Ketchup covers everything, but we cook just the same

I marvel at the metamorphosis that I go through when my elderly father plans an extended stay in South Carolina. His company in later life is one I relish and know won't last forever.  What amazes me is how dramatically he shifts the consumption and preparation of food in our household during his visits.

Though I characterize myself as a home cook, I  average about three home cooked meals a week when not entertaining my father (can you say eat out often 3 times fast?).  That changes radically when my father is visiting the Palmetto State. My grocery experience slides into a daily routine and my kitchen time transitions to preparing three square meals a day. I don't get near the amount of work done when he's here that I'd like, but then work will always be there, my dad will not.

I've documented the routine staple foods his visits generate in this blog recently, click here.  But the humor is in the cooking.  Cooking three meals for a senior whose palate has withered away, whose diet lacks raw or anything remotely healthy, whose dark chocolate obsession rivals any woman I know and whose penchant for covering everything (and I mean everything) in ketchup brings horror to many onlookers.  Sidebar1: Ages ago I put away my horror of a delicate entree at a fine dining establishment embellished by my father with the red sauce.  In fact, I actually now order the bottle as a matter of routine before the meal arrives knowing it will make the entire experience far more smooth for staff as well as myself. Sidebar2: Food eccentricities are minor  compared to what dementia has robbed of the person I use to know.

Many times I try to take the occasion of dining with dad to introduce him to something new that he might enjoy even on his own.  There's been great success with hummus in the last several years thanks to his 80 year old Lebanese girlfriend. I don't even have to suggest it when we pass by the deli counter, he picks the container right up (always the original, no flavored version). And though I wouldn't consider it healthy, compared to the number of dark chocolate candy bars he was known for consuming in the past, a simple 1.25 oz portion of Philadelphia's Dark Chocolate Indulgence provides as much pleasure as the pudding cups I remember enjoying as a kid.

The ground rules for cooking for my father are pretty simple:  1) There can't be a great many ingredients in preparing a dish; 2) It has to be something he's agreed to try (mushrooms are always off limits); 3) Hot or cold if it can't be delivered in 30 minutes to the table we approach major break down mode (sound familiar to another stage in life?).  So we always have a starter of hummus (safe) and an adult beverage~his preferred drink: a single bottle of Miller High Life, mine a bourbon on the rocks~ both set the stage for some light conversation before the meal and to give the main course the time it needs beyond 30 minutes if necessary.

Sweet potato fries and salmon are now pushing up the list of simplistic dishes we can count on making two or three times during a visit. Thanks to Ina Garten and her Baked Sweet Potato Fries and Kraft for its Parmesan Baked Salmon recipe using crackers~crackers are always a big hit as long as it's not my gluten free variety, that's a bridge we haven't crossed successfully.  And neither, sweet potato and salmon, require a bath of ketchup to make the meal complete.

So when the electric bill arrives later next month and it's nearly doubled due to the increased use of  kitchen appliances (did I mention he never uses the same glass, plate, bowl or utensil twice?), I just smile knowing that all the while I've captured time with my dad that will remain forever memorable and will most certainly expand my horizons on eating.

Boil a chicken and it will fall apart

Recently I was asked if I was a good cook. (Of course I am! That is, if one were to rate me on the scale of home cooks that remain passionate about learning the chemistry and dynamic nature of food products, not the perfection in visual appeal or the correct culinary term to define it.) Naturally, I responded in my usual quip fashion to this question~which sometimes in delivery loses the intended sincerity, but I knew this person rather well so they no doubt expected such from me.  Thus, I uttered "I boil a whole chicken down for the meat and chicken stock what does that tell you?!" My hope in delivering this particular remark was that the individual would grasp the point that I relish the process of cooking. To take the time, step by to step to arrive at an ending that may or may not be what I expected~ it's the journey, not the outcome that defines the moment. My endeavors in the kitchen are always therapeutic.  Therefore, the time from start to finish is relished with great satisfaction. And in case you were wondering, I do boil a chicken most every week, drawing stock and tender meat for use in a wide variety of dishes to serve myself or a party of people. The recipe I link with this post is simplistic and nets the sumptuous meat falling off the bone factor I strive for in the endeavor. Change it up however you will in terms of vegetables and spices, but trust in the process: boil a chicken it will fall apart!

Background noise a perfect ingredient

Background noise. It may be a favorite iTunes playlist, the topical stimulus of a cable television show, the rotations of an oscillating fan in constant motion, the purr of a kitten or slumbering cat, the home fountain mimicking a trickling brook or a cascading water fall, the hum or sizzle of a restaurant hive on a busy night, the air pressure stream of a CPAP machine, or maybe even the giggles of children playing in their room over a baby monitor . No matter the source we each have a tendency to fill air space with noise either on an intermittent basis or for an extended period of time. I happen to apply it when I write, cook, or drive. Don't get me wrong, silence cut by mother nature's hiccups (birds singing, insects clicking, frogs chirping, wind whipping, tidal lapping, rain falling) is also all right by me. A specific scallop dish from a 2003 edition of Dana Carpender's 15 Minute Low-Carb Recipes: Instant recipes for dinners, desserts & more comes to mind when I think about background noise as a simple ingredient lending to the creative process. That dish, Jalapeno Lime Scallops is described by Dana Carpender as "A sterling example of how a few perfect ingredients can combine to make something greater than the sum of the parts." I think about the act of "creating" in very much the same way, whether it's cooking in the kitchen or composing at my desk...my insertion of background noise is a necessary ingredient to designing and delivering the perfect moment, intermittently or long term.