I guess grandmothers are the thing! For me, baking lemon meringue pies with Grandma Masiello was the best way to spend a Saturday afternoon. When I was little and my dad went to the office on Saturday mornings some weeks, he would drop me with Grandma and we would bake. She made amazing pies of all kinds, but the lemon meringue were her signature. And of course, when we were done with the pies (never made just one!) we put the crust scraps together and rolled them out, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, rolled them up, sliced them, and baked little pie crust cookies. When I do that now, that's what transports me back to Grandma's kitchen the way the roast chicken smell is for you.
Grandma was a great baker but not exactly a great cook ... except for her gravy (what the rest of the world calls spaghetti sauce), meatballs, and braciole ... and therein lies perhaps my funniet food memory. Periodically dad would stop on the way home from work at his mom's and get the gravy, meatballs, and sometimes braciole. TO THIS DAY I have never had better braciole. That said, there was a period of time that I wouldn't eat it. While we were enjoying it one night, my mom remarked that when she was a little girl her mom was teasing her and told her that some Italians had the reputation of making braciole out of horse meat (from a specific region, though I can no longer remember which one), and that the rag man couldn't leave his horse alone outside when he was outside their homes. She said that she didn't eat braciole for years. Thanks, mom. I was a little kid, and I was mortified ... and while I was sure that my grandmother would never cook horse, it freaked me out and I missed out on a couple of years of Grandma's braciole myself.
Thanks for bringing back these memories ... I think I'm going to go make a pie.
Grandma Heinrich’s pan fried perch at the cabin or Grandma Smith’s chunky homemade applesauce from their backyard tree were both wonderful. Thanks for bringing me back to these memories, Andrew!
My Mom made what we called Chicken Stuffs. An old stewing hen (back when they really were old egg layers) with diced carrots and celery, finished with milk. A simple dish, but it cooked a long time and the house always smelled fabulous and the old hen added so much flavor to the broth. Stopped tasting the same when chickens got industrial. Ive tried to recreate it with old layers I can get from local farms now, I'm getting close but not sure how to add my mom's love.
I couldn’t love this thread more! 🧡. 2 instantly come to mind…my Grandma was the cook! Sadly I was only 10 when she passed, but I remember baking pies with her on holidays. I can almost smell the memory. She always wore dresses, a lil heel & her apron. 🧡 just her & I. Today…if you receive a pie from me? It’s because you are loved.
I also had growing up a unique neighbor. Mike, an older man who had a twin who we called “brother Mike”, and they had 2 sisters who were indeed “sisters” or nuns who lived next door to Mike. So Mike, brother Mike & their sisters the sisters. 👨👨👧👧 4 siblings…no children. So they adopted the neighborhood kids.
Mike used to make us “campfire” pies & frozen milk slushes. Great memories, sitting on his porch with a jelly filled hand pie on a warm summer night.
My Great Aunt Mae's Strawberry Fig Preserves. We used to visit our family in Texas when we lived in California. One of the highlights was going to visit Auntie Mae. She stood about 5 foot nothing and loved to cook. She'd always have pints of her strawberry fig preserves ready for us. I can still remember the paraffin wax seal on them. We have her homemade biscuits with the preserves in her sun room. And she always had jars for us to take back to California with us, so we could have a taste of summer. Years later I found her recipe for the preserves had to laugh. No strawberries at all! She used strawberry jell-o! The fig seeds made it look like strawberry seeds. To this day, when I make her preserves and take a bite, I'm taken back to Dallas in the 70s and Auntie Mae.
I have so many favorites!!! But I loved helping my mom make her chocolate chip cookies. They’re still my all time favorite, I have a restaurant & we serve that recipe in our restaurant now. ❤️ Baking was my favorite thing to do when I was little (I still have a burn on my arm from a cookie sheet) & I love baking even more now.
Grandma's Raisin Cinnamon Rolls! And a shout out to the only thing I can remember my birth mother making (before she left our family).... Company Casserole
Jan 28, 2022·edited Jan 28, 2022Liked by Andrew Zimmern
Anything at my Grandmas house. We were always in the kitchen. At the table eating food or playing games. My grandma wasn’t much of a cook but I loved being there. She passed when I was 9 so there wasn’t much time. But I remember how Grandma had a cookie drawer and her pantry was the best mix of aromas.
We row the ceayfish (sort of shtimp) traps to the lake (Finland, Juupajoki, Kuivajärvi - Drylake) at the end of july-august in the evenings before sauna and next morning we collect them.
In the morning we made salt-sugar-dill broth and cool it. Another similar broth where we boil them in lunch time and then set them to cooled broth to settle.
In the evening (after sauna) enjoyed: crayfish, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, egg,, creamy oldtimes salad dressing (cream, boiled eggyolk, vinegar, salt, sugar, blackpepper) and some smoked (amd salted) lake perch and new potatoes with butter and dill.
