Archive for the ‘THE SOUL OF A KITCHEN’ Category

by Katherine Tomlinson

I celebrated my 21^st birthday with two cakes. One was devil’s food with German Chocolate icing that my mother made and sent to me by way of my younger brother. The other was a pound cake with pink, lemon-flavored fondant icing, an old-fashioned confection baked by my great-aunt Helen who lived in the small North Carolina town where I was going to college.

One birthday, two cakes—that’s just about the right ratio. When I moved to Los Angeles the next year, I ate my birthday meal in a now-defunct coffee shop called The Copper Penny. I ordered a slice of carrot cake. It was good. I ordered another slice to take home to the tiny studio apartment I rented in the middle of L.A.’s Korea Town. I’d been in the city for six weeks. There was no one in Los Angeles who loved me enough to make me a cake.

I felt pretty sorry for myself until I discovered that most of my new friends had never actually tasted home-made cake. Never. They were familiar with bakery cakes that come with thick, lard-laden frosting that coats your tongue with a sweet slime. Some had made cakes themselves from mixes and been happy with the results. (And really, the chocolate cake mixes on the market are great. If you weren’t raised on home-made cake.) The idea of someone actually … baking … a cake for them was an exotic concept.

Poor deprived children. As Benjamin Franklin once said about beer, “cake is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

I baked a cake for my best friend’s 25^th birthday. It was chocolate with a chocolate mousse and raspberry filling and chocolate fudge frosting. Her response was the kind of rapturous appreciation master chefs dream of.

I make her birthday cake every year now. Because I love her and because making a cake is a way of saying, “I love you.” When my brother and sister and I were little, our mother used to make these incredibly elaborate cakes for us. There was a rocking horse for my brother one summer; a butterfly for my sister; a train for me. At Easter there would be coconut cake with the coconut dyed green with food coloring and little jelly bean “eggs” hidden in the “grass.” She invented a cake filled with walnuts and sour cherries to celebrate George Washington’s birthday. (It was served warm with cherry syrup poured over it. But it was also good cold, sans syrup.)

As we grew up, I started baking more and more. Bread and sweet rolls, brownies and cookies. And cake.

I once made my sister a Buche de Noell for her birthday because that’s what she wanted. No one in France makes their own; and there’s a reason why. By the time you make the cake and the filling and the syrup to brush the cake layers and the frosting—you’ve used up every pan in your kitchen and had to borrow some from your neighbors. I have to say, though, it was pretty tasty. And she was pleased that someone had gone to all that effort to please her. Which made me happy.

There’s an old expression, “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have baked a cake.” I grew up in a house where that could have been embroidered on a sampler. Food isn’t love, but making food for the people you love is an act of love. And there’s no sweeter way to say you care about someone than making them a cake.

by Katherine Tomlinson

I am never alone in my kitchen.

If I reach into my silverware drawer, my hand passes over the three iced tea spoons that are all that is left of my great-grandmother Julia’s silver service. The pattern is beautiful, elegant, 19^th century. I never use the spoons, but their shape never fails to please me when I notice them.

Hanging on a magnetic hook from my stove is a pot holder my Aunt Helen crocheted in the shape and color of a slice of watermelon, complete with the shiny black seeds. I’ve had it since I was a kid and it’s now a little grubby from hanging on a hook near the stove. My aunt used to crochet wonderful little whimsies—my favorite being Christmas tree ornaments—little red and green wreaths, tiny ice skates of white yarn with paperclip blades. I do not know how to crochet and wonder if that skill, like hand-milking a cow, will be lost to future generations.

There’s a set of elegant wine glasses in a cupboard above my sink. They were a gift from a beau and despite their delicacy, proved more durable than the relationship. When I use them, I think of him and my thoughts are fond but not regretful.

The Revere ware pot I use for making soup was a wedding present to my parents, as was the tiny cast iron frying pan I use to make single-serving scrambled eggs. These two items are the backbone of my batterie de cuisine, enduring through the decades as cheap pots come and go. They’ll probably bury that cast iron skillet with me.

My brother gave me the pretty cut-crystal vase that sits on my kitchen table. He brought it back from a trip to Ireland. I love the way it catches the light and like to keep it there even when it’s not filled with flowers. Fresh-cut flowers make me really happy. My mother grew roses in our yard when I was a child, heavy, fragrant blossoms in sunset colors (never white). The scent of garden-grown roses is like an olfactory time machine for me.

I have a stack of platters on a back shelf. My sister made two of them on a visit to Color Me Mine. The designs are pop-art jolly, a stalk of bananas on an orange background, a bunch of grapes on a green background. I use the platters for summer barbecues and smile as I load them up with turkey burgers and chicken pieces.

My cookie jar is a mid-century McCoy in the shape of a pineapple. It is in perfect condition—bought on eBay to replace the one I took from my mother’s kitchen that had gotten chipped and cracked and fractured over the years as it was filled and refilled with peanut butter cookie and raisin cookies and chocolate chip cookies. (The only store-bought cookies I can remember eating as a child were Oreos and Fig Newtons. And Girl Scout cookies.)

I have many wooden spoons and even more bowls, some of them vintage designs from my grandmother’s mid-century kitchen. I don’t like a lot of machinery between me and my food and bowls and spoons, I find, are sufficient for most tasks. I won’t have a bread maker in the house. It’s not so much that I am clinging to the old-fashioned technique of hand-kneading bread as it is my fear that the machine would make bread-making so tempting I’d make a new loaf every day. And eat it. With butter. And unless you’re a farmer or a construction worker, those calories are going to catch up with you. But I love fresh-baked bread and butter. My paternal great-grandmother, Granny Franklin, made her own butter. It was ambrosial. You will never catch me cooking with margarine.

My kitchen is the soul of my house because it contains memories of all those who are dear to me.

I am never alone in my kitchen.

by George

Gourmet Food Garden is dedicated to highlighting the wonderful world of gourmet food, online. Our new site will feature a directory of thousands of gourmet food products from some of the most popular merchants on the internet. Every kind of gourmet food product imaginable will be available through our updated shopping directory including cheeses, wines, fish, caviar, fruit, spreads, meats and much much more.

Every month in our food reviews section, we will highlight a few of the products in our shopping directory by ordering and reviewing the items by our staff of food critics. Each review will rate the whole experience including the condition the food arrived in, the customer service of the supplier and of course the food itself.

Thank you for visiting our site and once again welcome to Gourmet Food Garden!