Jennifer Emilson - The Lemon Apron Cookbook: Seasonal Recipes for the Curious Home Cook

M um, whats for supper? Without fail, my sister, Anita, and I would ask this question before we left for school each morning. The answer had the ability to make or break our day. If the answer was a tasty one, like chicken and rice (), it would get me through the school day. But if she said, Its a surprise, we eventually learned we would be very disappointed with the result (hello, liver and onions). It took a while for our naive little minds to understand what Its a surprise meant!

We were raised by foodie parents, way before foodie was a wordor even a concept. Our parents were born and raised in Germany, and food played a central role in their daily lives. Back then, it was common in Germany for everything to be made from scratch. In my parents case, it was a family effort. Everyone, from the kids all the way to the grandparents, had their individual harvesting, preparing, and cooking assignments. As a young boy, my dad would pick mushrooms in the forestId imagine his walks in the woods back then turned into a true Germanic fairy tale with talking animals and alland clean the casings for sausage-making days.

My parents continued this approach to cooking even after immigrating to Kitchener, Ontario, where I was born. It was normal to find half a pig spread out on the kitchen table of our apartment, ready to be sausage-ified. I still dont know how they managed to get that carcass into the elevator. I was that girl sitting next to you in the school lunchroom with a liverwurst or garlicky salami and mustard on rye sandwich, at a time when bologna on white bread was the norm.

We later moved out of the apartment to Amherstburg, in Southwestern Ontario. A mini farm and orchard were squeezed into our suburban backyard, with row upon row of fruits and vegetables. This delicious bounty brought hard work, some surprises, and delicious results. When green beans were in season, so were grasshoppers. And filling a bowl meant getting pinged and attacked as those nasty bugs flew out of the branches and leaves. Picking the raspberries out back meant scratches and juice-stained fingers as we checked for worms before popping those luscious berries into our mouths. Beside the raspberry patch was the chicken coop. Yes, we had a chicken coop! We would also smoke fish in an outdoor smokehouse and make wine in oak barrels in the basement (which we raided regularly in our late teens when the house was parent-free!). After we moved out, they (my parents, not the chickens) went on to run a successful bed and breakfast in a small east coast fishing village. Their guests were welcomed with cozy, comforting meals and genial company.

My parents taught us not only an appreciation for where our food comes from but also about our German heritagethough we may have gently teased their teachings growing up (didnt every immigrant kid go through this phase at some point?). My mum made me wear a dirndl (traditional German folk dress) to school, which was mortifying for an eight-year-old living in a Canadian city. In the kitchen, we helped her make cabbage rolls, preserve peaches for the winter, and glaze fruit-covered German cheesecake Ksekuchen. We inherited the sausage casecleaning task from my dad. As adults, we developed an even deeper respect for the cuisines, lifestyle, and heritage our parents taught us about. What we made suddenly took on special meaning when we moved away from home.

My personal cooking journey really began in Toronto, where I have lived for over 25 years. Before then, I never really had to cook on my own much. My mum could take the most meager ingredients and turn them into a meal fit for royalty. My sister became a pastry chef. Why would I take up space in such a talented kitchen?! But when I was thrust into the big, cruel world all on my lonesome (it wasnt quite as traumatic as all that!), there was no one to share the kitchen with. There were my roommates, but its not like they were going to make my mums Sauerbraten (German pot roast)they were Jamaican, after all (but I was served up the best goat curry with dumplings). If I was nostalgic for my mums potato pancakes or Marmorkuchen (marble cake), I had to learn how to actually make them. I cant tell you how often I was on the phone with her, trying to nail down a recipe. I was also a server at restaurants, where I picked up tricks while watching the chefs and cooks work their stations. And when my sister and I were living apart, even during the days of snail mail, we would devote pages and pages of letters to planning recipes, meals, and celebrations inspired by our work and travels (we also inherited the traveling gene from our parents). It was all worth it. The more I cooked at home with this new knowledge, the more my confidence grew.

While I wasnt trained by the Cordon Bleu or a pastry school, my tenacity (the fancy word for stubbornness!) got me to where I am today. Even when a recipe got the better of me, I would try and try again. Like my first pie crust. It sucked. So I experimented with different recipes and adapted my method until I figured it out, which made me a much better baker. I will happily admit to seeking help from cookbooks and websites (and even recipes on the sides of cereal boxes!) through the years. Those recipes influenced my cooking, and eventually my own recipes. I fell in love with everything related to cooking and baking, and I soon ventured into cooking recipes from cuisines that were new to me.