Cooking

Latch-Key Kid

Latch-Key Kid

In one room in my head, I stand on a stool beside my father’s mother helping her to mix the cake she will later bake in the wood-fired oven of her black, cast-iron stove. Every time she mixes a cake, she places a small piece in a dish and bakes it just for me. As a child, I spent hours in that kitchen, watching her cook. When she boiled vegetables, she never threw out the vegetable water, but used it for boiling other vegetables or for making rich, thick, delicious gravy.

Later, with both my parents working, I became a latch-key kid. I spent all day in an otherwise empty house and cooked my own breakfast and lunch. I also prepared supper for my parents so that it would be waiting when they came home. I grew up loving to cook.

When I went abroad to spend my summers in Spain or in France, I spent as much time as possible in the kitchens, watching, listening, learning. The women always had time for a small child. Then men seldom did. Children should be seen and not heard. They just got in the way. That was the male attitude. I learned so much in those kitchens.

Later, in Santander, my landlady would place one egg, one onion, and one potato beside the stove. It didn’t matter what time I came back from a night out with the boys, my supper was there, a Spanish omelet, una tortilla Española, waiting for me to cook it. Sometimes she left me a piece of chorizo, but I preferred the omelets. I did enjoy making shapes and designs out of the chorizo – that was always fun.

Not many people knew about my cooking skills. One of my aunties always cooked for me. She told me that her husband didn’t even know how to boil an egg. The men in my family seldom cooked, except for my maternal grandfather, who learned how to fend for himself in the trenches and dug-outs during WWI. He taught me how to make stews and soups, rich and nourishing, and always better on the third day. He also told me what he put in them – and you wouldn’t want to know about what he hunted and scavenged to stay alive in those cold, dark days. Nowadays, so many of us just don’t know how lucky we are. I do know how happy and lucky I am, not to be homeless, not to be living out on the streets, dependent on soup kitchens, charity, and fighting the elements just to stay alive.

What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?

Daily writing prompt
What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?
View all responses

What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?

The real question is not, how much money did you spend, but was the meal worth it! Think hamburgers – they can vary in price from a couple of dollars to twenty or thirty dollars, each. Is a good hamburger at $2.00 worth more than a rotten hamburger at $20.00? Of course it is. However, if you get a rotten hamburger at $2.00, even those dollars seem to be a waste of money, in the stomach pains of post-gobbling regret.

The same question and answer can be applied to most things – a sweater, a suit of clothes, a dress, a diamond ring… What we are really talking about is value for money. One of the best meals I have ever eaten was at a small restaurant outside the railway station in Lisbon. I arrived early for the overnight train to Madrid, checked my luggage in the left-luggage office, and walked down the road to this wonderful restaurant. I had plenty of time.

When I arrived a plate of hors d’oeuvres appeared before. These were meant to be snacked on before I placed my order. I asked for the menu of the day and chose pork tenderloin cutlets, with patatas bravas (hot spicy fried potatoes). After this came a small omelet, with fines herbes, French style, and this was followed by a lettuce, tomato, onion salad, in an oil and vinegar dressing. A fresh loaf of bread accompanied the meal and red wine was served throughout. Dessert was half a melon, hollowed out, filled with ice cream and soaked in cherry brandy. Afterwards, came a cigar (I smoked occasionally in those days), and a glass of brandy, with espresso coffee. It was simply delicious. How do you valley such a meal? I asked for the bill and reached for my traveler’s cheques (these were indeed the old days, before the ubiquitous credit card). I was ready to pay what the waiter demanded.

When the bill came, I couldn’t believe my eyes – $25, $50, $75, $100? No such luck. $4.50 and $5.00 with the tip added on. I didn’t need my traveler’s cheques. I pulled my wallet out and gave the waiter the equivalent of $10. What a wonderful meal. Totally unforgettable.

I have eaten in five star restaurants, in Michelin recommended restaurants, in restaurants owned by the friends of friends, and I have been ripped off, left right, and centre / center – whichever way you want to spell it. I have often found that the simple restaurants, with home cooking, and a simple menu were better than the over-rated, highly expensive, glitzy showpieces.

