When I walk into my kitchen, I am never alone. It's not just my children and my husband who inhabit that space with me. I feel the ghost-like presence of dozens of other people who have influenced my cooking.
This post is part of a Midlife Boulevard blog hop. Check back on Monday, October 21st after 8 am Central to find links to other recipes by midlife bloggers. Yummy!
My first influence was my mother. She was raised my a father who raised beef cattle and a mother who kept a large kitchen garden. Then my mother earned a degree in home economics and worked for a time as a home economics teacher. I watched her make bread, can fruit, prepare a number of delicious salads and desserts. And she taught bought me a children's cookbook when I was a tween.
After I left home, my cooking was influenced by roommates, classmates, co-workers, neighbors, and friends from church and from book club. I have now lived in 8 different states and lived abroad in Jerusalem for a time. I have sampled a variety of foods because of my travels and my gregarious nature.
Almost anytime I step into the kitchen to cook, the food I prepare reminds me of someone I know or someplace I have visited. Cooking connects me to others and transports me to places beyond my own home.
The last thing I made was cranberry salsa, which I first ate at a 2008 Christmas office party hosted by Wichita natives, Mark & Barbara. He and I both worked at the time for Newman University; she still teaches public school. I was a bit hesitant about eating her cranberry salsa at first, never having seen cranberries prepared in a salsa. Soon I was asking Barbara for a spoon so that I could eat the salsa without having to limit myself to the surface of a tortilla chip. I finally asked her to list the ingredients so that I could make it at home.
That was four years ago. This cranberry salsa has been popular when I have served it at book club meetings, pot lucks, and dinner parties. If you enjoy cranberries, maybe this recipe will make it into your kitchen. Then I can be a recipe "ghost" inhabiting your kitchen during the holiday season.
Ingredients:
12 oz fresh cranberries
2 tablespoons of sugar
juice of 1/2 of a lime
(Or instead of the sugar and lime, use 1/4 cup orange juice)
1/2 apple chopped
1 scallion chopped
1/2 cup of chopped bell peppers (yellow, orange, red and/or green)
1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
jalapeno chopped (to taste). 1/4 tsp to 1 tablespoon?
1. Rinse the cranberries and sort to remove any that look mushy.
2. Chop coarsely in a food processor.
3. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar to the cranberries
4. Rinse and cut a lime in half.
5. Squeeze the juice of half the lime onto the cranberries.
(Or skip the sugar and lime and use 1/4 cup of OJ instead)
6. Rinse and chop 1/2 of an apple. I like honey crisp or gala.
7. Rinse and then chop the scallion and bell peppers.8. Rinse the jalapeno, cut to remove the seeds and the pith.
9. Cut enough jalapeno to your taste.
10. Rinse and chop the fresh cilantro (not pictured)
11. Add the apple, scallion, jalapeno, peppers, and cilantro to the cranberry/fruit (juice) mix.
12. Garnish with a sprig of cilantro or a lime twist.
Serve with tortilla chips. Remember people who influence your cooking. Make some new memories. Create a food legacy.
Related:
Talking with Older Adults; Serving as a Witness
