Burning Daylight

My mother will readily admit to not knowing the first thing about cooking when she first got married at the age of nineteen. My father was fond of remarking that she was incapable of boiling water at the start of their wedded bliss. Thanks to the diligent efforts of my father and his mother, my mother became a pretty damn good cook. The older I get, the more refined her skills get, but I have to say that things were pretty touch and go there for a while when I was a child.

My childhood memories are enveloped in a shroud of hazy smoke emanating from the broiler and the taste of burnt meat etched on the back of my tongue. In my mother's kitchen, everything was well done; if not slightly burnt, then it was deemed not quite ready. If a little too burnt, one could always use a butter knife to scrape off the black parts. While some things are truly better when a little crispy (fried chicken, pizza cheese), let me assure you overdone london broil requires a true sense of adventure (I tried every condiment to make this dazzleless gem of a meal more palatable) and overdeveloped jaw muscles. I've read in recent years that chewing your food a certain number of times is better for digestion and will help keep off the pounds. Perhaps my mother was wise beyond her years and aiming to keep us at fighting weight? Whatever the case, I feel truly fortunate to not have developed the distinguished look of a pit bull.

My mother served applesauce with nearly every meal, and while she swears to love this innocuous baby food item, one cannot help but wonder if she just wanted to provide a lubricant for the extremely cooked meats she served most nights of the week. My mother's efforts were applauded by my father who thoroughly enjoyed overcooked food (I only ever saw him spit food out twice). Whenever the burning got out of hand, my father would laugh and inquire if my mother was burning daylight again.

Aside from the burnt meat, my mother's cooking was just fine. Food stuffs from a box or can are pretty hard to mess up and when you add a little salt and a little butter truly everything tastes better. Except for gravy, I had never witnessed my mother make anything from scratch throughout my entire childhood (my love of frozen Sara Lee cakes stems from this fact). She did attempt to make tomato sauce from scratch once that I recall, but when the blender broke while she was pureeing the tomatoes, we had a meal that was sparkly, gritty, and I can only hope provided us all some much need roughage.

As I grew older, my mother got better and better at cooking (or maybe I just got more used to it) but my father was genuinely confused when I refused to eat certain things anymore. "Since when don't you like broiled (again, read burnt) chicken breast? he'd implore. Um, since never; generally people buttering their meat (and by buttering their meat I mean...) can be safely assumed to not like it very much. While I have never been a huge fan of animal flesh (I prefer cream of wheat, pea soup and anything else that doesn't set my teeth and jaws into doing the work equivalent of a spinning class), I have to admit that I honestly enjoy a pork chop with the look and texture of a hockey puck - you know if hockey pucks were made from pigs. Some salt, some butter and you got yourself a little piece of heaven.

This weeks tip: Well versed in the clean up of a burnt meal, my mother swears that nothing removes burnt on food from a roasting pan, frying pan, or pot better than your everyday dryer sheet. Just put the dryer sheet (or two depending on the size of the pan) in the bottom of the pan and run some lukewarm water into it. Let it sit for a little while and then rinse. You will not have to use steel wool or have a pot soaking in your sink for days on end. You can use the dryer sheet to wipe off the gunk that has magically been lifted off of your cookware and clean as you normally would. Dryer sheets will also clean gunk off of the burners on your stovetop as well as your oven. They are quite handy tools to keep around the house and seem to work much better at removing gunk and grime than any of the stuff that comes in a spray bottle.