Mustard melodrama

City girl meets cute farmer guy. Courtship and marriage follow. City girl moves to the country with farmer guy. Then harvest happens.

It does not take city girl long to realize she is woefully unqualified in the mechanics of feeding three BIG meals a day to a harvest crew of four or five men.

 After breakfast one day, she begins her first attempt at a large potato salad to serve with oven-baked ham at lunch. What seems like hours passed – with all of the peeling, boiling, cubing, mincing and dicing. But, at the end, it looks like a success.

 Cute farmer guy arrives with his crew and lunch begins.  After one bite, he loudly wonders, “Are we supposed to eat this, or wear it on our chests for a mustard plaster?”

(If you’re too young to know, “mustard plaster” is an old-fashioned remedy for chest colds. It was made of lots of dry mustard, mixed with hot water into a paste, then smeared on a cloth and placed on the patient’s chest. This stinky “home brew” was intended to help relieve the congestion of a chest cold. Luckily, it has fallen on disfavor in the modern world.)

It seems city girl put a large amount of dry mustard into the mix. The little extra was intended to give the dish a special flair.

City girl sadly discovers dry mustard is much more potent than the prepared stuff in a jar. Humiliated, she quickly whisks the offending dish from the table, taking it outdoors to throw into the garbage pit.

She thinks the dog might enjoy it, so she leaves some for him. The dog takes one bite, then runs away as fast as he can while dragging his nose on the ground in a furious attempt to rid himself of the evil concoction.

Still, the mustard melodrama isn’t a “deal breaker.”  City girl and cute farm guy have been married for 58 years.

Kay Krom of Pullman

 

Something other than angelic

I was working for a neighbor, helping out on her wheat farm during harvest season one summer in the late 1930s. Without electricity, all cooking was done with a wood-and-coal-burning range. It was difficult to maintain an even temperature, but we “felt” the heat and tried to sustain it when we used the oven.

Meals were good and hearty, but one day we decided to make an angel food cake. This was about the most difficult dessert to make because it needed careful folding and mixing, even heat and no loud foot-stomping noises. We did it. We got it in the oven and waited. No peeking.

About halfway through the baking time, someone came rushing in and out of the house, slamming the door hard. We knew before we looked that the cake had fallen.

Sure enough, by the time we took it out of the oven it wasn’t even half of the size it should be.

This was going to be so much fun for the crew. They would tease us forever about our great cake.

“Wait,” my neighbor said. She had an idea.

We picked and sliced fresh strawberries, whipped thick cream high and fluffy, and served it to the crew. They all said it was the best strawberry shortcake they ever had.

Arloine Brown of Davenport

 

Less-than-pleasing potato salad

I grew up on a farm and preferred to sort tools on my dad’s workbench rather than help my mother cook meals for the hired men during harvest.

Mother was a very good cook, making three large meals a day including supper when the men came in, which was never as early as 6 p.m. but maybe as late as 9.

There were no microwaves in the 1940s, so the cook had to prepare foods that could hold.

I remembered this when I was newly married – one month in, to be exact – and my husband was asked to bring a dish to his department summertime dinner. The task somehow fell to me.

So I proceeded to make a potato salad like my mother made, although I had never actually it.  I knew enough to cook the potatoes in their jackets and test them with a fork to see if they were done.

As for the eggs, I cracked a few. I don’t remember how many yolks and whites were swimming in the water but I’m sure they were over-cooked.

I chopped the potatoes and eggs along with green onions and added Miracle Whip, which Mother had used. The concoction looked rather colorless, but paprika helped fix that.

A good-tasting dish never comes home untouched.

Well, this dish did.

It would not have been so embarrassing, but  I had just with a bachelor of science in home economics education. In my defense, I wanted to be a clothing buyer for Frederick & Nelson, but that’s a different story.

Jan MacQuarrie Preedy of Spangle

 

Time-zoned potato soup

My friend and I arrived at the Montana home and studio of another friend, a potter. She had invited a group of us to a Clay Play-Day, which included lunch featuring her well-loved potato soup.

