Cooking Through My Family

Cooking and family. Anyone who knows me knows that I put family up as one of my greatest priorities. My brother Adam and sister Sheryl feel the same way. So it is of no wonder that some of our best family memories revolve around the dinner table. Mom and Dad insisted on nightly meals. Mom did most of the cooking as Dad was off teaching art at (then) Glassboro State College until dinnertime. (Dad, on the other hand, mastered the BBQ grill and brunch!) Our dinners were "all hands on deck." Everyone would help out setting the table, getting drinks, putting out the condiments, and generally participate in the making of the meals.


One of many holiday dinners at Wenonah (Brother Adam was taking the pic)

During dinner, the conversation was loud and lively, with each of us recounting what happened that day.  We were not a big "grace" family. I only remember saying "grace" a handfull of times, usually when the grandparents were visiting. Mom and Dad were big on the communication. They would ask , "What did you do today? What did you learn?"  in between telling us to eat our peas, get our elbows off the table, or to stop kicking each other.

Mom's Birthday Dinner at Lake Wynonah

The breakfast room, where we ate most meals, served as a gathering spot for the day's activities.  Mom and Dad had their first cup of coffee there. Mom, her first smoke of the morning. It was a perfect place to talk on the phone as the phone cord stretched right around from the kitchen to Mom's seat. We worked on homework there, art projects, watched TV on the small black and white, or Dad read  The Gloucester County Times. On different occasions our parents sat in the breakfast room waiting for us to get home late after our 1 AM curfew. You know if you only saw Mom's cigarette burning in the pitch black darkness, she was there waiting and boy, were you in trouble!
 
 

Mom and her beloved grandchildren, Angelica and Johnny


 
The formal dining room was left for special occasions: holidays, birthdays, visiting guests and of course, whenever the grandparents stayed over.  The dining room was off limits for our art projects. In fact, not much occurred there besides the formal meals! It was sacred to Mom and we were fine with that. That's just what we grew up with: a breakfast room and a formal dining room. When I started renting houses instead of apartments, I always picked one with a formal dining room I think as homage to my mother.
 
 
Celebrating John's Dad's 90th birthday, another great meal and memory with family around the dining room table

Dinner in 2011 with Dad, myself, and my other mom, Martha, who is an incredible cook and inspiration as well
 
Over these next several months, I will be stepping back from my usual blog topics and instead begin exploring the recipes of my family. Follow me as I cook the recipes which brought us together for each meal including how they were an integral part of my family at large:  grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins included!
 

Lunch with Dad and Sheryl in 2011. We were having lunch with our friends, the Roosevelt Elk of Northern California!
 
With each blog I will cook a recipe of my mother's, sister's, or other family members', include an anecdote about it, as well as the actual recipe. These recipes helped bring together my family for birthdays, holidays, and other events . You may be surprised at how many of us have the same experiences. I may add a short video talking about it or a favorite kitchen gadget which I cannot live without.
 
I want to begin this series with a video that my sister and I created for the National Museum of American Jewish History which my sister and I visited in 2012. I posted it once before but I am posting it again as it seems very apropos for this new project. We had to pick a topic related to our family and discuss it. Our topic we chose about food in our family. Hope you enjoy.

The National Museum of American Jewish History video that my sister and I filmed in 2012:

 http://iys.nmajh.org/iys/stories/MTM5MDlaYWJjZGVm 
 
 
 
 
 

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 29, 2013 at 9:33 AM

    Marc, this was a great post. So many of us have these same great memories. Like your new wallpaper and the different Blog set up too.

    Skip

    ReplyDelete
  2. Marc Haynes is Focused at Fifty! September 2, 2013 at 11:07 PM

    Thanks so much Skip. I really appreciate the support!

    ReplyDelete
  3. LisaSeptember 9, 2013 at 6:47 PM

    Great article, Marc!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Marc Haynes is Focused at Fifty! September 10, 2013 at 5:59 PM

    Thanks Lisa! :-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AP Cake, A PA Dutch Recipe

Image
"AP Cake" A couple of years back, I had a blog project named “Cooking Through Family”. You can check out the recipes I made on the labels tab of the same name on the front of my blog page. I made about 85% of my Mom’s, Dad’s family, and Mom’s family recipes learning about my family as I went through each recipe, remembering our fun time, etc. The only ones I did not make were the baking ones which included the cakes, cookies, bars and pies.  The Clutzy Baker I don't know why but I've always had an unnatural fear of baking but it  always seemed so scientific. Now I am not talking about the Betty Crocker box cakes, brownie mixes, or chocolate chip cookie dough "rolls". I am talking about baking from scratch. Almost anyone can spoon out cookie dough and shove it in the oven for 30 minutes.  In school, I’ve always been better with the arts, literary and history classes rather than sciences or mathematics. I always meant to get back to the baking recipes and I th...
Read more

A Monster Allergic Reaction: Erythritol

Image
Marc with Hives (Cabbage Patch link) By chance, I completed this blog post on Mother's Day so I guess I will put it up dedicated to my dear Mother Abby. Not a day goes by where I don't think about you, miss you, and love you. And I guess I will thank my Mother for passing on a whole mess of allergies to me, LOL. It's not so bad, I live with them. Sometimes as you will see below, a new allergy will crop up and be added to my list. As my Mom once said to me, "Your allergies? Well you can thank your Mother for that one!" A couple years ago, my doctor recommended I stop drinking so much coffee as well as those energy drinks. I drank the energy drinks fairly often like at least once every couple days. It didn't matter the brand, just whatever was on sale or available. He had stated that he thought there was nothing beneficial to them from a nutritional standpoint and he'd rather have me drink my coffee instead. I did not completely give up my coffee bu...
Read more

Favorite Kitchen Tools

Image
"Voile" Pasta Measurer by Alessi Throughout the years, I have acquired several favorite cooking tools as gifts or through my own discoveries. I am always on the lookout for cool kitchen gadgets. Mom's favorite kitchen tool was the wooden spoon. When we stepped out of line, she would grab it and threaten to paddle us with it. She was kidding/half serious most of the time but I think I remember once or twice when I got the spoon to my butt for being a bad kid. Mom swore by wooden kitchen tools and to this day, I have plenty in my kitchen as well. The first favorite kitchen tool is the "Voile" Alessi Pasta Measurer. Alessi is an incredible Italian design company. Check out more of their wares at www.alessi.com . It was a gift from my father and stepmom Martha. Each circle in the pasta measurer is for a different amount of pasta. It was truly a perfect gift from the two of them as it encompassed Martha's passion for the kitchen and cooking, and ...
Read more