The Importance of Family Recipes

I love reading books for many reasons, but one of the best moments is coming across an idea -- captured in a phrase, sentence or passage -- that shifts something deep inside. It's like a gong goes off and reverberates through the layers of your being until a new awareness, a new layer of you, is added to the mix.

Reading Nola McKey's From Tea Cakes to Tamales set off that gong for me.

(Pictures courtesy of Nola McKey. Photo credit: Kaitlyn Braddock. The lemony tea cakes that led to the cookbook)

The exact passage that caused the moment:

"Whether typed neatly on an index card, written on the back of an envelope, or scribbled on a scrap of paper, an heirloom recipe has magical powers: it allows you to recreate a loved one's signature dish after that person is gone," starts the second chapter of the cookbook. "Taken a step further, an heirloom recipe is a link to a legacy, one that lives on when a cook in the present generation makes the same dish that a departed cook prepared decades earlier."

I have always enjoyed and valued recipes that have stood the test of time -- family recipes, immigrant recipes, historical recipes. All of them have stories to tell, stories that shouldn't be allowed to fade away.

(Nola's grandmother)

The cookbook came about because of a moment that linked together three generations of McKey's family:

About 20 years ago, her then-8-year-old son asked McKey for "a traditional family dish" to take to school the next day for a class presentation. A sixth-generation Texan, McKey responded by baking her grandmother's tea cakes.

"I began mixing up the ingredients, and it wasn't long before I got a whiff of memories," McKey wrote in the cookbook. "Baking the cookies brought more. It felt like a visit from Grandma, especially after we sampled the tea cakes — thick, pillowy, with a hint of lemon — just the way I remembered them."

McKey has collected about a 100 "heirloom recipes" from Texas families around the state for the cookbook, which also includes stories and photographs of the people behind the recipes. 

I'm thrilled that McKey will be in San Angelo today presenting a special program about the importance of family recipes, sharing her grandmother's tea cakes, and signing cookbooks. Here are the details:

What: Author Nola McKey cookbook signing

When: 1:30-3:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Eggemeyer's General Store, 35 E. Concho Ave.

Contact: 325-655-1166

If you can't make it, the cookbook is also available on Amazon.

Want to try a recipe? Here's a sample from the From Tea Cakes to Tamales cookbook:

Grandma's Old-Fashioned Tea Cakes

McKey hopes to have some to share at the cookbook signing Saturday. The recipe makes about three dozen tea cakes.

Ingredients

1/2         cup butter (1 stick)

1              cup sugar

2              eggs

1              teaspoon vanilla

2              teaspoons lemon zest or 1 teaspoon lemon extract (optional)

2              cups sifted flour

2              teaspoons baking powder

1/2         teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl.

2. Add eggs and beat well.

3. Stir in vanilla and lemon zest, if using.

4. Blend flour and remaining ingredients together and add to butter mixture, mix well.

5. Place dough on a floured board and roll out to 1/4-inch thickness; cut into 2-inch rounds.

6. Place cookies on a lightly greased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees F for 0 to 12 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Eat Like A Professional Foodie: 5 Restaurant Tips

Usually when I go out to eat with a group, I get kidded (a lot) for taking photographs of everything (from the restaurant decor to the food) and dissecting the menu searching for the perfect dish that might could make me fall in love at first bite.

Recently, thanks to the JPW Learning Center and it’s first Cookbook Gala, I got to hang out with a few professional foodies –the food editor of the Washington Post (Joe Yonan), an internationally known food blogger (the Homesick Texan a.k.a. Lisa Fain) and cookbook authors with at least one if not more cookbooks under their belt (the above two, plus Rebecca Rather, the Pastry Queen, and cookbook maven Terry Thompson-Anderson).

(At Armenta's: I'm in the purple-pink tunic, next is Joe, Terry, Lisa is at the head, then Mary Ann from JPW, Rebecca & Anne Marie, JPW staff.)

Yes, these people constantly talk and think about food, they go over menus like a detective searches for clues, and many of them do take pictures of everything. However, they bring so much more to the table. Being the intrepid reporter, I took notes and here are some tips to take your restaurant experience to new heights.

1. Choosing a restaurant – ask anyone and everyone for restaurant recommendations. Where ever the foodies went –airport, football game, restaurants, book signing—they talked to locals and asked for restaurant recommendations. Then they dug deeper and asked why the person liked that particular restaurant. While sometimes our eating plans constantly changed as new information came along, we did eat some very good meals.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Rebecca Rather, the Pastry Queen from Fredericksburg, TX, not only asked the server questions about the menu items, but also asked to sample a sauce before she ordered. I was stunned. What a simple solution to getting exactly what you want and avoiding disappointment in a restaurant. Duh.

(Rebecca Rather quizzing the waitress)

3. Ordering at a restaurant – peruse the entire menu and order a selection of items so you can get a good feel for the restaurant. Several of the pros ordered more than one item. Yonan mentioned advice from another foodie: professionals “eat through the pain.” Now I’m not recommending that since it’s not the healthiest nor the most comfortable state to be in. However, if you’re eating with another person or more, consider ordering different things. And this brings me to my next point.

4. Share – eating with foodiesis like sitting down for a lively, raucous family meal. You’re not related by blood but by the love of food. Foodies, professionals or not, are generous with their food and drink. Almost every dish at the table was shared and discussed, enjoyed and eaten.

5. Foodies play with their food. They aren't afraid of mixing up flavors, and trying food experiments at the table.

(Queso we doctored up with two other sauces on the table)

Bonus Tip:

6. Enjoy the food with all your senses. Professional foodies don’t rush through their meals if they can help it. Instead, they slow down and focus.
They notice details like color and shape, they inhale the aroma wafting off the plate, and they pay attention to whether a chip breaks with a crisp crackle or into limp, oily disintegration. They note the texture of the food –creamy and rich or rustic and chewy?

They taste the food, picking up all the different weaves of flavor –the salty and the sweet, the surprising kick of a spice or the fruity notes of apples and melons hidden in the depths.

So next time you go out to eat, slow down and enjoy your meal. Savor the experience. Do you have any restaurant tips to share?

The Cowboy & I Cook for Valentine's

The Cowboy and I have a special tradition: we celebrate Valentine's by throwing a party at our local soup kitchen.

Love and food are basic human needs. So what better way to celebrate our love than working together on a project to bring love and food, served with joy and verve, to more than a hundred of our homeless and working poor.

The plus side is we avoid the stiff competion for reservations and long waits at crowded restaurants.

Yes, we do fall into a bone-tired heap at the end of it all...but it's usually in the hot tub with glasses of wine or bottles of beer and each other. A pretty happy ending, by all accounts.

And, best of all, our love grows stronger, deeper, having worked side by side at the soup kitchen and being surrounded by love all day.

You can read about all the great plans for the 2011 Peace Ambassadors' Valentine's Lunch (our sixth) in this article.

To see pictures and stories from last year, click the San Angelo Standard-Times' link.

If you're able to help out in any way, we'd love to have you join us!
Happy Valentine's Y'all!

Of Cowboys and Chocolates

Things really are bigger and better in Texas. Check out the Texas-sized marshmallows and compare with the puny looking average marshmallow in the picture. If you want these, or cattleprods (chocolate covered pretzel sticks) or tumbleweeds (truffles) and more chocolates made with Texas flair and cowboy humor, check out my article on San Angelo-based Sugar Daddy Desserts.