The Knife

There were two things I knew how to cook when I was growing up: chocolate drop cookies and ramen noodles that I boiled for three times longer than necessary. The package said three minutes, but, were they really done? I blame this on my parents, who, having lived through the invention of tv dinners, casseroles, the fear of cholesterol in eggs, and botulism in home canned green beans, thought food wasn’t good unless it was good and dead. All pieces of meat were cooked until gray and smothered in ketchup, though sometimes gravy–praise be. All vegetables were canned, either by my mom or by the stores, and so they were also cooked until they were very, very done.

My mom was the one in the kitchen and Dad sometimes on the grill. A typical division of labor for their time and place. I wasn’t taught how to cook because my mom really didn’t like cooking. Our meals were a piece of meat (squirrel, deer, rabbit, beef, pork, chicken), a can of vegetables, potatoes, and a salad. Sometimes she’d make a goulash that I liked quite a bit. And of course, her fried chicken is still crispy and delicious. All of this is to say, you know, I just didn’t know my way around a kitchen. 

Let me share just a bit more: I didn’t know that garlic was a plant until I was in my 20s. I thought it only came in salted shaker form. 

But, despite all of this, I loved eating and didn’t mind trying new things. That love of eating drew me to be interested in learning how to be in a kitchen and enjoy myself while there.   

So, it may surprise you to know that I enjoyed cooking before Chef Gaby came into my life. I was all self-taught and lacked confidence to veer away from any recipe. If it called for two cloves of garlic, I used two cloves. I could cook only with a book in front of me and many measuring tools. I set timers and stressed over the thing in the pan or oven like my career depended on it. I still enjoyed it, and I wasn’t terrible. Thankfully, Chef Gaby has helped me learn to cook by feel and to trust my instincts. 

Besides actually cooking, I enjoy learning about food. Food history is fascinating, especially as it pertains to economics. Our beloved biscuits and gravy is the product of being very poor. You only have some hard-ass biscuits leftover and some grease in the pan. Heat that grease, throw some flour in to make it stretch, put it on a biscuit. After some decades of evolution, you’ve got yourself a heaping plate of fresh warm biscuits smothered in a pepper sausage gravy on any breakfast menu in the South, and sometimes farther up.  

Not to really beat this recipe metaphor, but if you throw all of this together, you get the project I’d like to share with you: The St. Mark’s Espicopal Church Cookbook, 1993.

This book has always intrigued me, and before now, I’ve never even looked at it. 

I hope you’ll join me on this journey through the cookbook put together by the women of the church I was raised in. Full disclosure: I’m related to most of them. My mom has a few recipes in here, which I’ll definitely make, and even my grandpa’s famous spaghetti recipe can be found in the weathered pages. 

I realize most of the recipes are products of 1950s and were made in a time when Oleo was considered better for you than butter, and industrially canned food was also billed as healthier than fresh fruits and vegetables. This was also an era which followed a time of using what you have and getting creative with leftovers. It is in that spirit that I do this work. I will be improvising when I feel it’s necessary for flavor or because I don’t quite have the ingredients. 

It is also in the spirit of “use what you have” that I bring you my homemade logo and very unprofessional pictures of the food. I want this project to be real and really honest. 

The Pen

Obviously, it wouldn’t be me unless I wrote you a little something to go along with the recipe. My goal will be to give you a micro essay or at least a little tidbit of research. Maybe you can ponder it while you wait for your casserole to bake. 

Stay tuned every Tuesday at Noon, when I post a new recipe. Will I make everything in the book? No way. But I promise to do at least 10. 

I’d love nothing more than for you to try these recipes for yourself and let me know how it goes.