Perhaps. Maybe not. Definately.
If I think back about my true roots of cooking - it had to start on a gas stove out in Claflin Kansas, on Grandma's farm. And it surely must have started with chicken. Fried chicken. In fact, as I think about it, I am not sure I ever ate chicken at Grandma's any other way. I don't remember it baked or roasted. I don't even remember a grill. It always came from a cast iron skillet. Full of lard. On the a grill that shot flames from underneath.
That was intimidating.
Frying chicken, with crackling grease and having to do it for no less than 8-10 people at a time is intimidating!
When I think about cooking with Grandma - I don't have memories. Truth betold - I am not sure that Grandma really had a "love" for cooking. Rather, it was something you did - something that had to get done. For tens of years it is what she did. It is what she learned from her mother-in-law. And with a family of "bohunks" or big boned people, it was something that had to happen.
I don't remember Grandma ever pulling up a stool to her counter, and asking us to help out with the chicken. Once that process of frying the chicken started, and grease started splattering everywhere, it was intimidating. It was not for little kids.
At eye level, while visiting the farm, I only saw flames. The stove was gas - and when we would visit either from Victoria or Topeka, this kind of stove was foreign. We had electric burner stove. And those flame used to scare me. I thought that live flames like that could blow up. Or make the whole house on fire. It was unruly and unpredictable.
In 2003, in Singapore, I moved into a home that had gas ovens. I was mortified. I saw it like a big monster that could reach out and bit me or my head. I didn't realize that gas stoves were a chef's best friend. It was controlable. I laugh at my memories as a kid from years ago. Since 2003, I have always used a gas stove. And I would not want it any other way. But sometimes, I bend down, and remember what it was like to look at those dancing blue flames out on the farm.
Grandma wasn't much of a food teacher. It was something that needed to be done. Get it done. Get it out of the way. And then move on to more interesting things. Like Scrabble for example. Or cards.
When we were growing up, around meal time, we were "shoo'd" out of the kitchen. Go outdoors, and figure out something to do.
Sometimes, we would walk down the path to the pig house. It was funny to watch the pigs out in their very muddy pens. They lived so far away from the house. I sometimes wondered why they lived so far down the path. Guess who was the city boy? The best thing about visiting the pigs was the small terraced hill that you had to cross to the pig pen. It was fun to run up and over it. And then run back again. And run over again.
Sometimes, we would go to the place where there was shade in the trees. It was where the "hedgehogs" were. Not really. They were actually hedge apples. Or very unattractive fruits. Or vegetables. What in the heck were those. But they were in the back. By the fence line. But it wasn't the weird fruit that made it interesting. It was what was buried beneath it. Treasures. Of glass. And odd things from times long ago. We felt like archeologists. Pick an area. Dig a little. And you would come up with a bottle of colored glass that looked like something from the shelves of a drugstore on an episode of Gunsmoke.
What we didn't exactly realize of course, is that this was the farm's garage pile. As we understood it, no perishable items were taken to this back area of the property, and buried in the ground. By the time we got to it, much decay had happened. And all that was left was the glass. Or so we thought.What exactly were those odd shapes next to the glass?
Sometimes we would consider going to the pond. But that area was off limits unless adults came along. We have great memories of Grandma going with us to fish. My brother Doug has more than the rest of us. My best memory was fishing one day. My line tugged strong. I pulled it in. Something big and strong was trying to pull me back into the water. But slowly we pulled. Me on the line. And Grandma - running down, ankle deep into the water. I thought I had a treasure. A very large fish. She probably knew better and knew what would happen next. Sure enough, the line snapped. But it wasn't a challenge for Grandma. She caught that line in her hand, and dragged the line in, catch and all.
That night, we had turtle soup.
There were always adventures on the farm. But if truth be told, I wanted to be in cooking the fried chicken. But that wasn't for little kids.
So, we decided to make our own kitchen.
At dinner parties - in interviews in my cooking moments in life, when people ask me how I started cooking, I always credit two moments in the life. The second came when in grade school, I started to get bored at cooking roasts after school for the family dinner. My creativity, combined with Campbell soup mixes and Jiffy cake mixes turne me on to real food.
But my first credit for food came from the "mud restaurant" on the farm in Claflin. While on the farm, I spent many an hour creating mud pies, cakes and every conceivable entree in between on the old outside stove.
I would mix the basic ingredients of mud. And water. It was amazing how, when you mixed these items, it could make shapes that could resemble cookies. And even more amazing is that if you laid them in the sun, they seemed to bake.
I would beg my brothers to come to my make shift restaurant. And sometimes, I would even rope them into helping me. At least, that was my perspective on it all.
Here is my earliest restaurant picture. It is in 1967. I am five years old. And I remember details with amazing clarity!Amazingly, my brother Doug is standing with me. Was he cooking with me? Or was I trying to rope him in to "trying" one of my mud concoctions?
Tonight, as I made Asian braised spareribs, with a buckwheat Japanese noodle and pepper salad, I tipped my hat to my first memories of cooking . It was on Grandma's farm. I wanted to be with my Grandma cooking that chicken. Mud cookies were the next best thing.
(This photo was given to me in 1993, when I was in Claflin visitng my Grandma. She had it in a shoebox. It is one of those "pull out" mini polaroids. I have used modern scanner, software and computer to enhance it. It amazing how clear it looks compared to the original!)
To Mom, my Aunts and Uncle and to my brother and cousins...
- what do you remember about this stove? About he kids cooking?
- what is the building next to this stove?
- it appears that there is a chimney on the stove, so at one point, it must have been used as an outdoor stove? What for?
- to my cousins, does this bring out any other memories for you?
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