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Eating Heaven

Book by Jennie Shortridge · 2 quotes · Comfort Food, Cooking, Grocery Shopping

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Eating Heaven Quotes

“Home Cooking: The Comforts of Old Family Favorites." Easy. Baked macaroni and cheese with crunchy bread crumbs on top; simple mashed potatoes with no garlic and lots of cream and butter; meatloaf with sage and a sweet tomato sauce topping. Not that I experienced these things in my house growing up, but these are the foods everyone thinks of as old family favorites, only improved. If nothing else, my job is to create a dreamlike state for readers in which they feel that everything will be all right if only they find just the right recipe to bring their kids back to the table, seduce their husbands into loving them again, making their friends and neighbors envious. I'm tapping my keyboard, thinking, what else?, when it hits me like a soft thud in the chest. I want to write about my family's favorites, the strange foods that comforted us in tense moments around the dinner table. Mom's Midwestern "hot dish": layers of browned hamburger, canned vegetable soup, canned sliced potatoes, topped with canned cream of mushroom soup. I haven't tasted it in years. Her lime Jell-O salad with cottage cheese, walnuts, and canned pineapple, her potato salad with French dressing instead of mayo. I have a craving, too, for Dad's grilling marinade. "Shecret Shauce" he called it in those rare moments of levity when he'd perform the one culinary task he was willing to do. I'd lean shyly against the counter and watch as he poured ingredients into a rectangular cake pan. Vegetable oil, soy sauce, garlic powder, salt and pepper, and then he'd finish it off with the secret ingredient: a can of fruit cocktail. Somehow the sweetness of the syrup was perfect against the salty soy and the biting garlic. Everything he cooked on the grill, save hamburgers and hot dogs, first bathed in this marinade overnight in the refrigerator. Rump roasts, pork chops, chicken legs all seemed more exotic this way, and dinner guests raved at Dad's genius on the grill. They were never the wiser to the secret of his sauce because the fruit bits had been safely washed into the garbage disposal.”

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Book:Eating Heaven
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“I've got it! Shecret Shauce! We can bottle it and sell it at farmers' markets or on the Internet!" We both laugh at her, but then Anne's face grows thoughtful. "It was pretty good stuff," she says. "Hey, Eleanor, what would happen if we blended it, so no one knew it was fruit cocktail? Then we wouldn't even have to give away the shecret." I get up and walk to Benny's cupboard, pull out ingredients: vegetable oil, soy sauce, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and one can of fruit cocktail. The only thing I can blend it in is Benny's old Osterizer, which actually works better than any appliance I've got. The finished product is a beautiful peach color, silky in texture, and tastes almost perfect. "All it needs is a bit of sweet chili sauce to perk it up," I say. "Here, taste." Who knows? A family dynasty might have been born from the ashes of our fathers.”

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