By Pam (aka Gates) Johnson
If you’ve read a few of my columns, you probably guessed that I like to cook. Nothing much pleases me more than to prepare a meal for friends and family. Back in my school-working days, I would make meals for the entire McMurray staff, 30 people or so. It was great.
Now I’m down to cooking for my family every Thursday. My 10-year old grandson has taken an interest in food prep and is my official assistant chef (when he has time). We are getting good at making cookies. I showed him how to cream the butter and sugar, how to slowly add the dry ingredients, and to not stick his hand into the mixing bowl when the beaters are turning. He and I believe we have perfected the chocolate chip cookie recipe; not flat, nice and rounded.
The first time I can recall my grandson helping me cook was when I was making fluffy yeast dinner rolls. After the dough had first risen, I put it on the counter to punch it down. My grandson, who was about four at the time, punched that dough like it owed him money. He beat the holy heck out of it, laughing and having a great time.
I showed him how to roll a hunk of dough in the palm of his hand until it formed a perfect ball. The rolls were baked to a golden brown, then put on the table with butter and honey. My boy and his mom would eat three or four rolls apiece during dinner, then could be seen chomping one down as they walked out the door to go home.
A few of my grandson’s favorites are chicken roast, anything beef, homemade pizza, and a Chinese noodles recipe my mom made years ago that my kids now call Mimi Ramen. Recently, my grandson asked me to write him a cookbook with all my recipes. That got me thinking. Are my recipes really my own, or did I steal them from someone, or get them from a cookbook or site like “All Recipes”? Some are definitely my own. Some are recipes I found and tweaked. And some are out-and-out thievery. What should I do?
For the McMurray Exploratory Week days, I organized a food experience where kids could sign up for a week of in-depth classes and tours focusing on a specific cuisine. We did Spanish, Italian, Southern, Mexican, and Greek, to name a few. Classes were held at Whole Foods, Sur la Table, and PCC. We toured the South Seattle Community College culinary program, which really made me want to quit my job and enroll in the pastry program.
Our students learned how to make pasta, gnocchi, flourless chocolate cake using Marcona almonds, and many other exotic dishes. One year, a McMurray parent taught us how to make authentic baklava. A few of my Exploratory students graduated high school and became professional chefs. One of my co-teachers learned to make jambalaya, and continues to make it years later. The years of Food 101 Exploratory gave lots of people lots of good recipes.
After my daughter got married, much to my surprise, she began to take an interest in food preservation. About every other year, she goes to Westport to buy tuna, fresh off the boat. She brings it to my place, where we pressure-can it. Once you have home-canned tuna, the commercial just doesn’t cut it. Her latest purchase is a Blackstone flat top. You can cook everything on one of those. I have one, and my son also just bought one. We are walking advertisements for those grills.
This brings me to my nephew. He has a few specialties: fried rice on the flat top, smoked brisket and Dutch-oven cookery over an open campfire. His fried rice is a huge favorite with the fam. He learned how to do it by watching Teppanyaki chefs at Asian restaurants. A frequent dinner conversation centers around the idea of selling his fried rice at Strawberry Festival. His smoked brisket is melt-in-your-mouth, out of this world. If he had his smoker going and the fried rice performance, he would make bank as a concession. My grandson and I would sell cookies or maybe even slices of pie. I think it would be interesting and fun.
So, back to the idea of a cookbook. Some ideas: Barbecued ribs, my way; Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie; Ma Johnson’s Easy-as-Pie Crust; Lucille Spakowski’s Lasagna al Forno; my ex-mother-in-law’s pot roast; Mimi Ramen; my Mile-High Apple Pie; chocolate chip cookies; Garibaldi, Oregon barbecued crab; softest dinner rolls ever; Mom’s Potato Salad; chicken soup with homemade noodles.
Hmm, there doesn’t seem to be many, or any, vegetable dishes. What can you do with vegetables besides make a salad or steam them? Oh, I nearly forgot about roasted roots, a dish that instilled a love of roasted vegetables in more than a few McMurray teachers. Guess that falls into the vegetable category.
As for creamy or cheesy sauces, that just isn’t in my wheelhouse. Something about the smell of melty cheese triggers my ick reflex. Definitely no macaroni and cheese or broccoli with cheese sauce for me. The irony is both of my parents were born and raised in Tillamook, and I spent the majority of childhood weekends there. We didn’t spend a lot of time talking about the local cheese. Mostly we just dug those horrible clams that live in the mud.
To this day, I have a deep-seated hatred for clam digging. Thank heavens that my folks didn’t make me eat those darned things.
The idea of a cookbook is simmering. I’ll let you know if it comes to fruition.