The European crayfish is extreamly rare nowdays (after 2010).
Today we have a quick story, my mother was a Den Mom when I was a Cub Scout. On one of the levels, there was a cooking section. We decided to make a Quiche which in the mid 60s was exotic and gourmet. I was 8 and she had never made one. I thought it was fun and great and started me down the path to cooking. This circled back around when my own sons were that age and also Scouts and also started to cook. They now think of Quiche as fancy scrambled eggs.
I was blessed to have parents that loved to cook, grill, BBQ and entertain. They were always involved in Gourmet Club groups and taught me the love of cooking and sharing a meal with those you love. We always had to try something, but didn't always have to finish it if we didn't like it. It gave me the passion to explore and try new foods, recipes and restaurants. My Dad was such an amazing "BBQ"er that he always built his own smoker in the backyard of wherever we were living. I'm married to another amazing BBQer and we both love to be in the kitchen. I seldom follow a recipe and as my husband says, "you just use them as a base & make your own"!
I guess my favorite food memory as a child was my Mom's chicken & dumplings, my Mamaw's (Grandmom) homemade biscuits & gravy & her homemade chili sauce over enchiladas.
Love this site & so happy to see you back on Magnolia channel!!
My grandmother's sponge cake. Runner-up was having Baked Alaska at the Captain's Table while crossing from NYC to Southampton on the SS United States on my younger brother's birthday (1960).
As you mentioned, for me it wasn't the food, it was the setting. My Mom, bless her heart, was not a very good cook and everything was very bland. My Dad's mom cooked well, but had tummy trouble so everything was bland on that side too. I grew up rurally and we didn't have much money, but always had a huge garden. No onions, no garlic, no spices much. But Grandma was of that era of entertainers. Bridge club, Eastern Star, Ladies Garden Club, so she was my inspiration for learning to set a beautiful table or buffet. My love of pretty dishes and centerpieces. My endeavor to learn flavorful cooking came as an adult, watching YOU and television cooking shows back when that industry was relatively new. I like your new glasses!
What an absolutely wonderful story chef. Thanks for sharing. I remember my Apo making bao (or pows as they’re called here in Trinidad) and my other grandma making curried chicken in a huge cast iron pot and me asking her is it done.
I guess grandmothers are the thing! For me, baking lemon meringue pies with Grandma Masiello was the best way to spend a Saturday afternoon. When I was little and my dad went to the office on Saturday mornings some weeks, he would drop me with Grandma and we would bake. She made amazing pies of all kinds, but the lemon meringue were her signature. And of course, when we were done with the pies (never made just one!) we put the crust scraps together and rolled them out, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, rolled them up, sliced them, and baked little pie crust cookies. When I do that now, that's what transports me back to Grandma's kitchen the way the roast chicken smell is for you.
Grandma was a great baker but not exactly a great cook ... except for her gravy (what the rest of the world calls spaghetti sauce), meatballs, and braciole ... and therein lies perhaps my funniet food memory. Periodically dad would stop on the way home from work at his mom's and get the gravy, meatballs, and sometimes braciole. TO THIS DAY I have never had better braciole. That said, there was a period of time that I wouldn't eat it. While we were enjoying it one night, my mom remarked that when she was a little girl her mom was teasing her and told her that some Italians had the reputation of making braciole out of horse meat (from a specific region, though I can no longer remember which one), and that the rag man couldn't leave his horse alone outside when he was outside their homes. She said that she didn't eat braciole for years. Thanks, mom. I was a little kid, and I was mortified ... and while I was sure that my grandmother would never cook horse, it freaked me out and I missed out on a couple of years of Grandma's braciole myself.
Thanks for bringing back these memories ... I think I'm going to go make a pie.
Grandma Heinrich’s pan fried perch at the cabin or Grandma Smith’s chunky homemade applesauce from their backyard tree were both wonderful. Thanks for bringing me back to these memories, Andrew!
My Mom made what we called Chicken Stuffs. An old stewing hen (back when they really were old egg layers) with diced carrots and celery, finished with milk. A simple dish, but it cooked a long time and the house always smelled fabulous and the old hen added so much flavor to the broth. Stopped tasting the same when chickens got industrial. Ive tried to recreate it with old layers I can get from local farms now, I'm getting close but not sure how to add my mom's love.
I couldn’t love this thread more! 🧡. 2 instantly come to mind…my Grandma was the cook! Sadly I was only 10 when she passed, but I remember baking pies with her on holidays. I can almost smell the memory. She always wore dresses, a lil heel & her apron. 🧡 just her & I. Today…if you receive a pie from me? It’s because you are loved.