In Santander, we used to regularly visit a small restaurant that specialized in fish. The owners had their own fishing boat. They would net fish at sea, but line fish on the way back to port, genuine trawling, the old-fashioned way. The fish they caught was fresh, unbruised from the nets, and, at their restaurant, always cooked simply and well. Family and friends, we all shared the bounty of the sea. And the prices were low, while the quality and love was high.

Discourse Analysis – look at the question. Think about the words and ask what they mean. Search beyond them (and the simple answer) for the true values by which you wish to live your life. Do you crave the $100 cigar, or the free one delivered to your table after a wonderful meal? The $100 sauces that cover up the taste of the rancid meat or fish, or the simplicity of family food, hand picked and as fresh as fresh can be?

Oh yes – and I remember waiting two hours for my meal at one restaurant, a tiny one in a small community in Northern Spain, that nestled by a fish-filled stream. The trout, fried with bacon, were on special. The owner’s son had been sent to the stream to catch them, but they were slow to bite that day. The wine and tapas were free until the meal arrived. And arrive it did, dripping wet and still wriggling slightly. Twelve delicious trout, four each between the three of us. Who’s for fast food? Not me. I want the simple life – shared with friends and filled with love – any day of the week, no matter the cost. But when you look well and seek wisely, it will not cost that much – and it will be unforgettable.

And look at the paella I made for my beloved and I – in the photo above -. Warm for supper and cold for lunch the next day. Simple, relatively quick, and four round meals (they really weren’t square) served at about $2.oo a plate. Unbeatable. Unforgettable.

What’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?

Daily writing prompt
What’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?
View all responses

What’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?

No single item of food stands out. That said, eating is a cultural thing – does one eat on one’s own, or does one eat with family and friends? What role does food play in one’s life? For me, for example, food is cultural, an occasion, not a meal. For example, a fresh, Spanish croissant, for breakfast, a late breakfast, at the bar in the Rincon, Avila. Before me, the daily newspaper, open at the page with the daily chess problem. The coffee, freshly brewed, a cafe con leche, and the croissant, waiting to be dipped in the coffee, and the resulting delight transported to my mouth. Sometimes, there are no croissants left. Then, one of the world’s best kept secrets, un sobao pasiego, a small sponge cake, from the Vega de Pas in Cantabria. It holds together when dunked and can be eaten moist or dry.

By extension, when younger, after an afternoon’s soccer on the beach – la Segunda Playa del Sardinero, in Santander – cool red wine from a porron, and selected seafood in the form of tapas, nibbled with the other players, as thirst is quenched, and the appetite that comes from running on warm sand under a hot, summer sun, is slowly sated. Seafood – this includes octopus – pulpo a la gallega – or squid – calamares rellenos en su tinta – or caracoles de mar – sea-snails – or oysters, fresh, with a squeeze of lemon – or mejillones en salsa de tomate – mussels in tomato sauce – gambas a la plancha, roasted shrimp – or gambas al ajillo, pan fried shrimp in garlic – or almejas a la marinera, clams, Spanish style – the point is to ganarse el puchero / to earn your food, by dint of hard work, and to share it with your friends.

When I think of Welsh food, once again, it is the family gatherings and the love around the table that dominates. Under these circumstances, a simple boiled egg – not everyone can boil an egg properly – with hot toast and fresh salt butter, can be an overwhelmingly delicious meal. Eggs – so supple, so creative – scrambled eggs, creamy and lightly curded – an omelette aux fines herbes, with a lightly tossed green salad – a tortilla espanola, easy to prepare, but incredibly difficult to prepare to perfection. Free range eggs, fresh from the hen house, sea salt prepared locally, olive oil from a local terroir, potatoes, also local, onions from the garden. Each of these contains within it the taste of the same earth, the same air, the same rain.

Speaking of which, to travel to the high hills in the Province of Avila, and to smell the herbs that grow in the sheep pastures, thyme, rosemary, and to know that the flesh of the spring lamb will be flavoured by the herbs it has been eating – even the lechazo, a lamb still on its mother ‘s milk, tender, so tender, and so small that it broke my heart to see it. A lamb so small that I couldn’t eat it. I watched it appear on the family table and vanish in a couple of mouthfuls, washed down by a specially selected wine. I enjoyed the company and the rest of the meal. But I’ll never forget that tiny lamb.

