Hedgeowl wrote:Whats the first thing you remember cooking by yourself or with someone?
Favorite italian dish? Dessert?
Favorite pizza toppings?
Favorite character in Finding Nemo?
Favorite Disney song?
Do you like hiking?
What do you like/dislike about Arizona?
1) I've been in the kitchen pretty much my whole life. My *earliest* memories in the kitchen were when I was 4 and 5 at Nanny's house (my great-grandmother.) She had this red step stool that had a chair on the top rung and when I spent the night with her or we were over for dinner, she would pull out the steps and I would climb up so I could see what she was doing at the counters. Even if she was just pouring me the frosted shredded wheat, making coffee and toast that was our every Monday morning breakfast. (I spent the night with her every Sunday night till she passed and yes, she did feed the 5 year old coffee with tons of cream and sugar
) I remember dinners where Nanny would make spaghetti but at 4 I didn't like sauce. She would give me the noodles with butter and a little parm cheese. This particular way of eating pasta is still my most favorite way to have it when I need some serious hard core comfort food or I'm just cooking for myself and can't be assed to actually make sauce.
Most of my early helping memories revolve more around tasks than they do around actually dishes. "Stir this sauce. - Hey - why are you stopping, I didn't tell you to stop!" Once I could hold a knife (prolly around 7 or 8 or so.) I think I chopped every green pepper, tomato, and onion that ever went into every pasta sauce, every meatloaf, every batch of meatballs ever made. I peeled more potatoes before I was 10 than most people do in a lifetime. Once I was allowed to actually cook things on the stove, I ground hamburger or sausage or this or that. Most of my cooking memories at this point were helping my mom. I did the piece work like a good sous chef, she assembled.
I baked on my own before I cooked though really. Cakes and brownies from the mix. Cookies. Baking is hard and I've never quite learned the skill of learning an oven well enough to be a truly great baker.
I could throw together anything from a box (hamburger helper etc) by the time I was in Jr. High. I could also make spaghetti by about then too. I often took over the making or "starting" of dinner while mom worked. In HS, we both worked, so we split the cooking duties. Still pretty much lots of the same, but I had made a meatloaf on my own (mom's still tastes better. I do the exact same thing, but it just tastes better when mom does it. Same thing with her macaroni salad (Which was Nanny's recipe)
)
I got much better at cooking from start to finish once I lived on my own. I bought cook books, (I actually have a small obsession with them though it's been weened since I got out here and lost lots of my library) I tried things that looked interesting to me. I experimented. I spent 20 years being fascinated with what went on in the kitchen at the country club. I was always in their biddness with the "what are you doing now?" "Why does this happen like this?" "How would I do this if I were doing it at home?" "Why do your mashed potatoes taste soooo much better than mine??!!!" I was a little gadfly that they couldn't get rid of w/o throwing food at me and yelling at me.
I also quickly became the person they went to when *they* were being experimental "Here - eat this - tell me what you think? I think it's missing something - what's it missing?"
My cooking has exploded since I've been out here. I've been able to recreate things (like the french onion strip steak) that were staples of places I worked and I just missed eating. My hubby also was pleased that he knows what to get me for every birthday, christmas, valentines day and anniversary: Stuff for the kitchen. I got the springform pan so I've been playing with cheesecakes. (:hug: :svs:) I have the cast iron skillet so now that it's seasoned, grandma's pineapple upside down cake will happen sometime soon. I've been learning how to make things I like for cheaper and from scratch like Alfredo sauce. I never buy the jars anymore. It's too quick and easy to just make.
2) Lasagna = love in any Italian family. It's my favorite thing to cook and one of my favorite things to eat. The long hand of Lasagna = love is this. 1) It's all basicly the same thing as a baked ziti or good s'gettie and meat sauce - it just takes twice as long to prepare. So if you are going to go through all the trouble of making it, it should only be for the people you most love and care about. (Or you know, because you have the day off and you love making it.
) Traditionally - it was a dish that was given as a gift - at weddings - at funerals - at times where the people you are giving it to, need a really great "heat and eat" kind of meal.
As for things I currently love - when out dining - I tend to gravitate toward the things I don't make at home. Anything with Pesto springs to mind. (I do cook pesto dishes at home, but haven't yet found the cost effective solution to doing it from scratch vs buying the 4 dollar jarred stuff. The cost of the pine nuts alone...) I also really love ordering veal saltimbocca when I can because it's delicious and veal (like lamb) is something I love to eat but have never cooked with and am a bit afraid of making at home for fear of spending a lot of money on a "learning how to make it" dish.
As far as desserts go - it's the trifecto! Tiramisu, Pizzelles, Italian Wedding cookies. If I had to pick only one - it's Tiramisu u by a small margin. When I first got out here, BDH took me to this little neighborhood festival for St. IDKwhatoftheBlessedIDK. (we have LOTS of saints) but it was this little dego festivle and there as all sorts of dego food there. I'm not joking when I say - while he got this and that and all sorts of different food, I bought the homemade Tiramisu to eat there. The Pizzelles and the Wedding cookies came home with me.
