For Sisters and Friends

I had a crisis of confidence a week ago about posting recipes and writing about food. I am not a professional food person, or a foodie, or even a good photographer, and so many of the food sites I see make mine seem rough hewn. I am a mere home cook with a second hand camera and a tiny kitchen, and though I love to cook I wondered how much new or original I had to say.

But a week's reflection has reminded me that most cookery writers are not inventors of recipes , but collectors. Unless a recipe is relentlessly new and outrageous- say an anchovy and blueberry tart- it has come into the Cooking Commons from a hundred places and times. I found a recipe for Pork Loin braised in Milk in Claudia Roden's " The Food of Italy". This does not mean it is her recipe. It is Italy's recipe that she collected, and even before she wrote it down it was a classic dish from the Veneto. Roden has her version. Marcella Hazan has another.

Recycling recipes is what people do.

Several weeks ago I posted a recipe for Shepherd's Pie. Within a day I called my sister , and found that she was in the kitchen following my directions. I called later, and she told me that the pie was all gone-finished off by her son and a friend who both declared it the best Shepherd's pie ever. Probably not, but since both boys knew school cafeteria food, they knew mine was the better version.

My sister is a time-starved woman with a Big Job. She does not spend her days reading cookbooks. If I find recipes that she and my friends-also time-starved- decide to try I will have done good service, even if I am irredeemably minor. Good recipes are passed along, whether in a spiral notebook, on an index card, or on the World Wide Web. Thank God a week's deliberation freed me from the tyranny of trying to be original!

Shredded Cabbage, from " Four Great Southern Cooks".

This is Mrs. Beatrice Mize's recipe. I have not adapted it. Mrs. Mize, like the other three Great Southern Cooks, was black. Her grandmother was a Cherokee Indian, and the photo of Mrs. Mize in the cookbook shows her wearing her ancestor's beaded headband. Mrs. Mize was born in 1893, and through her life she worked for her family at their Dew Drop Inn in Georgia, and later as a private cook for Atlanta's elite.


Shredded Cabbage

One small cabbage-(I used half a medium sized purple cabbage).
One teaspoon of salt
One teaspoon of sugar
Two tablespoons of butter
One egg, beaten
One tablespoon vinegar.
Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Grate the cabbage.( I used a food processor). Place cabbage in a sauce pan, cover with water. Add salt and the sugar and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer cabbage until it is soft. Drain off the water, then put the cabbage back in the saucepan and add the butter.

Beat the egg with the tablespoon of vinegar added. Add to the cabbage which should have cooled a little, and simmer on low a few minutes, stirring with a wood spoon.
Season to taste with pepper and serve. Four portions. ( I did add a little more salt and another pat of butter).

I think this would go well with fried chicken, or a pork loin.

"Four Great Southern Cooks "was published by Dubose Publishing in Atlanta in 1980. Copies sell for upwards of $50.00 on Bookfinders. It is worth the price.

Firepinks, fossils, and a park road near the limestone ledges.

Easter Sunday at the Warner Parks in Nashville

Fossil Fish

This 6 inch long fossil of a fish is in one of the rocks in the stonewall along the auto road above the Steeplechase Course at Percy Warner Park in Nashville.

Click on photo to enlarge.

Green Eggs and Ham

Yesterday I had a dozen spears of leftover roasted asparagus. I wanted to puree it, but some of the stalks were fibrous, even after roasting. I tried pureeing it through my ricer, but this was a naive move. The asparagus refused to yield. I put it in the food processor, and the asparagus won again. Now I had mini-chunks of stringy fiber. I had relied too much on technology. I pulled my antique conical food mill down. This worked, but so would a regular food mill.

I had planned on asparagus soup. I changed my mind. I stirred my 1/4 cup of puree into a bowl with two eggs. I cooked scrambled eggs instead. I put some Serrano ham on a slice of toast, and dressed it with a dollop of mustard. I cut up a mango as well. And there was breakfast- Green Eggs and Ham. A whimsical husband might enjoy this. A literate child who knows Dr. Seuss. Having neither husband or child I ate it myself ,and the beagle licked the plate.

Instant Bean and Tuna Salad

This is a tasty salad for anyone who is hungry for lunch, and who keeps Cannellini beans and canned tuna in their pantry. If you are a purist, and feel you have to soak dried beans overnight, go ahead. But this will convert Instant to overnight, and you will have to find something else for lunch today.


1 15 ounce can of Cannellini beans, drained.

1 small can of tuna fish. I always use tuna packed in oil, but you do not have to.

Salt to taste(I always use sea salt- except in baking.)

1/4 to 1/2 red onion, diced. How much you use depends on how much onion you like to taste.

Optional- 10 chopped fresh sage leaves that I quickly sauteed in a little olive oil. Oil and leaves were tossed into the salad. If you do not have sage leaves you might try some sprinkles of Italian seasoning.

Toss all ingredients in a bowl. Add more salt if needed. Serve with a rustic bread, possibly toasted. A Tuscan garlic loaf would be good.

Cold salads such as this appeal to me as the weather warms. This is a salad to eat al-fresco. And it is cheap.