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Dinner has always had a significant importance in my life, growing up in a household where everybody seemed to divide and go on their own each day; dinner was the much anticipated force that brought all members of the family back together each evening. With an older brother 7 years my elder and a younger brother 11 years my minor, there wasn’t much interaction between the three of us throughout the day. Each night through a glorious feast of tender juicy medium rare steak, fresh delicious seared tuna, sizzling steak and chickens fajitas, or a traditional meal of corn beef and cabbage, my siblings and I were able to reconnect and share our daily events; My older brothers chemical research progress, my first day of high school, and my little brothers exhilarating day at the sand box. Despite are vast age differences and daily obligations each day we could join together in the one thing we all enjoyed, Food!
It was not merely the need of food; it was also my mother’s planning and culinary perfection to our specific taste that we met each day at the dinner table. As I later came to realize, my mother would often plan her meals around the person that was least likely to show up for dinner that night. If my brother had a lab session later in the evening she would make his favorite meal for dinner that night and let him know, with the promise that we would wait for him. It was often in this way that my brothers and I were kept from picking up fast food or stopping somewhere convenient if we had any chance of getting home at a decent hour. This often seemed like a cruel and unusual trick, after working or going to school all day and having to wait an extra 30-45 minutes fighting through Atlanta traffic with a McDonalds offering instant hunger gratification every ten feet. But then my brother or I would get home and realize that the wait was well worth the food and conversation that would have been missed otherwise.
The consumption of dinner that my mother cooked was not the only way my family was united by food, often times when my brothers and I were home early or didn’t have anything to do that afternoon we would assist my mother in the kitchen. She would assign us different task or parts of the meal and we would add are own touch or preference to the dish assigned. Meanwhile, we would exchange dish preferences/ ideas, current events, and our daily lives while working together in our cramped kitchen. Our mother’ kitchen would become a melting pot of food, culinary suggestions, and general small talk as we all slowly grew closer and more connected to each other’s life with each experimentation we shared in the kitchen.
Quickly my brother and I developed are own specialty or genre of cooking that would designate us as the family specialist in that cuisine, whenever we were lucky enough to have time to help out in the kitchen. My brother was adept at appetizers and side dishes, but was recognized as the family weekend breakfast chef. A job which he entitled for both his proficiency with any dish in which eggs were the main ingredient, from simply cheesy scrambled eggs with ham and green onions to eggs Benedict, and also because of my mother’s habit of sleeping in late on weekends (a luxury not allowed to my brothers or me by our father). My brother’s exquisite breakfasts’ not only allowed him to show off his culinary expertise and standing in the family (which may have lost some credibility the night before, by burning some elegant side dish, one of the trademarks of my brothers cooking that we often teased him about) and a way for him to get out of some of the early morning task my father assigned, but also offered another family meal in which we could further increase our family bonding before the day picked up and we would scatter about like ants heading out to our separate tasks and jobs for the day, until the light of day would end and we would meet back once again to devour on the life source that would ultimately bring us closer together.
It was not merely the need of food; it was also my mother’s planning and culinary perfection to our specific taste that we met each day at the dinner table. As I later came to realize, my mother would often plan her meals around the person that was least likely to show up for dinner that night. If my brother had a lab session later in the evening she would make his favorite meal for dinner that night and let him know, with the promise that we would wait for him. It was often in this way that my brothers and I were kept from picking up fast food or stopping somewhere convenient if we had any chance of getting home at a decent hour. This often seemed like a cruel and unusual trick, after working or going to school all day and having to wait an extra 30-45 minutes fighting through Atlanta traffic with a McDonalds offering instant hunger gratification every ten feet. But then my brother or I would get home and realize that the wait was well worth the food and conversation that would have been missed otherwise.
The consumption of dinner that my mother cooked was not the only way my family was united by food, often times when my brothers and I were home early or didn’t have anything to do that afternoon we would assist my mother in the kitchen. She would assign us different task or parts of the meal and we would add are own touch or preference to the dish assigned. Meanwhile, we would exchange dish preferences/ ideas, current events, and our daily lives while working together in our cramped kitchen. Our mother’ kitchen would become a melting pot of food, culinary suggestions, and general small talk as we all slowly grew closer and more connected to each other’s life with each experimentation we shared in the kitchen.
