My Cookbook

[LeslieDean]

I've been working on a cookbook for about the last 7 months or so. I find it very cathartic. It is recipes tied in with family stories and events. There has been lots of tears shed, and things lhings I have learned about myself, some good some hard to admit. But growth comes with a price. I remember my mom telling me as a child and my legs would ache so bad it was growing pains. I now relate that in a different manner. Yes, growing can be painful. I am thinking about posting some things here, personal thoughts and experiences tied to family recipes. Maybe you all could critique it just remember sometimes I bite. 😉

[LeolaRootStew]

That sounds fun. I have a binder of recipes from various eating programs I've done over the years, like raw food and carnivore.

[LeslieDean]

As soon as I get my iPad this week I will start posting..the cell phone is too hard to toggle between screens and attach.

[truce]

Can't wait to read

[LeslieDean]

Just for you to understand my thought process in recording this cake it's all over the place. I have enlisted the help of so to keep me on track. I tell the circumstances surrounding the dish and the emotions connected to it. Which are many. My earliest memories are connected to food. It was not until about 30 years ago it hit hard and clear the connection and how it was woven into my life. I worked at Rader Institute in Tulsa Oklahoma back in 1984..William Rader was the founder. It was a globally recognized eating disorder unit at Doctors Hospital. Sally Jessie Raphael , a well known TV host filmed several patients stories from there. She was popular at the time of Donahue, Ravero, Springer, and other tabloid talk show hosts. A few of the patients stories resonated with me and I began to think how deeply food connects with our personal pain and enjoyment. I did not know the truth at that time and was still some 12 years away from finding it. So settle in, this will take a while. 

[LeslieDean]

My father, JC Lynn, told a story to many people who would sit with us at our table and eat. Back when food was associated to family and sharing stories. He would tell anyone with an ear about my first day of kindergarten. He relays he brought me home at noon as kindergarten was a half day in the 1960s. He asked me what I learned that day. I told him I learned to make grilled cheese and tomato soup. He said he was skeptical but intrigued . Upon arriving home he took me to the kitchen and said show me what you learned. Without hesitation he would recall I told him to pick me up and put me on the counter top where I began to rummage through the cabinet till I found a can of Campbells tomato soup AND a can of diced tomatoes. I asked him to open them since I had not mastered the complexity of a hand held opener at age 4. (I started school at 4 in September and turned 5 in mid October. He said I told him to bring a dining room chair up to the stove and proceeded to crawl upon it. I dumped the soup and tomatoes into the pit then asked him to bring me some milk, cream preferably if we had it. Which we did. Cream from a bottle delivered weekly to our door. Cream made everything better. Just a well known fact. So I asked for a pinch of 'chicken powder ' since I could not say bullion. And black pepper. Must have. He said that I would stir then taste and smack my lips loudly while he watched in bewilderment. He began to wonder if perhaps I really did learn this culinary act that morning. He says with great pride that was the BEST tomato soup he had ever had to that day. I remember this clearly but wonder if it is an actual memory or just a story told so fondly from a father's memory. But whatever, it is now a firmly established memory of mine. I have since learned to roast tomatoes, a onion, a grated carrot in olive oil and puree for the base. Yes I now call the chicken powder bullion,band top the bowl of tomatoe bisque with homemade croutons and fresh shaved Parmesan but my father still clung to that first bowl of soup as being his favorite.

[LeslieDean]

About 1;year ago I started having dinner parties or evenings with friends and would invite different ones over to share. When I became a widow I hid in the recesses of my mind and only emerged for meetings. It was a lonely year. Then I signed up to pioneer  I took to heart our talks concerning we must draw close as a congregation to survive the GT and enjoy beyond. A elder once said, look around you. These will be the faces of the ones that we need to depend on. The ones we must grow close to. The ones if you have a difficulty with you may find yourself in their basement. Then what will you do? Grow close NOW! Don't delay. So I went home and prayed, that night awake in prayer. Trying to realize memories will carry me through but I can't live there. They are meant to visit. To anchor and support but not to live in which I had been doing. Every waking hour was spent looking back, not forward. I've got to break this cycle. I can visit but not stay. So I thought of inviting other widows, singles, divorced and older couples into my home where we could share, learn about each other and what makes them tick. I decided to call these events my BASEMENT Reserve. I want to draw on these good times that I am giving a place for, with the intent that these times we are living and making are what will carry us through. When we see the smiles on the faces of our imprisoned family, or the struggles we all are baring, what is it they are thinking about that is farting them through? Our spiritual heritage definitely. But then I realized some day this will be someone's spiritual heritage too. So hence, my much loved family, how I came up with my title Basement Reserve. From our table to yours. From Jehovah's table to mine. What dishes are you serving that tie those memories to your heart? So if you are looking for a recipe that cuts straight to an ingredient list you won't find it here. You will be bitterly disappointed. But if you want to connect through insight, memories and dinner parties but yet planned, pull up a seat. This will take a while.

[LeslieDean]

Tomato_Soup_Grilled_Cheese_Chapter.docx

Edited 3 hours ago by LeslieDean

[LeslieDean]

I typed my original story in my own words. The attachment is the cleaned up version with grammer and wording corrected as per my instruction to ai. Story content is entirely my own.