Foods Shared by Family and Friends

Food seems to be one of the easiest things about which to write, and it’s no secret that much of my socializing happens around food sharing, laughter, and the occasional drink.

Since we last visited, several months ago, I had the pleasure of partaking with several friends and our son, Stevie, each of whom are fabulous in the kitchen. I don’t know whether to call them “cooks” or “artists”. I’ll begin with the most recent and go backwards.

Our friends, Mark and Kathy have a cottage on a lake in New York. A most memorable meal was the evening that Kathy prepared the Walleye fish that Mark caught on preceding evening. Upon catching fish, Mark immediately filets the fish. I’ve eaten his fresh fish on the Gulf Coast, in Alaska, on a lake in Kansas, and now on a lake in New York. Kathy takes the freshly-caught fish, dips them in milk, rolls them in seasoned flour and then finely crushed saltines before placing them in hot shortening. The result is tender, flaky fish with a crunchy breading. Kathy served the fish with homemade tarter sauce brought by the neighbor, and I prepared corn muffins to go with the sour cream and Iceland caviar as an appetizer. The neighbor also shared his homemade white wine. I neglected to take pictures of the process, but I did remember to take one.

Here’s a fine shot of our fisherman as he launched on the successful fishing trip:

Before our trip to New York, we stopped in to see Stevie and Paige. Stevie’s innovative cooking was featured in this blog some months back. This time, he created a wrapped hamburger. He described the procedure as taking seasoned ground beef patties that he browned first. He had prepared his usual bread dough prior to preparing the beef (I realize that I am not writing the process in chronological order). He wrapped each browned pattie in a rolled-out round of bread dough. He place a sprinkling of baking salt before baking at 375 degrees (190.6 C). Also, he prepared thin slices of potatoes and lined them on a baking sheet sprinkled with the baking salt, too. He presented the tasty result to us, and we enjoyed with a glass of oatmeal stout. Delicious!

A few weeks ago, we returned to the community in which we lived for 30 years (We moved to another town to be near my job about two months ago) for a wedding (Mark and Kathy’s daughter). We made good use of our time by seeing some of our best friends. It was impossible to see all of our best friends as the weekend was far too short! Our friends, Carole and Larry invited us to breakfast at their beautiful. Besides being one of my favorite artists, Carole is a wonderful baker and cook. Larry, retired from a career as an expert in all things electric, passes his retirement as a wood artisan. Larry has built wonderful frames for my art collection, some of which were created by his wife. He’s now creating rolling plant bases for large planters. I don’t have a picture of the one he made for me.

The breakfast began with a wonderful asparagus frittata accompanied by the most wonderful sour cream coffee cake. We had mimosas and coffee with a splash of Bailey’s Irish Cream. I’m not sure if I am allowed to share the recipe, but I want you to see the picture. You may notice that Carole possesses an artist’s eye even in setting a table. We visited and ate the lovely breakfast slowly so as to savor the occasion to the fullest. We took our coffee on the deck overlooking the prairie so famous in Kansas.

Finally, I leave you with one final meal for this blog entry: a first meal in our new home. I am sure I’ve written about one of our favorite breakfasts, “eggs and soldiers”. Nearly two months after moving in, we have plenty of unpacking to do. However, we found some of our boxes of kitchen dishes among which were the egg cups and my butcher block. Our usual practice is to have breakfast on the butcher block. Our previous house had a “breakfast nook”, a small space in a kitchen where a small meal was often served in older homes. In the new kitchen, there is a small dining space, which I will call a “nook”. We, happily, ate our eggs and soldiers with hot Earl Grey tea looking out onto the deck, and, thus, we came “home”.