Quickly my brother and I developed are own specialty or genre of cooking that would designate us as the family specialist in that cuisine, whenever we were lucky enough to have time to help out in the kitchen. My brother was adept at appetizers and side dishes, but was recognized as the family weekend breakfast chef. A job which he entitled for both his proficiency with any dish in which eggs were the main ingredient, from simply cheesy scrambled eggs with ham and green onions to eggs Benedict, and also because of my mother’s habit of sleeping in late on weekends (a luxury not allowed to my brothers or me by our father). My brother’s exquisite breakfasts’ not only allowed him to show off his culinary expertise and standing in the family (which may have lost some credibility the night before, by burning some elegant side dish, one of the trademarks of my brothers cooking that we often teased him about) and a way for him to get out of some of the early morning task my father assigned, but also offered another family meal in which we could further increase our family bonding before the day picked up and we would scatter about like ants heading out to our separate tasks and jobs for the day, until the light of day would end and we would meet back once again to devour on the life source that would ultimately bring us closer together.
source:http://pesto.art.pl/kuchnia/dania/pfane/Eggs_Benedict.jpg
While my brother gained family fame in morning dishes, I partook in the creation of desserts, another area which had not had much significance during the monarchial period of our kitchen in which my mother was the sole representative. It all began, when my mother presented me with a William Sonoma children’s cook book when I was 11. Despite containing the word children and being laid out quite simply and having many pictures, the recipes were rather complicated for a beginning cook, who had to stand on a stool to reach most of the ingredients. Yet I went at each of the recipes, mainly as an experimental form of lunch for myself. Needless to say, more times than not lunch would end and I would have nothing edible to eat but a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I made as backup. After months of preparing the primary, lunch and entrée, foods with little success, I ventured toward the back of the book, the section that had intrigued my attention the most since I had first received the book, but I had not attempted any recipes from, the dessert section. Flipping through this wondrous array of sweets, my eyes quickly fell on a recipe that would have immediately caught Matt Mcallester eyes too, strawberry ice cream. Immediately, I grabbed the brand new ice cream maker my mother had received for Christmas that year, a pint of strawberries, heavy whipping cream, and the other little necessities needed for this intriguing frozen culinary delight and began the delicate process described in the book. When the frozen delight was finally completed, it was one of the best ice creams I had ever tasted, and it was from there, just as my older brother was the family breakfast chef, I became the family dessert chef.
While my brother gained family fame in morning dishes, I partook in the creation of desserts, another area which had not had much significance during the monarchial period of our kitchen in which my mother was the sole representative. It all began, when my mother presented me with a William Sonoma children’s cook book when I was 11. Despite containing the word children and being laid out quite simply and having many pictures, the recipes were rather complicated for a beginning cook, who had to stand on a stool to reach most of the ingredients. Yet I went at each of the recipes, mainly as an experimental form of lunch for myself. Needless to say, more times than not lunch would end and I would have nothing edible to eat but a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I made as backup. After months of preparing the primary, lunch and entrée, foods with little success, I ventured toward the back of the book, the section that had intrigued my attention the most since I had first received the book, but I had not attempted any recipes from, the dessert section. Flipping through this wondrous array of sweets, my eyes quickly fell on a recipe that would have immediately caught Matt Mcallester eyes too, strawberry ice cream. Immediately, I grabbed the brand new ice cream maker my mother had received for Christmas that year, a pint of strawberries, heavy whipping cream, and the other little necessities needed for this intriguing frozen culinary delight and began the delicate process described in the book. When the frozen delight was finally completed, it was one of the best ice creams I had ever tasted, and it was from there, just as my older brother was the family breakfast chef, I became the family dessert chef.
Food not only helped unite are family separated by age, but also helped set are identity within one of the most important contributors of life, in our family.
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