However, it’s never just about food – it is about the cultural content of the room, the family, the table, the friends, the joy of sharing and caring. Oh dear, and I never got around to telling you about the paella I made, the ones that appears in the lead photo!

Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.

Daily writing prompt
Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.
View all responses

Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.

Does it have to be a man? Many women have impacted my life in a positive fashion. My Welsh grandmother taught me how to cook. She would stand me on a small stool placed beside the stove and I would watch as she explained what she was doing and why she was doing it. She allowed me to stir the various mixtures, to help beat the eggs, and when she baked, she always gave me a small piece of cake mix or dough so that I could create something for myself and bake it in the oven with the all the other things. It is hard to beat that type of impact. The small stone she threw still sends ripples through my kitchen and that of my daughter and granddaughter.

When I think of kitchens, I think of the many, many kitchens that I visited when living in France, Spain, and Oaxaca, Mexico. In each of them I picked up so many hints and ideas. In Santander, how to make a tortilla espanola / Spanish omelet. Every evening, my first landlady would leave, on the kitchen counter, one egg, one potato, and one onion. That was my supper – but I had to make it myself. I have made Spanish omelets for 60 years now. Some are simple, others combine different ingredients. All come from the kitchens I have visited in Spain.

In France, I learned the Parisian way to scramble eggs. Again, my landlady taught me how to scramble them her way, the only correct way. My scrambled eggs, learned as I was perfecting my knowledge of French language and culture, are still the talk of the table, when I serve them. Oaxaca was a total revelation, as I have said on many occasions, as was Oaxacan cooking. The first thing I learned – how to prepare quesadillas. Alas, there are no offerings of flor de calabaza with wish to garner them, not here in Canada, not that I have seen, anyway. Next came pico de gallo, that inimitable blend of cilantro, onion, jalapeno, tomato, lime, and salt. All of these recipes came, verbally, and practically, from the wonderful women who have enriched my world, as did the bacon and eggs, on a tortilla, with salsa mexicana, and the eggs scrambled in orange juice. And we won’t talk about the chapulines, grass-hoppers fried in garlic, nor the avocado with tuna delicacies.

Of course there have been men as well. Mon, the friend who spent twenty-three years in a Franco jail as a political prisoner, and survived. He built his own boat, powered by an old engine from a bakery that he adapted, and together we fished the Bay of Santander, every Sunday, for three consecutive summers. He taught me the secrets of the bay, where the fish were, where they hid, how they moved with the tides. He would encourage me to jump over the side, in deep water that lifted me up with the surge of the Biscay, under my armpits, and wouldn’t let me back on board until I could name every part of the bote. I became a very quick learner, especially as he was eating the omelet and drinking the wine as I was speaking. It was another incredible enrichment.

 Juanra, from Avila, was another such teacher. He would take me on his Sunday excursions to buy the week’s wine for his hostal-restaurante, and together we would visit La Seca, and other local wine-growing regions. I remember the day he and the lady who owned the vineyard we were visiting baptized me. We stood, thirty five feet underground, beside a wooden barrel, one of twelve in that cellar, that contained 5,000 litres of white wine. Juanra climbed a six foot ladder, and stood beside a tiny feather that acted as a plug to keep air out of the barrel. The lady, who performed the role of high priest, gave me a glass, showed me where to hold it, beneath the spigot, so that the wine would fill it and I could taste and test it. She turned the tap on – but no wine came out – then she held my hand ‘to keep it and the glass steady’. “Ahora / Now!” she gave the command. Juanra withdrew the feather, the wine flowed, and the lady jiggled my arm and soaked me from wrist to elbow, shrieking with a high-pitched laughter that blended with Juanra’s bass guffaw. “Ya te hemos bautizado,” they cried in unison. “Now we have baptized you.” And there I stood, a child of the vineyard and an adopted son of the land.

Just one? Only one? How could you be so cruel? I remember with great fondness one of my rugby coaches. Many of the people who surrounded him thought he was a clown, and told me so behind his back. But he had a certain something – and I wasn’t sure what it was. One day, at a national coaching conference, he took me on one side. “You already know everything that people here can teach you. But, somewhere, there is one piece of gold. You may find it here, or there, or in the bar. But that one piece of gold is what you will take home with you.”

