Kitchen stories: Best of Show

If I were to judge my father's mother Lavon on her cooking I'd give her the blue ribbon on her pies. Of my two grandmothers her pies were winners. She was the slowest cook I'd ever seen but the results were fantastic.

Her pies were nothing fancy, always a fruit pie, but crust that was perfect every time. I'd watched her many times as a child but had the pleasure of watching her make pies when she'd visit California for the winter. She'd stopped using lard but Crisco still gave her a very tender crust, though she said she missed that flavor. She could roll a ball of dough into a perfect circle every time and if you've ever tried you'll appreciate this talent. Each pie maker has their own way to finish off the edge of the pie. My mom and Lavon used the tines of a fork to decorate the edge. I pinch the edge into a scallop but ever so often I'll use their method just to remember their method. Though my mom's mother Emily was a good cook she was more of a cake or cookie baker. My mom Lorna learned a lot from her mother-in-law Lavon when it came to pies.

Much of Lavon's life was spent watching the pennies and when she cooked she made use of everything. I still can't throw out and extra pie dough. You either made a small pie or baked the extra on a cookie sheet sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. That was always the treat I loved best but sometimes she'd have enough and make a "Vaseline Pie." What it was really was a Sugar Pie. This is sugar, milk and an egg baked into a custard; it only looks like Vaseline but tastes great. I remember eating the last piece of sugar pie once and caught hell from my uncle Roger. My pie making skills are some of my best but I've tried to make a sugar pie but it never comes out like she did. I think it was just her "touch" that made it so good.

An attention whore

Cooking has been the thread through both sides of our family and I seem to have passed that love on to my daughter which make me quite happy. I do it for the praise; I'm an attention whore and love the adulation. The challenge is important, too but praise is what I live on so I cook, and feed, and cook some more. This sometimes, for me, can be a problem.

The Teardrop Gathering at Lake Perris was great this year and since I'd won a outdoor dutch oven in the raffle last year I participated in Friday's DO potluck. Got lots of great ideas for managing my outdoor cooking and we ate some pretty good food, too. Some pretty ordinary food as well which is the reason for the post.

Outdoor Dutch Oven cooking is not for the faint of heart nor feeble of muscle. Visit our food blog, Peanut Butter Etouffee and see. You are cooking with hot coals, no way other than guess work to regulate, and sometimes, an unfriendly environment. I've seen the enemy, and it is WIND. Did I mention the weight? My 12 inch weighs all of 25 pounds. So why would you just use it to heat up something canned when you've got a camp stove?

The DO is a cast iron beautiful bit of engineering. Heavy pot on three, perfectly balanced legs leaving room underneath for the coals. The lid, heavy with a lip that allows coals on top without getting them into your food. This lid fits tightly on the pot but can be turned easy so there are no "hot" spots while cooking. My darling made me a lid lifter and pretty much anything I ask for. Nice to know someone who welds. Ok, so why not use it to its limit? I love cooking tools but only use the correct tool for the job. Jeeze, I'm a snob.

Once I made a large pot of chili verde while camping and with it was serving beans. Since you can stack one pot upon the other and take advantage of the heat from the bottom, I had beans in the smaller pot on top of the chili verde. I was only really heating the beans so the camp stove would have worked better. The DO is no easy critter to handle and clean up. Empty, it requires hot coals to boil water while you scrub out the pot, rinse and repeat until clean. Never, ever put soap in a DO it ruins the seasoning. The last thing I want to do is heat something in it.

Oh, but if you want a real treat, like biscuits, lovely fluffy biscuits when you are camping by all means get yourself started. I warn you, it's addicting.