Note that if you purchase something via one of our links, including Amazon, we may earn a small commission.
My mom taught me a lot of things, including how good food can be when made at home.
The first time I sat down to dinner alone with my mother โ just the two of us โ I was 12 years old, and my parents had recently divorced. Before, Iโd eaten dinner with the grown-ups only on holidays like Thanksgiving. They had a busy social life, and even when they dined alone at home, they ate at what was then the fashionable dinner hour among their set โ about 8 p.m., which was too late for a kid with a bedtime of 8:30.
My sister says that our mother learned to cook by watching Julia Childsโ TV show, but Iโm not sure when that occurred. Prior to their split, my parents had a cook named Claudia who prepared all their meals. Yet here was my mom, dishing up our first dinner together, that she herself had made. It was lamb chops (yum), scalloped potatoes (yum), and a blob of green mush (yuck!) that turned out to be purรฉed peas with mint. When she noticed that I wasnโt going near the peas, my mother put down her fork and knife, gave me a stern and resolute look that filled me with dread, and declared, โLaura, I am going to teach you to appreciate gourmet food if it kills me.โ
And in short order, she did. Sure, we ate plenty of ordinary meals (roast chickens, spaghetti and meatballs, baked salmon), but under my motherโs tutelage, I also learned to love shad roe with bacon, calvesโ liver smothered in caramelized onions, braised leeks in cheese sauce. My mom was an expert gardener, and many of the fruits and vegetables that appeared on our plates came right out of our backyard. She grew upscale items like raspberries, haricots verts, and fraises du bois. When arugula was still little-known in this country, she brought back a packet of seeds from a trip to Europe, and the next thing I knew, an explosion of spicy, pleasantly bitter flavor was punctuating our salads.
Given her determination to improve my palate, Iโm not sure why it never occurred to my mother to teach me to cook, or why I never thought to ask her to do so. She did, however, assign me the task of keeping the house stocked with homemade sweets. She suggested I start with chocolate chip cookies, and, using the directions on the back of the Nestleโs package, thatโs just what I did. To my astonishment, they came out perfectly โ the first time! โ which taught me a valuable lesson about the utility of following a recipe. By the time I left for college, I was a seasoned baker, turning out meringues, macaroons, shortbread, pecan bars, and at least a dozen other delicacies to keep our cookie jar full and our sweet tooths satisfied.
My freshman year at the University of Virginia, I lived in a dorm and ate school food, but in my second year, I moved into a house with four friends. There, I learned to make bread from Peter (for whom bread-making was all about the sensuality of getting oneโs hands into warm dough and kneading, kneading, kneading), and hash browns from my Southern roomie, Sandy, who believed in big, hearty breakfasts. (He also, famously, once brought home a groundhog heโd shot over the weekend on his familyโs nearby cattle farm, insisting that it was โgood eatinโ.โ It wasnโt. After marinating it for hours in vinegar for alleged tenderizing, he roasted it in the oven, and it was still tough and gamey and sporting a few stray hairs when it reached the table.)ย
In the decade after college, I was too busy with a new job, then grad school, then more new jobs, to have much time for cooking. At home, I ate more pasta with bottled tomato sauce than I care to admit. But eating out helped broaden my tastes. In the early โ80s, for example, a friend from my job in D.C. introduced me to sushi โ a concept that, I admit, I initially found repugnant, but after one bite, I was hooked. Not far from my apartment I found a family-run, hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant where I tried โ and loved โ cold rolls dipped in peanut sauce and rice noodle salads in fish-sauce dressing, topped with strips of grilled beef, fresh basil, cilantro, and scallions. Later, living in New York City, I discovered the joys of gourmet take-out. If there was a type of food you couldnโt order by phone in that city, I never discovered it. When I married my husband in 1990 and moved into his apartment on the Upper West Side, there was even a Himalayan restaurant nearby that delivered (I liked their vegetable curries and the little dumplings called momos).
Then, in 1995, we moved to Marthaโs Vineyard. In that era, pretty much the only take-out food on this Island was bad Chinese and pizza, and my husband, whoโs gluten-free, couldnโt eat pizza until years later when they finally invented GF pizza crusts. I quickly figured out that if we were going to eat the kinds of foods we loved, I was going to have to learn to make them. Armed with a few great cookbooks (notably Madhur Jaffreyโs World Vegetarian, Ruth Reichlโs The Gourmet Cookbook, and the good olโ Joy of Cooking, all on Amazon), I taught myself to cook dinner โ meals that were both balanced and yummy. To my delight, Cronigโs carried items like garam masala, pomegranates, and fresh lemongrass; for more obscure items, like fresh curry leaves, kombu, and rosewater, I traveled to Boston or hit the internet.ย
When Iโm trying out something new, which I do frequently to continue broadening my repertoire, I almost always use a recipe as a starting point. But Iโve learned enough over the years to know when modifications will make it better. When a recipe calls for two cloves of garlic, for example, I usually use four. When a dish contains fresh spinach, I often substitute other greens from my garden, like Swiss chard, collards, or tatsoi, and I always add more than suggested, since greens cook down to next to nothing. Because I like strong flavors, I tend to be heavy-handed with fresh herbs and with spices like cumin, coriander, and chili powder. On the other hand, I generally ignore instructions to add salt, especially when recipes call for ingredients that already contain salt, like chicken broth or canned tomatoes. I can always add a pinch or two at the end if itโs needed, or let diners sprinkle on their own. The weirdest thing Iโve learned is that when a dish seems to โneed something,โ itโs almost invariably a dash of ume plum vinegar โ itโs salty and tangy, and it spruces up a soup or stew every time.ย
Of course, the environmental benefits of eating locally are significant, but in addition, Iโve learned that local fish, poultry, eggs, yogurt, breads, and cheese are almost always more flavorful than their store-bought counterparts.