3) You all are going to laugh at me but my favorite way to have pizza is Green peppers, onions, mushrooms and extra cheese. Followed closely by just plain ole cheese.
4) Dory. Duh.
5) The Disney songs all kinda blur together in my head tbh.
I guess if I had to pick one - Under the Sea. I like the caylpso.
6) I love to hike. I loved to do it back home. In college, there were lots of state/city parks that were great for running away from the city to just go walk around near trees and stuff. I feel most near God when I'm in nature. I would love to hike a mountain up here, just haven't found the right hiking partner yet.
7) The answer to both of those questions is: The weather.
. It really does kinda suck it here for June, July and August. But the rest of the year is amazing! I find that I'm growing more used to the intense heat of the summer (she says when she's in her ACed house - to her ACed car to her ACed job.
) I find that I do get colder during the winter each year. I may have to eventually break down and buy a winter coat at some point. I was heartbroken when I had to buy pants.
I would say that BDH is something I like out here - but I don't like him...I lurrrrvs him so yea.
I like the diversity out here. (I connect to cultures via food first. It's just the way I work) I came from a *very* small town in Ohio. Until after I was out of college (2000 for those keeping score) we never had more than 1 Chinese restaurant in our *county* that I'd never eaten at because my parents never took me there. (Sucks too - because when I finally went there - they were the *bomb dig* of Chinese places.) A sampling of food I never had till I had time to explore larger Ohio cities like Akron or Cleavland: Deli food. Like a real sammich deli. Greek food. Thai food. Mexican food that wasn't Taco Bell. Indian food. Other Mediterranean country's food that *weren't* Greek or Italian - each has their own dishes as well. (I miss you Usbek place. You were my secret treasure with the great saffron rice. I cried when you closed.
) Soul food. Southern cooking. Fall on your face BBQ. Chicago Deep dish Pizza.
The great thing about here is 99.99% of the people who live out here are *from* somewhere else. And they bring with them their home. Their comfort foods, their traditions. I could literally travel the country and I dare say the world via the restaurants out here. At my most favorite local Thai place. I've been there exactly 5 times. Each time I'm there - I'm guessing the owner - has either a) waited on me or when she hasn't wandered into the lobby while I was waiting on my take out. Each time she remembers me. She chats with me. She thanks me for her business. (On my first visit, I told her I was going to work my way through the menu.) I can't believe that in the half a year they've been open, she treats me like a regular after 5 visits. It amazes me.
But that same diversity extends everywhere. Last year, we found an Irish Cultural Center tucked away in the heart of downtown Phoenix because they were having a Bloomsday fest. They have a library and everything!!! There are art museums. There are several Frank Loyd Wright houses out here. Drive a few hours south and you can see Tombstone. (so long as we DON'T take my car. My car has bad luck in Tombstone.
) Travel north and we're at the grand canyon and historic route 66. We have so many (surprisingly) local wineries. There's an amazing craft beer community in this state. And after all this - Vegas is a short drive (like really - it's like 5 hours or something?) away for the weekend if you could actually get bored here. There is a rich "college" community in easy to access towns like Tuscon and Tempe. State parks, Botanical Gardens - two zoos... It's impossible to get into a spot where there's "not anything to do."
There is sooo much freedom here and sooooo much to explore and experience and DO. I LOVE that about this state.
What I don't like is: There is this weird thing the state seems to do regarding extreme right wing conservatism. The people elected into office out here seem to be the antithesis of a decent representation of the diversity of this community. I'm told by locals this is due to the old people vote (there are a LOT of retirement communities out here) but I just can't understand why an area so rich in diversity - so rich in amazing things - would at a government level do the many dumb things they seem to do every few years.
What I don't like is: For as amazing as this freedom is in the big city and the big state. As wonderful as all these new experiences are. I miss my hometown peeps. I don't miss the weather, but I do miss the people. I miss the job that was me getting paid to hang out with my second family. I miss having doctors and lawyers and judges and magistrates and all of the business owners be my friends. I miss going grocery shopping and it taking several hours because you *always* ran into someone you knew while you were shopping and you just had to play catsup for a bit. I miss that feeling that I had when I met someone new that I only needed to talk to them for roughly 3 minutes and we would either a) remember how we knew each other or b) find one person we knew in common. I miss the sister from another mother or the bff t-county version calling me and saying - "Hey- I'm building a fire tonight, come over" and I'd go over and we'd drink some drinks and smoke some smoke and listen to music and look at stars and watch the fire and just be chill together. I miss getting to watch all of my adoptive nieces and nephews (as well as my real ones) grow up. I see pictures for sure and they amaze me. I know I'm missing so much!
My life would be perfect if I could take everyone I love from back home and transplant pretty much my county - out here.
right now.
) 
