Introduction

When I wrote the first Cookbook for Single Fathers it was an immediate success. So much so that long after I'd sold as many as I ever thought I would, I still received requests for copies.

The purpose of this blog is to show that anyone can become a good cook. The problem with cook books in general, is that they assume that you already know how to cook and therefore are just a list of one recipe after another. I wanted to teach something. I hope I succeed.

Black Gold

Black Pepper

When you hear the term black gold you immediately think of oil. The truth is that it goes much farther back in time than the oil seeps scattered around the world and for which there was no use for.

Black Gold was used to describe Pepper and given the moniker due to the amount of money that peppercorn delivered to the London docks, from the far off spice islands of Indonesia, could be sold for.

Dad

AROMA



Definitions:

Aroma: Anything giving off a sweet smelling fragrance.
Fragrant: Pleasant smell.

If you have a cold and can't smell, it is also true that you can't taste either.
Occasionally when reading a book describing food or watching the food channel or perhaps a TV movie about the holidays and it's attending dinner, you find your mouth watering and especially the scene where someone takes a bite and says something like Wow! or Oh my God! or I can't believe this; all wonderful to hear or read about but I've yet to hear anyone mention the smells.

Here are a couple of examples:
Imagine again, the trail drive: It's the end of the days drive, the cattle are watering and beginning to graze, some already bedding down in the gathering dusk. A cowboy, the first to finish turning his horse out to the Remuda walks into the Chuck Wagon area and not looking at anything, immune to the strong smell of cattle and dust still hanging in the air, gets an image of the cooking fire now reduced to a long bed of glowing coals, he knows from the smell of coffee that there would be two large coffee pots beginning to boil, stomach growls; along with that the tang of fresh sourdough biscuits but not noticing "cookie" removing them from the still hot dutch oven he gets another slight odor of Beef and Beans and his stomach gives another flip and still he hasn't laid eyes on any of the food. Just those wonderful aromas.

Another:
Thanksgiving day, anywhere USA.
Something waking you up in the morning; Coffee aroma-strong; later in the day, something baking; Bread or rolls maybe and still later, the unmistakable smell of Roasting Turkey.
By this time it would be halftime at the game you are watching on TV...probably the Detroit Lions and whomever they playing this year.
But the overriding problem you are having is the accumulation of smells of the day about to drive you nutty.
And speaking of nuts; you eye the now empty nut bowl full of broken shells. and you take a last sip of slightly warm beer and realize that nothing else will do than to sit down to the magnificent feast called Thanksgiving Dinner.
The first, but not the only, thing I'm thankful for is that I don't have a cold.

Happy Thanksgiving day to all.
Dad.

Things We drink

In the earlier posts I mentioned several liquids that we regularly consume; Coffee, water, tea and beer. Except for Coffee I didn't get into much detail on the others.

My last post was 'more on soup' and of course water is the key to that. Water was also gotten into in earlier posts as well.
I mentioned beer in one also. I'd like to expand on that a little:

Definitions:
Beer          :  An alcoholic drink made from malt, grains, and flavored with hops
                  : A non-alcoholic drink made from plants or roots of plants.
                    and example would be "root beer".

Malt         : Grains, such as barley soaked in water and used in the making of alcoholic
                   beverages.
 
Sarsaparilla: (commonly pronounced "Sasparilla").
                   : The leaves and flowers of this vine plant are used in giving bitter flavor
                     to malted liquors.
                     The roots of this plant used in making non-alcoholic root beer.

The origin of Beer is old...old and foggy. Researchers have pinned the origin to ancient Mesopotamia (a part of the middle east between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers extending from the mountains of SE Asia to the Persian Gulf.), in 6 BC. That plus a Sumerian Tablet depicting people sitting around a large bowl apparently sipping from the bowl through straws. But how they came to the conclusion that they were sipping beer is beyond me. Consider that in 6 BC There was no written language, and even if there was, most of the people were illiterate. Even into the middle ages the written word and writing was the domain of monks and friars. But that is just my opinion and has nothing to do with beer except that there is also no evidence of a  recipe for making beer. The Hymn of Ninkasi notwithstanding (in spite of). That hymn supposedly had in its wording the method for making beer. And in this way had a recipe that could be passed on easily.
Therefore lets just skip all that and concentrate on times and places that are verifiable.

According to Statistics, beer is in 3rd place as the most consumed beverage world wide, behind water and tea.
However, That conclusion may or may not be true. in London during the middle ages Water was not a big favorite as a drink, due to pollution. Most of the rivers and streams of England and most of Europe too, were also used as sewers. So Beer, being plentiful and Cheap, and could be made easily by most anyone, was uniformly drank by nearly every citizen. Tea at that time was very expensive. and had to be imported by ship from the far east.
It has been said that the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock instead of further south was because they ran out of beer. I can go with that because of how much water would be needed by passengers and crew and the live animals that were also on those first ships, that beer would have been the primary source of beverage for the people.

So, In the US the most popular and most consumed beverage is Water; followed by Soda (all soft drinks); then Coffee, then Beer. and lastly, Milk.

More on Soup

Definition:

Soup; from Sop...Bread used to soak up the drippings of meats and/or liquid still left in the bowl or on the plate/platter.

When you hear the word soup, what  immediately comes to mind depends largely on, here in the US, what your roots are; Examples: Campbell's soup. European roots: meat and or Vegetables boiled in water, sometimes thickened with flour.
Asian: Especially Chinese since they are so much a part of the history of America. It could be won-ton or egg drop that comes to mind. The various Ramen dried mix with water added also fastley becoming generally popular.
Mexican: It could be tripe, gazpacho served cold and if your roots are Italian it could be just minestrone.

I've even heard that soup was served up on Trail Drives but unless it had thick hunks of meat and plenty of potatoes and other Vegetables found along the creek beds and made into a thick stew, I don't believe that the trail drives had anything to do with soup.
Imagine if you will, a Cowboy who has just come to supper after 12 hours eating dust and literally punching cows, being handed a bowl of vegetable soup or thickened Consommé (thickened broth), he'd probably shoot the cook.

But in the society we now live in there are many choices and some fantastic soups to be had.
Is there anything more welcome on a cold winter day or cold and blustery spring or fall day?