapped a brand new stick of margarine to put on the serving dish I accidentally dropped it on the floor. Instead of just picking it up and scraping off the crumbs, I panicked and headed outside to bury it in the dirt by the old aluminum garbage cans in the backyard. I will never know what possessed me to do that, but years later when I confessed the secret dirty deed to Mom, she laughed and laughed and thought that was the silliest thing she ever heard. I’ve decided that one day when I compile a cookbook full of my tried and true recipes, I shall title it, Hey! Don’t Bury the Butter! and dedicate it to little girls everywhere who are just learning to cook and their mothers who are brave enough to let them try.
