I’m so glad you stopped by. This blog is in response to requests from friends to send them menus and recipes. I thought that doing it blog style may be fun and interactive for us all as well as accessible. This first entry is an introduction. Please feel free to respond to menu’s, recipes etc. we will learn from each other.
I would not say that I am a great chef or especially graceful in the kitchen. I do not, off the top of my head, know how to make the perfect hollandaise sauce, make the best ceviche, whip up exotic aioli’s, well you get the picture. What I can do reasonably well, is read a recipe and be able to judge whether 1. I will like it and 2. my family will like it. So, I use recipes. That said, I do often wander from a recipe and sometimes just “throw something together”.
I love cooking not so much for the cooking itself, but because it will make anyone who sits at my table fill warmed and welcomed. I want the dinner table to be home, fellowship, laughter, enjoyment. I want to build memories of happiness, peace, and joy but also make the table a safe place for deep conversations, heartfelt pleas and confessions. Things confessed at the table stay at the table. It is the heart of the home. If you can barely hear it’s heartbeat anymore, I encourage you to make an effort to gather at the table. You may have to start slow-once a month is better than not at all.
Set the table. Whaaaatt, I don’t even know what fork to use! shhh, it will be ok. I will help. For starters, if you do not know what things are called or look like here is a great link to Martha Stewart’s page with wonderful pictures, Home Made Simple also has a helpful page. Second, If you have it use it! Somewhere deep in a closet is a crystal bowl or great Aunt somebody’s china-use it, use it, use it.
I once had an older woman tell me there is no more important person at my dinner table than my husband and my family. She told me to use my fine china even if I am only serving sloppy Joes. What great advice. I don’t use it every day, but I do use some items every week. My opinion is that to keep it stored in some attic, closet, or basement is the same thing as not having it. What if something gets broken? Then it does. But, a dish that was lovingly used and eventually broken has more memory and joy that a dish that was stored away and never seen. Use it. Got that? If you don’t have china, crystal etc. that is OK too, you can still dress up your table from time to time. Put sticks in a vase for fall or winter, Dandelions if you need to for summer, something to make it special.
I realize that if your family or friends come in one day and find the table set (paper works) and a small vase (or dixie cup) filled with flowers or sticks, maybe candles, and they smell wonderful things from the kitchen that they may be shocked and perplexed. That’s ok, think of it as that night’s dinner conversation; “Why (insert name) thinks she/he is Martha (Mack?) Stewart all of a sudden” Then tell them you just want to bring back dinner.