When I coached the provincial junior team, one summer, I invited that coach to visit and to help me coach. We walked onto the field together. “Leave this to me,” he said. I asked him what I could do to help and he said – “Nothing. Just sit in my back pocket. See what I see. keep quiet. Ask questions later.” He started with a warm up game of rugby, which he refereed. “Whenever I blow the whistle three times – like this peep! – peep! – peep! – I want you to stop wherever you are. Don’t move until I tell you to.”

Then followed the most wonderful master coaching session I have ever witnessed. A ruck – peep! – peep! – peep! – – “Who was first to arrive?” No answer. he pointed. “You were. What did you do? Why did you do it?” This went on and on – scrums, lineouts, kick-offs, penalties, 25 yard drop outs – we weren’t metric yet. “Peep! – peep! – peep! – What did you do? Why did you do it? What else could you have done? Why didn’t you do that?”

They had called him a clown, the ones with the papers, and the coaching certificates, and the education, behind his back, and to them he was clown. But to me, he was a master coach. He taught me how to look, to listen, to see, to ask questions, and never to judge anyone until I had walked in a person’s shoes, or sat in their back pocket, not just for a mile, but for a whole wonderful weekend. He had a wonderful sense of humor and the clown left everyone laughing. Clown? He might have been the Prince of Clowns, but I have never forgotten what he taught me, nor how he taught it.

A Very Spanish Omelet

A Very Spanish Omelet

Spanish Omelets – I learned how to cook them in Santander, Spain, when I was attending summer school at the Universidad Internacional Menéndez y Pelayo. No – I didn’t learn at the university. My landlady taught me. She always left me an egg and a potato for supper. The first night she showed me how to cook a tortilla española. She showed me how easy it was – and from then on, she left the ingredients out for me and allowed me to cook the nightly omelet for myself.

Ingredients: splash of olive oil, pinch of salt, 1 potato (peeled, diced, or sliced), 1 egg.

Preparation: heat frying pan, put in the olive oil, let it warm, add the diced potato, add pinch of salt (to taste), fry until golden brown (or to taste) stirring all the while. Beat egg in a bowl. Add beaten egg to fried potatoes to make omelet. Turn omelet over in pan to cook both sides.

Seems simple, eh? But not so fast. Olive oil: I prefer Spanish olive oil, of a good quality. Other national olive oils will serve just as well, but they will change the taste of your omelet. Pinch of salt: now that’s easy. Or is it? I prefer pure sea salt. However, check the chemicals listed on the side of your salt box. Some add iodine, others sugar. No two salts are the same. Your omelet will change taste with the salt you choose. Gets complex, doesn’t it? Nothing complex about a potato, is there? But kind of potato will you use? The Universidad de la Papa in Peru lists approximately 80 different kinds of potato. Each kind will change the taste, and the texture of your omelet. Dicing or slicing? The cut of the potato will also change the taste of the omelet. When we took omelets to the beach in Spain, we always knew who had made the omelet according to the way in which the potato was sliced. Thin slices or squarish chunks? Regular cut or cut in irregular fashion? Sliced then chopped smaller? And as to the potato prior to frying, par-boiled or uncooked? Both ways lend a different texture to your omelet. De gustibus non est disputandum – there is no arguing about taste. There is nothing as simple as an egg – really? White shell or brown? Pale yolk or dark? Free range or battery hen? Fresh or, well, just hw fresh are some fresh eggs – “Eggs from Australia, fresh as the morning” -? Guess what – you omelet will change in taste, texture, and color according to the type of eggs that you use and the chicken that laid them. I wrote Add beaten egg to fried potatoes to make omelet – very true. But the good cooks that I copy actually add the hot fried potatoes (with as little oil on them as possible) to the whipped egg, and allow them to settle and gel together before returning the mixture to the pan. Not so simple then, this omelet cooking. Experiment. Try different methods and different blends of the four basic ingredients. When you find the blend you like best, stick to it.

