Shine Supper Club: Mom's Best Recipes
It's difficult to choose just one, I know. There's summer's cold tuna macaroni salad flecked with dill, a perfect lunch on the hottest days. Incomparably fudgy brownies (they come from a box), buttery mashed potatoes (with lumps, please), Christmas' cranberry crunch, addictive chile con queso, crisp green salads. But if I had to choose just one dish that no one seems to make as well as my mom, it would be her turkey soup.
In the first dark evening hours of Thanksgiving, before Trivial Pursuit has turned ugly and while the second wave of guests are still helping themselves to pie, my mom slips the turkey carcass into a huge pot and slides it onto the wood stove in her kitchen. It will bubble there overnight. At tomorrow's lunch, when ambitious shoppers are returning from early morning sales and last night's hard partiers are just waking up, my mom will ask someone to bring in the the blue and white bowls from the pantry. One by one, she ladles in her turkey soup, topping it with parmesan cheese and chopped fresh cilantro. It's a simple soup with vegetables and noodles, the perfect antidote to a day of overindulgence and it's safe to say it's my favorite meal of the whole year.
Roast chicken, pork chops with Spanish rice, chili, and broiled steak are the simple kind of meals I grew up on. There are no fancy techniques or exotic ingredients. My mom grew up on a dairy farm, and she makes the same kind of good, honest food her mom cooked for her family, too. Even when we grow up and our tastes change--we're more sophisticated, we're gluten-free, we're vegan--there's something deeply comforting about returning to the recipes we grew up on. When I feel overwhelmed by creative recipes with clever flourishes, I like to return to the simple recipes the women in my family have been cooking for years. This month we're cooking something familiar, just like mom used to make.
Join us: What was mom's best recipe? Was it a special occasion dish? A regular in the weekly meal rotation? Did you like it when you were young or have you grown to love it even more? What memories does the recipe bring back? Pull out the hand-written recipes cards: we're making mom's recipes in May.
Blog about your dish here on Shine or on your own website (include "Shine Supper Club" in the title). Tweet @yahooshine with the hashtag #shinesupperclub. Have a Pinterest account? Pin your photos to our community Shine Supper Club board on Pinterest. At the end of the month, we'll write a round-up post linking to your blog posts. Got a question or a suggestion for upcoming Supper Clubs? Ask away! Tweet @yahooshine with the hashtag #shinesupperclub. Have a Pinterest account? Pin your photos to our community Shine Supper Club board on Pinterest. At the end of the month, we'll write a round-up post linking to your blog posts. Got a question or a suggestion for upcoming Supper Clubs? Ask away!
