Today I’m proud to share with you all a guest post by my fabulous friend & foodie extraordinaire, Colleen! She was by my side for both my first 5k and first 10k races. But she’s more than just a great racing buddy, she’s an incredible cook & glorious writer.
So here she is!
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Hi, I’m Colleen! I run a small grassroots, 
alternative-foodie endeavor from my little urban home in Jersey City, NJ, called Bread & Spoon. B&S is dedicated to helping people select, prepare and enjoy seasonal, local and organic whole foods and meals from the wide array of fresh produce and humanely-sourced animal products Hudson county and NYC’s five boroughs. Steff has allowed me to kindly hijack Steff Says to share a few reasons (and my mindset) behind why I do what I do. You can also find me on Facebook.
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Something terrible and shocking happened to my husband and I recently – our gas stove (and the oven) blew a fuse! It only took a day to get it fixed, but a friend who was with me when we discovered the mishap, turned to me and said, “Col, you ought to write a blog about this; for you, not having your stove is like losing a hand!”
And, though it’s taken me more than awhile to do so, here I am. My disappointment arriving home after a great yoga class with my husband and friend, and finding my stove and oven dark and quiet was almost like finding a trusty steed off of his feet after throwing a horseshoe.
We had planned a lovely potluck meal that evening, including my friend’s tasty zucchini tian and some odds and ends whipped up from both of our fridges. We made do with take out Japanese, but I was annoyed and upset in a way that made me pause and evaluate my relationship with the stove.
I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs with two working parents. In fact, until I was 11 or so, my dad worked graveyard shifts. He’d wake up when my brother and I got home from school, eat dinner with us, kiss my mom and us good-bye, and show up early the next morning in time to see us off to school.
But our family always ate dinner together, and dinner was usually a simple but homemade affair. My dad grew up in a large, Irish-Italian Catholic family in southwest Philly; my mom spent most of her childhood in Minnesota.
Needless to say, meals at the Christi abode were full of homey, simple, rich dishes like spaghetti and meatballs, meatloaf or roast beef with mashed potatoes and green beans and broiled chicken with rice.
However, I credit my parents with the spark of creativity I like to bring to my own home cooking. There were a few dishes my mom made that were attempts at blending her Midwestern sensibilities with something more exotic, like a dish we called simply, “steak and beans” but which incorporated the flair of an Asian stir fry, layering browned cubes of top sirloin with Chinese veggies, layered over steamed green beans and white rice.
And even though my parents surely must have been harried and tired after long (and sometimes odd) working hours, my brother and I were always welcome to participate – and thus, slow down the process – in making what went onto the table. My brother would stand, fascinated, next to my dad on summer weekends, watching him turn sizzling juicy legs of barbequed chicken on the grill. I was mom’s “official taste-tester” when she made her famous Macaroni Salad – the secret was in the sauce, which had to be creamy but also tangy.
What I love as an adult home chef is the reciprocal inspiration taking place, as well as the personalization of the recipes I grew up with. My mom’s pan-fried pork chops and gravy are, bar none, the best I’ve ever tasted; but now my brother and I make our own specialized versions: I opt to stick with the gravy but add fresh mushrooms; he pan fries them with onions and peppers, creating a thinner but tasty au jus.
But what makes me proud is cooking for my parents; giving them an experience that I likely would not be able to had they not been so generous with their limited time when I was younger. It makes me smile when things like roasted Brussels sprouts or fresh pork burgers make their way into my parents’ cooking repertoire, because they tasted them first at my table.
I find it very depressing that so many young people have no idea how to cook, that many meals in the U.S. are heated up or brought home in cardboard boxes or greasy paper bags. That my parents passed on this skill to me, one that, I think, is as important as looking both ways when you cross the street and never talking to strangers, is something I will be eternally grateful for.
Life can seem overwhelmingly busy, with kids or without, with jobs, friends, spouses and other obligations, but I find it very important to maintain at least a friendly speaking relationship with the stove. It’s a place not only to reconnect with your health, and with the food you eat, but with friends and family. And what can be more important than that?
