Memories... far from the pavement

So there was me, in a decidedly un-city like setting, Sarah Lawrence College, but less than 15 miles from where I live today. I'm outside one of the worst places you could ever find cuisine, the campus pub.

And what better place to start than where you began, particularly with autonomous cooking. I did my fair share of grandma's helper back in Vegas. She is Dutch, and therefore is ace with all things baked goods. Chocolate chip cookies, English trifle with ladyfingers, molasses cookies, homemade biscotti, ginger snaps, butter cakes: that is all her domain. What there is of dinner meals are simple, hearty things that she passed onto her son's tastes, my father, then me.

So while I was at college, at least for the first two years, if I wasn't having greasy pizza or flat little wan patties of meat (both of which I weaned myself off of forcibly), I was cooking up plain pasta in olive oil (De Cecco rotelle, or wagonwheels, still my favorite) or grilling up chicken on my George Forman (far and away the most versitile kitchen appliance for cheap). For lunch, I attempted to shun the fat by creating plump tuna sandwiches on whole wheat.

I don't really have much of a sweet tooth, grandmother nonwithstanding (both really, for my maternal grandmother was notoriously sticky pocketed with toffees) so the thing I still reach for is the occasionally pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia. Ah, glorious.

Not much has changed, honestly with my home cooking except that around senior year I leaned to supplement what is plain, filling and wholesome with little delights, a cup of olives here, some marzipan, slices of munster and fresh mozerella. The small luxuries that in larger quantites would make even the most decadent bellies run wobbling for the vomitoreum. So it's not filet mignon every day, and thank goodness cause I can't afford it.

So a salute to trial by fire and good example by family. If I ever start baking, I know who to thank.