Cooking something up...

The first time I remember cooking with someone was when my friend Mary and I prepared a FEAST in a camp she and her husband were renting on Lake Champlain.  Mary had brought some wonderful cookbooks on her vacation.  Ken and I visited for the weekend.  Sunday morning, Mary and I got the cookbooks out and decided we would cook together.

When you cook alone, you do all the chopping, dicing, mixing, and washing, so that by the time you get the meal on the table, you may be grumpy, exhausted or both.  But when you cook with a friend, chopping onions or mincing garlic takes half the time.  While one of you is sauteing, the other is mixing.  Mary and I made "Blue Plate Meatloaf" that day and I still make that recipe, though it is never as much fun.  We also made "Potatoes Anna" which involved slicing potatoes very thinly and lots and lots of butter.  We bought fresh corn on the cob at a farm stand high in the mountains that overlooked the lake.  And we made either apple pie or apple crisp, as I recall.   Our husbands loved the meal...but so did Mary and I!  We chatted as we worked...never noticing the time.  I can still picture that rustic camp, smell the fresh Adirondack air,  and see the smoky clouds over the horizon as the sun set.

Mary and I often cooked together after that.  We sometimes made meals on New Year's Day, or picnics in August at Mary's house in New Jersey.

One thing I miss living in Mexico is talking to friends in the kitchen.  I offered to help out at a dinner recently...an event that raised money for the poor, abandoned animals here in Mexico.  When I arrived at the home of the hostess, however,  she had everything more than under control.  Still, I enjoyed a little vegetable chopping in her lovely kitchen and I loved all the wonderful food she had prepared.

I heard about an event at the U.S. Embassy where volunteers could make baby blankets for newborns whose mothers couldn't afford new things.  Shortly after I got there, a woman named Maria showed up.  As we cut and tied blue fleece together we started talking about what all women seem to talk about....no, not men....food!  Maria has an oven and I don't, so we decided we would get together at her house and make apple crisp.

Maria first showed me her beautiful neighborhood and then made a delicious lunch for us...but finally we got down to the business of baking.

I had asked my mother to e-mail me the apple recipe she used to make.  However, she sent a version that wasn't exactly complete.  She had omitted things like having to melt the butter and the cooking time.  I wondered, as Maria and I peeled the apples, if my mother had gotten this recipe from her friend Doris or Fran.  Both women were superb cooks and bakers who willingly shared their recipes with others.  Even today I can  recall the taste of a devil's food mayonnaise cake with blue frosting that Doris had once made for a neighborhood picnic.

 Maria and I figured things out as we went along.  The pile of apples seemed to be peeled, cored, and sliced in minutes.  Baking the crisp was a bit more difficult, as Mexico City is at 7,217 feet above sea level!  But, as the crisp baked and browned and began to fill Maria's house with a delicious scent, we chatted about everything and nothing.  Finally, we decided our crisp was baked enough.  We let it cool for a few minutes then took the smallest of tastes...it melted in our mouths!

So, tonight I will bring my crisp to a dinner.  Instead of a dessert that caused me stress or worry, it brought me happiness because I made it with a friend.  It makes me think that we should do more tasks with friends and family.  I have a terrible time saying the words, "I need some help."  I'm sure most of my friends feel the same way.

But I am going to try to ask for more help.  Or ask a friend to do something difficult or challenging with me.  Back in the 50's and 60's, when Doris, Fran, Mary, Wilma, Carol,  Lorraine, Fannie, and all the other moms in the neighborhood had those big picnics or dinners at the firehouse, they worked together.  So we had delicious food, lots of variety, and FUN.

I am wondering what Maria and I will cook up next.....