Men who cook

I didn't grow up around men who cook.

My grandfather excelled at taking naps after dinner, sitting in the white wicker chair, pretending to be awake, omnipresent cigarette hanging from his fingers. My grandmother had kitchen duty, complete with new fangled Weight Watchers food and jars of dried herbs on the table. She served me stew with calamari in it, and green cheese, while harboring a secret passion for reese's peanut butter cups that my family knew nothing about until just before her death.

Mimi cooked, I think. I have memories of holiday meals at her house and I assume that she cooked many of the same recipes that my mom makes. I remember Helen the housekeeper made amazing pickles (I have the recipe, but remain fearful that in making it, the pickles won't taste as good as they do in my memories). Mimi and I did try to make a gingerbread house from scratch one year. It was great fun, and more than a bit lopsided. At this point, PopPop only exists in vague memories and stories related to photographs. One might have included him at the bbq, but never near the kitchen.

My dad, well he makes good pancakes on weekend mornings when we visit, and somewhat reluctantly mans the grill. When I was a kid, he'd bake loaves of bread to give to the neighbors as Christmas gifts, and at one point he grew his own grapes and made wine. Was it any good? I'll have to ask.

But MEN WHO COOK seems to be a recent phenomenon, and I've been overwhelmed by them for the past few weeks. First my friend Matt, who proceeded to take over my mom's kitchen and turn out masterful food each night. Reduced to sous chef, I made the pizza dough for his pies (soy crumbles, fresh mozzarella and raisins, for one), and the salad to accompany his pasta with yellow squash. Matt even preferred to do the grocery shopping.

Then there's Jim, who for his 70th birthday published a cookbook of his recipes and stories. We had dinner with Jim and my Aunt Chris last week. The cioppino was fantastic, the salad dressing of anchovy paste, lemon juice and a little of the marinating liquid from some artichokes was excellent, but the peach cobbler was unbeatable. Even Allen, a professed lover of crisp, who is usually ambivalent at best about cobbler was wow-ed. My version of Jim's cobbler contains raspberries and the last of the carolina peaches that we brought home. I hope it's half as good.

We finished our vacation (aside from a less than memorable stay at the Super 8 in Galliapolis (that's Gall op o lees, to those of you who aren't familiar with the home of Bob Evans) at my sister's house, where her husband made a delicious fish stew for 12, served over croutons. My contribution: egg salad sandwiches for our lunch at the pool the next day.

It's great to be back home, now with a pile of veggies from the CSA to cook from. We'll see what comes from that.