Go to the homepage for the Sylva Herald and Ruralite

Ruralite Cafe: Published 5/25/00

By Lynn Hotaling



Home cooking is worth the wait

 By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor
Back in the days when I made my home at Canada community's Rock Bridge, I spent a lot of time cooking. It was more fun when friends like Dona and Elizabeth came to visit and we could make and sample dishes together, but, even when on my own, I put in major hours in the kitchen.

After Dona moved in with me for a few months in 1976, the scope and frequency of our culinary adventures expanded. If neighbors gave us produce, we felt obligated to find a new and different way to prepare it. Most of our experiments fit into the OK category; several qualified as memorable.

As we were washing, chopping, frying and steaming, we came up with an idea for a book we would write together. Already journalistic veterans - we had co-authored a short-lived advice/cooking column for The Western Carolinian the previous summer - we decided to someday compile a book of our favorite recipes. Making our effort different from the hundreds of other recipe collections lining America's kitchen shelves, we thought, would be its chatty quality and the stories that would accompany each dish.

We envisioned talking our readers through recipes rather than just providing a list of ingredients. We'd include pictures of how the apples should be sliced for pie or chopped for Granny Ruth's Fresh Apple Pound Cake. We planned stories of when and where we first prepared the dish and of the people who were around to eat it. A steady stream of characters paraded through our kitchen in those days, and we thought it would be fun to immortalize them in print.

I found out a couple of weeks ago that Dona and I don't have to bother - somebody's already written that book. Titled "Home Cooking," it's by Laurie Colwin and was published a dozen years ago by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. My friend Karen gave it to me three years ago, but I didn't get around to reading it until last week.

It's wonderful. New York writer Colwin takes us along as she progresses from cooking over a two-burner hotplate to cooking for her family. As we turn the pages we share her biggest successes and most dismal flops. It includes lots of recipes and plenty of commentary to get you through the potential pitfalls of preparing a new dish.

Reading it took me back to the kitchen at Rock Bridge. I especially remember one fall when every apple tree had bushels of fruit. Dona, Elizabeth and I peeled and cut the ripe fruit for days. We perfected our apple pie recipe, tried out cakes and muffins and made and gave away quarts of apple butter.

Then came the day to try something different with our harvest. Suffice it to say it was not a triumph; in fact, after all these years Dona still turns slightly green every time I say, "Remember that swell recipe for an apple-bleu cheese omelette?"

Reading Colwin's book and recalling Rock Bridge days reinforced a simple truth I'd lost sight of during these fast-paced days: Preparing and cooking for family and friends is incredibly enjoyable when you have the time to do it properly.

And maybe we better get busy and write that book anyway. It seems that Colwin left out Tim's Famous Tuna/Lima Bean/Potato Chip Casserole.

Back to Archive: 05/25/00.