Due to the hour time difference and a misunderstanding about whose time we were operating on, we arrived an hour early. She was surprised, but gracious.

We were visiting happily and admiring her work when she said, “Oh no!” and ran to the kitchen where the soup was burning. Not a little, but a lot! A huge pot of soup was ruined.

Soon, I was peeling potatoes and an onion while my friends drove to the store. Sausage was browned with bacon, other ingredients were added and – while it didn't have the time to "meld" as soup should – our group of 14 enjoyed an exceptional meal on time.

Diane Newcomer of Clark Fork, Idaho

 

Oompa lumpia

I was having my potential in-laws over for dinner for the first time. I’m half Filipino, so I wanted to impress them with homemade lumpia, a Filipino eggroll. I also wanted to impress them with my lovely, clean kitchen. And so, as I cooked, I also cleaned.

After I fried the lumpia, I wanted to transfer the hot oil to a metal container to dispose of it. Instead of pouring the oil in the container, I poured some of it on my hand and watched the skin on my thumb and forefinger melt.

Five minutes later, my now-husband arrived, and I asked him to help me with anything I needed, no questions asked. When his parents arrived, I hid my burned hand, putting it under the table, behind my back. It stung the entire 2 1/2-hour visit.

Dinner was a hit. But as soon as my future in-laws left, I held up my hand and told my boyfriend he’d better take me to the ER immediately.

He thought I was nuts for not saying something sooner. But I didn't want to ruin the special dinner I had prepared. I wanted to give his parents good memories of their first visit to my home.

 Lumpia is my specialty to this day, but – as a wedding gift – my husband insisted we register for a deep-fat fryer. These days, he cleans up the hot oil.

Susanna Fries of Spokane

 

Searching for Steak Florentine

While preparing for an Italian vacation several years ago, I came upon this reference in the 2006 travel book, “Florence & Tuscany” from Eyewitness Travel:

“The shining star of meat dishes is tender, succulent bistecca alla florentina. The best is from Tuscany – delicious, marinated with extra-virgin olive oil and herbs, grilled over an open fire and usually served very rare.”

It wasn’t my first introduction to bistecca alla florentina. More than 40 years ago, in between writing college papers, when my wife and I could afford to eat meat only every other month or so, I had tuned in to a Julia Child cooking show spotlighting “Steak Florentine.” It called for two things which were the expense-equivalents at that time of diamonds and rubies: meat and olive oil.

I saved my money. And, at the next romantic occasion when I could afford $1.69-per-pound steak and a small bottle of olive oil, I splurged and tried to follow Julia Child’s recipe to the letter.

It was a greasy, nasty, uneatable mess – so bad that I can still recall it – a tragedy not because of a lost meal as much as a lost $7.50 when I was an impoverished student.

I remember all of the Julia Child failures of my college career – and not one success. Perhaps there were none.

The Christmas of the Steak Florentine Year, I lost nearly $12 on an 8-pound “Beef Burgoyne,” which Julia Child swore should be marinated in the refrigerator for three days before cooking. To my chagrin, I discovered on Christmas Eve that nothing in South Louisiana should be marinated for three days if you plan on actually eating it.

We laid-back Southerners have a little longer learning curve than other people, but when I watched Julia Child’s cooking show on bouillabaisse during law school and she remarked nothing can compare to the bouillabaisse prepared on the docks of Marseilles I took her at her word, turned off the T.V. and patiently waited until I could actually eat the soup on the docks at Marseilles.

This took a few years to accomplish but saved me from being turned off of bouillabaisse forever.

And, after four decades, I finally did get my Steak Florentine.

My wife Catherine and I found ourselves in a little side street restaurant in Rome during the cold and non-tourist rainy season, and  – there on the menu – was the gastronomic Holy Grail I had searched for my entire adult life: bistecca alla florentina.

When it arrived, it looked like a pinkish-white plastic dog chew toy and was large enough to feed two men. But, oh my God! It really was “the shining star of meat dishes” and the best darned steak I had ever eaten.

Chet Caskey of Spokane

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