Only after years of being introduced to food and drink I can appreciate my parents love for eating. At age 11 when my mother got her first issue of bon appetit magazine it was a very different story.
The rule in our house was you had to try everything she cooked. If you didn’t like it fine but tasting it was a must. In her defense I now know I like broccoli, veal, spinach, lamb and so many other things. This got a little carried away though and after the 600th time of trying asparagus. A line had to be drawn and I finally got away from asparagus at age 18. It was a real right of passage.
My parents live in Indiana, so in 1985 my friends were eating fried chicken, steak, salad, spaghetti and other staples that require mayonnaise. We however were eating lamb, asparagus, and fancy sauces I still can’t pronounce. I was always very jealous of what my friends got to eat because it was such basic food and there wasn’t a discussion about it while they ate. Our house started getting fancier and fancier. During the beginning of this bon appetit experiment my father seemed to do mostly eating and didn’t concern himself with the kitchen. My mom didn’t work at the time so she did the shopping, the cooking and the cleaning. She always seemed to be coming up with something new to try and our spice cabinet grew unruly. I spent an entire afternoon alphabetizing her spices so she could make a grid for the back of the cabinet. The grid is still there though drastically out of date.
Eventually my mom went back to work and every once in a while my dad had to cook dinner. The early dinners that he cooked you always knew what to expect. It was one of two menus. Ham steak, sweet potato, broccoli or you could have Ham steak, wild rice, broccoli. It became a running joke that the only thing he could cook indoors was ham steak. Outdoors the man was always a chef behind a charcoal grill, but that is another story. I don’t know if by making the joke we inadvertently threw down a gauntlet but he started cooking too. He quickly became the “meat guy” while she worked the side dishes.
Once they both got involved in the cooking recipes got even stranger. We were eating couscous before it was cool in the Midwest. They were drastically ahead of their time. While the east coast and west coast were discovering something and writing recipes in bon appetit and gourmet magazines my parent were scouring stores to try and find what was at the time obscure ingredients. We had family dinner together at least 5 nights a week. No outside interruptions were allowed this included the television and telephones. My dad didn’t answer the phone during dinner and to this day if you call during their meal they ask you to call back. So the four of us sat and ate together for at least a half hour. A good portion of this half hour was my brother and I wonder what we were eating and the other portion was my parents troubleshooting whatever it was they just cooked. When we got older my brother and I mocked them as the critiqued the food and wine. They used to soak the wine bottles in the sink so they could save labels and create a scrapbook so they would know what was good and why.
They seemed so odd in the Midwest in the late 80’s early 90’s. Then came the food network and everyone is cooking. They are currently unstoppable. I have on occasion recieved emails with pictures of dinners that they have made.
