The Best Cooking Ingredient
What is it? For me, it's the power of friendship.
At the end of the day, even with impeccably arranged china and linens on the table and the most delicious flavors in the oven or simmering away in our expensive copper pots and pans, if there's no one around the table to share it all with, it's just not important. It's just not complete.
Family is important too. Certainly, our children, grandchildren, and parents; cousins, aunts, and uncles are important too. We know who we are and how to trace our roots when we sit at the table with family. We are eternal with family, younger generations following traditions, adding their own touch to the recipes they grew up with, reminding their families whose pie or stew or roasted chicken and potatoes recipe this is as they sit at their own table to eat in their family tree.
...it is the power of feeding friends that remains the best ingredient...
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| Pimiento cheese is a wonderful gift. Thanks, Phyllis! |
Ultimately, for me, while the passing on of traditions and family recipes is one of the most revered activities in my home and kitchen, and while we are bound to each other genetically and with an indescribable love, it is the power of feeding friends that remains the best ingredient of any food that I prepare. Friends pick you; you pick them. They become like family, but they are more. Friends have a superpower that with their time or the smallest, most insignificant of gifts brings unexpected joy and comfort. There are similar interests, there is patience that we often don't extend to family, and there's a lifting of spirits with stimulating conversation.
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| Jill's Keto-friendly Tiramisu |
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| Tiramisu being enjoyed a second time for breakfast the following day. |
Last week I celebrated my birthday. Yay, for me! My friend Jill McCreight wanted to make me a cake but wanted it to be something that I loved. She gave me Keto-friendly options because she knows that Dewey and I are trying to clean up our bodies and lose the excess weight we both gained during his year of surgeries and recovery. I chose Tiramisu, and Jill delivered it yesterday for a casual celebration. How thoughtful and how delicious!!! We started on it right away, which is why I only have a photo of it in the process of being consumed.
There was a beautiful and elegant flower delivery from faraway friends and a Paperwhite Narcissus a neighbor left on my front steps. There were cards, texts, Facebook greetings. So much love, thoughtfulness, and joy. My life is filled with blessings. Some are family, and some are lovely friends. I still remember friends Nancy and Rusty coming to my kitchen to cook my birthday dinner. What better gift for a cook than to cook for them!
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| Camelias from Phyllis's garden. |
This week we celebrated Thanksgiving with our friend Phyllis. That was our gift to her, but Phyllis came loaded with gifts too! There were Camelias from her garden, there was pimiento cheese from a local provider, and there was a Keto dessert for me and Dewey to enjoy the day after the big feast.
And I've written in another post about friends Marion and Tom who invited me and my Dewey to their home where they cooked my recipes posted to my blog. What an honor!
Yesterday we cooked for our friends Jill and Phil. And one of the greatest joys was cooking dinner with Jill. I'm sure we all have a story of times cooking with one or two close friends, sometimes with wine and sometimes with coffee.
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| See what joy I feel when I cook for friends? |
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