My mom sucks at substitutions. She's got a way with tofu. She can flip a house. But she doesn't understand substitutions. If a coffee cake calls for pecans, and she only has peanuts, well they are both nuts, right? If something calls for goat cheese, and we’ve got some smoked gouda, smoked gouda it is.
Cooking with her can be frustrating. I remember once being asked to make a butternut squash lasagna for company and the only ingredient we had was the squash. She wanted to substitute everything. Sage, ricotta cheese, even the lasagna noodles. It was mush: layers of spaghetti, and butternut squash with some kind of inappropriate cheese. She ate it and acted like it tasted good. I rolled my eyes a lot.
I think for my mom cooking is about using things up. A happy accident for her is a recipe that calls for ingredients that she already has in the pantry/freezer/garden. For me a happy accident is something that tastes amazing and comes at the right time. I love those days that are perfect for chili or chicken soup or strawberries that are in season. I love the right words at the right time, so why wouldn’t I love the right food at the right time. My mom loves when things come out even. She loves to use what she has. I, on the other hand, tend to be a bit too faithful to recipes, cooking by the book until I know enough to throw things together, trading a one green for another, fresh seasonings for dried, buttermilk for milk.
We balance each other out.
Except that now I live in a place where I’m learning to make do. To get oat bran, you go to one grocery store, to get fresh jalapeño peppers, you go to another. Forget habaneros or broccoli rabe, unless you grow them yourself or go to the farmer’s market when they are in season. If you want amaranth or organic chicken, you have to drive an hour. And every once in awhile there will be a culinary treat or oddity. Saturday night after the football game and some wine, I decided to do a little culinary scavenging. (The best of the five grocery stores in my area mark down their produce on Saturday nights). Lo and behold: starfruit and white asparagus. How excited I was to see this two foods that I never buy! I realized then how much I miss HEB, and by extension being warm, and by extension Texas and by extension my old life and by extension my old self. I left the store in a cold soggy mess without any groceries.
What a drama queen! In the parking lot I realized that I absolutely could not go home without a few packages of frozen spinach. I needed the spinach to make yet another swiss chard recipe. B/c although I now live in a blue state, Swiss chard counts as a cullinary oddity here in my little rural corner of the world. So if I want to make Greek Swiss Chard Pie. I'm gonna have to substitute a little something.
Why not use a spanakopita recipe?, you ask. This is a tiny bit healthier.
Has anyone worked with phyllo dough?
4 comments:
I worked with phyllo dough once. And that's all I'm going to say. :)
PS--Ab and Stac, I'm so glad you keep this blog. I miss you both so much, but this kinda makes me feel like we're not so far apart. Sending love and snowflakes your way.....
Oh, and I'm cooking some Kashi's 7 whole-grain pilaf right now. I'll mix it with what I have in the freezer because I was too lazy to go shopping for what I really want to put in it.
Tina, ;*
Ab, great post. And what's yer question about that rascally dough [as she pushes up her pink robed sleeves]?
I only worked with it for Greed dishes. And one amazing pot pie w/o a bottom crust and only two delicate layers of phillo top. Mm.
(Also, Ab--great pic! Chard really is a work of art. I forgot to mention that I used the red- and white-stemmed versions in my first attempt at the lasagna. Very pretty.)
Ha. Greek. Greek dishes.
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