Iโve taken a leaf, if you will, out of my motherโs book and become a serious gardener (see Lauraโs Garden to Table series), largely because produce straight out of the garden simply tastes better than what you buy in a grocery store. Arugula and herbs are stronger-flavored, radishes are spicier, asparagus is so sweet that itโs best eaten raw and just-picked, and there is nothing โ absolutely nothing โ that compares to a fat, juicy garden tomato, sliced while still warm from the sun, topped with a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkling of salt, and some shredded basil from the herb patch, eaten on a piece of toast rubbed with home-grown garlic. Of course, the environmental benefits of eating locally are significant, but in addition, Iโve learned that local fish, poultry, eggs, yogurt, breads, and cheese are almost always more flavorful than their store-bought counterparts. Prufrock cheese from the Grey Barn, anyone? Or a North Tabor Farm chicken? (Hereโs a recipe for that) Mermaid Farm yogurt? Some freshly caught squid or tautog (read this story about tautog, with recipe)? A Blackwater Farm egg? Yes, please.ย
Nowadays, my husband and I rarely eat out, because the food at home is just so much better. I usually decide what to make based on what needs eating in my fridge or freezer, and, during the season, whatโs in abundance in my garden. Like my frugal mother (see my essay about her), I loathe waste โ especially food waste. If you spend as much time tending a garden as she did and I do, the last thing you want is to let your gardenโs bounty rot.
Unlike my mother, I had my kids eat dinner with us from the get-go, every night, including when we had other adults over. My husband has also become an excellent cook over the years (albeit mostly on weekends), and because we (and many of our friends) are โfoodies,โ my children grew up listening to a lot of food talk and meal analysis at the table. What could we have done differently or better? Was the fish overcooked? Does this need more garam masala? Would quinoa have been better than rice with this Thai green curry? I didnโt exactly teach my offspring to cook, but they learned a lot about food through osmosis, and by watching me make dinner while they did their homework at the kitchen table. Iโm proud to say that theyโve both grown up to be excellent cooks and lovers of good food โ and I didnโt even have to threaten to turn them into gourmets if it killed me!ย
RECIPE: Enchilada Casserole
- Yield: Serves 6
Description
This is a wonderful recipe for using up odds and ends in the fridge โ half a zucchini, a slightly wilted pepper, a few odd leaves of kale โ basically any veggies that need using. Plus, itโs delicious, and when my kids were small and wouldnโt eat most vegetables, theyโd eat them in this dish without noticing. Itโs amazing what some Mexican spices, enchilada sauce, and a generous amount of melted cheese will cover up!
Ingredients
- 4 Tbsps olive oil, divided, plus more for the baking dish
- 1 large onion, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb ground meat (or use plant-based ground meat or crumbled extra-firm tofu for a vegetarian version)
- 4 medium tomatoes, diced, or 1 15-oz can diced tomatoes with their juices
- 2 tsps cumin
- 1 1/2 tsps coriander
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 cups (or more) of mixed vegetables, diced small
- 8โ10 corn tortillas
- 16 oz enchilada sauce (either red or green, or a combination)
- ~8 oz melting cheese like Colby Jack
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375โ. Brush or spray the bottom and sides of a 9-by-12-inch baking dish with olive oil.
- Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a sautรฉ pan. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until softened. Add the ground meat, breaking it up with a wooden spoon. When the meat is mostly cooked through, add the tomatoes, cumin, coriander, chili powder, and salt, and mix well. Cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid from the tomatoes has evaporated. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. Move to a bowl.
- Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the same pan (no need to wipe it out), and when itโs hot, add the mixed vegetables and cook for about 5 minutes until theyโre softened. Add the vegetables to the meat mixture and stir to incorporate.
- Line the bottom and the sides of the prepared baking dish with tortillas. You will need to fold and tear them a bit in order to get the surfaces fully covered. Pour in the meat-vegetable mixture and spread it out evenly. Cover the top with more tortillas.
- Pour the enchilada sauce over the top of the tortillas, then spread the cheese on top. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the dish is hot throughout and the cheese has melted and browned. Cut into portions and serve.
Notes
For the veggies, I used mushrooms, fennel stalks, cilantro stems, zucchini, the kernels from an ear of cooked corn, jalapeรฑos, a green pepper, carrots, and a few string beans. Use whatโs in your fridge!