Cebollista o anti-cebollista – the annual tortilla cooking competition in Galicia permits only four ingredients, as listed above, in their omelet entries. They do not permit the use of onions / cebollas. If you do wish to add an onion to the potato mix as it fries, you may most certainly do so. But the same cautions apply to onions as to potatoes. Be aware of what you are using and how you are using it. And whether you choose to use onions, or not, remember you have chosen a side in an ongoing war – cebollistas contra anti–cebollistas! Most people are one side or the other, rarely both.

Other things often appear in Spanish Omelets, sometimes under one name, sometimes under another. Next time, if any interest is shown in these recipes of mine, I will elaborate more on The Very Spanish Omelet.

Cooking

img_0385

Cooking

My Welsh grandmother, not my Irish one, taught me how to cook. At the time, I was the only grandchild. Whenever she cooked and I was in the house, she would take me into the kitchen, stand me on a stool by the gas stove, and encourage me to stir as the mixtures swirled and bubbled in pan or pot. I also helped her shell the peas, slice the carrots, whatever. When the preparation was ready, she would set aside a small portion that was mine. This might be a cake in the oven, a pair of biscuits shaped awkwardly by my own hand, or a small side pot of soup. “There’s nobody else,” she would whisper to me. “The old ways will die if I don’t teach you.” She was the one who taught me the exact moment when Welsh Cakes were ready to be molded, and there’s only one way to learn: place your hands in the mix. The right texture, as they say in the cookbooks, is ‘fine grain sand’ but you have to experience it to be certain what those words really mean.

I was a latch-key kid, as they now call them. Both my parents worked all day, leaving the house at 7:30 in the morning and not returning until 4 or 5 at night. Being able to cook meant that I never starved and I remember cooking soups, Cawl Mamgu among others, at a very early age. When I started traveling to France and Spain, I often ended up in various kitchens where I listened to the women as they prepared the food. Language and cooking went hand in hand and I learned how to roast coffee beans in a cast-iron frying pan, how to vary my range of soups, how to prepare casseroles, how to scramble eggs the continental way.

When I studied in Santander, Spain, my landlady left me, every night, one onion, one potato, and one egg. This was for the Spanish omelette that I ate most evenings. She cooked the first one for me, supervised me as I cooked the second one, and then abandoned me to my own devices. I often heard her snoring as I lit the gas, warmed the pan, and started to prepare my tortilla española. I still make Spanish omelettes, and they are delicious, but here in Canada they are never quite the same as they were in Spain. The ingredients look the same, olive oil, egg, salt and pepper, potatoes and onions … but the eggs are not Spanish free-range eggs from country hens and the oil, the potatoes, the onions, the salt … everything looks the same, but tastes vastly different.

Two days ago I bought a pound of fresh hake, merluza in Spanish. I cooked it in butter, half poached, half-sautéed. We ate half that night. Next day, I struggled with my thoughts: should I make fish cakes from the rest of the fish, or should I make a fish soup / sopa de pescado? Fish soup won. I put some truffle flavored olive oil into the frying pan, sliced small a tomato fresh from the garden, added a finely chopped onion, spiced it with sea salt, and added a small pinch of pimentón picante / hot Spanish paprika from La Vega in Spain. I let this simmer for a few minutes, then added some sherry. Into this mixture I put the rest of the hake together with the butter sauce that remained from the night before. The dish looked inviting, was very colorful, but appeared to be small and insufficient for the hungry eyes that followed the process. I added four large shrimp, sliced into four pieces each, a large scallop, thinly sliced, and sufficient water to thin the gathered liquids. Then I chopped up some sugar peas and added them as well. My sopa de pescado had undergone a sea change and become a sopa de mariscos / a sea food soup. The colors amazed: reds, yellows, oranges, and touches of green. On the spur of the moment, I named it New Brunswick Autumn Foliage. I tested it regularly as it simmered and it was ready when the sea food was done. Delicious.

I don’t know when my grandmother was born, or where, other than somewhere in Wales. I celebrate her birthday every time I cook something special, and my last two meals were very special. I don’t know where you are, Nana. You left us a long time ago. But wherever you are, thank you so much for the gifts you gave me. And Nana, I love you. You have traveled with me from Wales to Canada, and I celebrate you and your birthday every time I cook.