I also had growing up a unique neighbor. Mike, an older man who had a twin who we called “brother Mike”, and they had 2 sisters who were indeed “sisters” or nuns who lived next door to Mike. So Mike, brother Mike & their sisters the sisters. 👨👨👧👧 4 siblings…no children. So they adopted the neighborhood kids.
Mike used to make us “campfire” pies & frozen milk slushes. Great memories, sitting on his porch with a jelly filled hand pie on a warm summer night.
My Great Aunt Mae's Strawberry Fig Preserves. We used to visit our family in Texas when we lived in California. One of the highlights was going to visit Auntie Mae. She stood about 5 foot nothing and loved to cook. She'd always have pints of her strawberry fig preserves ready for us. I can still remember the paraffin wax seal on them. We have her homemade biscuits with the preserves in her sun room. And she always had jars for us to take back to California with us, so we could have a taste of summer. Years later I found her recipe for the preserves had to laugh. No strawberries at all! She used strawberry jell-o! The fig seeds made it look like strawberry seeds. To this day, when I make her preserves and take a bite, I'm taken back to Dallas in the 70s and Auntie Mae.
Poached eggs or Welsh Rarebit when sick with a cold. Simple and nourishing.
The beard looks great AZ.
That is such a lovely story and memory. Thank you for sharing.
I have so many favorites!!! But I loved helping my mom make her chocolate chip cookies. They’re still my all time favorite, I have a restaurant & we serve that recipe in our restaurant now. ❤️ Baking was my favorite thing to do when I was little (I still have a burn on my arm from a cookie sheet) & I love baking even more now.
Grandma's Raisin Cinnamon Rolls! And a shout out to the only thing I can remember my birth mother making (before she left our family).... Company Casserole
Anything at my Grandmas house. We were always in the kitchen. At the table eating food or playing games. My grandma wasn’t much of a cook but I loved being there. She passed when I was 9 so there wasn’t much time. But I remember how Grandma had a cookie drawer and her pantry was the best mix of aromas.
At my momsmon farm in the 1980 something.
We row the ceayfish (sort of shtimp) traps to the lake (Finland, Juupajoki, Kuivajärvi - Drylake) at the end of july-august in the evenings before sauna and next morning we collect them.
In the morning we made salt-sugar-dill broth and cool it. Another similar broth where we boil them in lunch time and then set them to cooled broth to settle.
In the evening (after sauna) enjoyed: crayfish, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, egg,, creamy oldtimes salad dressing (cream, boiled eggyolk, vinegar, salt, sugar, blackpepper) and some smoked (amd salted) lake perch and new potatoes with butter and dill.
The European crayfish is extreamly rare nowdays (after 2010).
Today we have a quick story, my mother was a Den Mom when I was a Cub Scout. On one of the levels, there was a cooking section. We decided to make a Quiche which in the mid 60s was exotic and gourmet. I was 8 and she had never made one. I thought it was fun and great and started me down the path to cooking. This circled back around when my own sons were that age and also Scouts and also started to cook. They now think of Quiche as fancy scrambled eggs.
I was blessed to have parents that loved to cook, grill, BBQ and entertain. They were always involved in Gourmet Club groups and taught me the love of cooking and sharing a meal with those you love. We always had to try something, but didn't always have to finish it if we didn't like it. It gave me the passion to explore and try new foods, recipes and restaurants. My Dad was such an amazing "BBQ"er that he always built his own smoker in the backyard of wherever we were living. I'm married to another amazing BBQer and we both love to be in the kitchen. I seldom follow a recipe and as my husband says, "you just use them as a base & make your own"!
I guess my favorite food memory as a child was my Mom's chicken & dumplings, my Mamaw's (Grandmom) homemade biscuits & gravy & her homemade chili sauce over enchiladas.
Love this site & so happy to see you back on Magnolia channel!!
My grandmother's sponge cake. Runner-up was having Baked Alaska at the Captain's Table while crossing from NYC to Southampton on the SS United States on my younger brother's birthday (1960).
As you mentioned, for me it wasn't the food, it was the setting. My Mom, bless her heart, was not a very good cook and everything was very bland. My Dad's mom cooked well, but had tummy trouble so everything was bland on that side too. I grew up rurally and we didn't have much money, but always had a huge garden. No onions, no garlic, no spices much. But Grandma was of that era of entertainers. Bridge club, Eastern Star, Ladies Garden Club, so she was my inspiration for learning to set a beautiful table or buffet. My love of pretty dishes and centerpieces. My endeavor to learn flavorful cooking came as an adult, watching YOU and television cooking shows back when that industry was relatively new. I like your new glasses!
What an absolutely wonderful story chef. Thanks for sharing. I remember my Apo making bao (or pows as they’re called here in Trinidad) and my other grandma making curried chicken in a huge cast iron pot and me asking her is it done.