Organized Chaos

Organized Chaos

Posted by Brit

Less organized, more chaos - my father's kitchen is stocked full of cooking materials.  There is a cupboard full of pots and pans, and another for baking dishes.  There is a drawer for wooden spoons and drawer for knives and two drawers for flatware.  And a drawer for sauce packets and seasonings.  And an island full of seasonings.  More cups and plates and bowls than one man needs (and more frying pans, there are a whole hell of a lot of frying pans).  I asked him why today, why all the frying pans?  He replied with, "I'm a cook."  And then he chuckled and said, "naw really I just hate doing dishes."  He does hate dishes but he really is a cook.  A very good one at that.

Today I learned how to make his homemade ham gravy.  I don't even like gravy but today's was especially good.  I guess I never really realized that my father rarely follows a recipe.  He put the fatty ham juice in a sauce pan and boiled it.  He then threw in a mixture of milk and flour and almost instantly knew the proportions weren't right.  He quickly poured some more milk in and threw in some more flour and it was perfect.  I need to learn to cook like that.  I am methodical and by the book in almost everything.  Cooking is easy when you follow the plan already laid out for you, but cooking like my father cooks is something to aspire to. 

My contribution to the Thanksgiving feast was two pies.  I made one pumpkin and one cherry - my brother and my father's favorites.  They turned out very well, however pies are one of my favorite things to bake even though I don't enjoy eating them all too much.

Pumpkin Pie Crust

Finished Pumpkin Pie

Not Yet Baked Cherry Pie