RECIPE: Braised Leeks With Cheese Sauce
- Yield: Serves 4 as a side dish or starter 1x
Description
My mother left behind a trove of her favorite recipes when she died. Most were typed on 4โx 6โ index cards, stained with oil and drips and annotated in handwriting (โBottoms blacken; try 325ยฐโ, โUse Cuisinart!โ), but somehow, the recipe for the braised leeks in cheese sauce of my early adolescence was missing. This is my attempt to recreate it, and I think it turned out well. Note that instead of drizzling cheese sauce over the braised leeks, you could sprinkle them with some grated parmesan or cheddar while theyโre still in the pan, then pop the pan under the broiler until the cheese melts.
Ingredients
- 6 medium leeks
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- Vegetable stock
For the cheese sauce
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1 cup milk (I use 2%, but oat milk and other alternatives will also work)
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 cup grated strong cheddar cheese (or jarlsberg, manchego, or other flavorful variety)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Trim off the bottoms of the leeks and cut off the dark green leaves. Cut the leeks in half lengthwise, and place them in a bowl of cold water to soak for 10 minutes. Drain, and rinse off any remaining dirt, checking between the layers at the top ends.
- Heat the olive oil on medium in a heavy-bottomed skillet large enough to fit all the leeks in a single layer. Put the leeks in the pan cut side down and cook for a few minutes until the bottoms are slightly browned. Flip them over and cook for another 3 minutes, browning the other sides. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the top and turn them over again. If the outer layers have become papery, remove them.
- Add the wine to the pan and cook for a minute. Then add enough vegetable broth to just cover the leeks, bring to a boil, then simmer for about 20 minutes until most of the liquid has boiled off and the leeks are cooked through and easily pierced with a knife tip.
- While the leeks are braising, prepare the cheese sauce. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for a minute. Then slowly drizzle in the milk, whisking continuously. Add the grated nutmeg.
- Cook, stirring, until the mixture is slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. Stir in the cheese until itโs melted and fully incorporated. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and add additional milk if you want a thinner consistency.
- To serve, place the leeks on a platter and drizzle generously with the cheese sauce.
RECIPE: Individual Dacquoises with Berry Sauce and Shaved Dark Chocolate
- Yield: Serves 8
Description
For my birthday, my mother used to make my favorite dessert: meringues topped with vanilla ice cream and homemade chocolate sauce. Some years ago, after my friend Rachel brought a fabulous dacquoise cake to dinner one night (meringue โcakeโ layers interspersed and topped with whipped cream and berries), I decided to try my hand at a combination of the two, and I came up with this recipe, which is always a hit with dinner guests. It has the added advantage of using up eggs โ we have a few too many chickens. (I add the unused egg yolks to our dogโs dinner, and heโs grateful.)
Ingredients
The meringues
- 4 egg whites
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
The berry sauce
- 1 cup frozen raspberries
- 1 cup sliced fresh strawberries
- 12 Amarena cherries (see note), roughly chopped
- 2-3 Tbsps Amarena cherry syrup (from the can or jar)
The toppings
- 3 oz good quality dark chocolate, grated or shaved
- 1 pint whipping cream
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Make the meringues: Preheat the oven to 225โ. In a mixer, whip the egg whites and the cream of tartar on high until stiff peaks form. Gradually pour in the sugar, add the vanilla, and whip until the meringue holds its shape.
- On two baking sheets lined with parchment paper or silpat mats, drop 10 dollops of meringue and use a silicone spatula or a wooden spoon to flatten them into round-ish shells about an inch thick. Bake the meringue shells for 1 1/2 hours, shifting the trays after 45 minutes from top to bottom and bottom to top. For crisper shells, cook a bit longer, or leave them in the oven after turning it off until theyโre cool. When cool, use a spatula to remove the shells from the parchment or silpat, and set aside.
- While the meringues are cooking, make the fruit sauce. Combine the frozen raspberries, strawberries, Amarena cherries, and Amarena syrup in a bowl and let sit. As the raspberries melt, theyโll add their juices to the cherry liquid, which is good.
- Grate or shave the chocolate and set aside.
- Once ready to assemble, whip the cream by placing it in a mixer and gradually increase the speed as the cream begins to thicken. Slowly pour in the sugar, and add the vanilla. Whip until the cream holds its shape, but donโt over whip, or it will develop a butter-like consistency.
- To assemble, place one meringue shell on a dessert plate and top it with a generous smear of whipped cream. Stir the fruit mixture, taste, and add more amarena syrup if you want it sweeter. Pour a few spoonfuls over the meringue and whipped cream. Scatter a smattering of grated or shaved chocolate on top. Repeat with seven more meringues, and serve. (There will be two meringues left over; enjoy them on their own later!)
Notes
Amarena cherries are small, dark Italian cherries cooked in a sugar syrup and often used in desserts as decorations and/or flavor enhancers. They are available from Amazon or other online sources.
