Brownson - Dinner At Home : 140 Recipes To Enjoy With Family And Friends

Copyright 2015 by the Chicago Tribune.

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Dinner at Home

ISBN 13: 978-1-57284-764-4

Illustrations by John Burgoyne

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Surrey Books is an imprint of Agate Publishing. Agate books are available in bulk at discount prices. For more information visit agatepublishing.com.

This book is dedicated to my mom, dad, Scott, Claire and Glen

Thank you for all your support and encouragement. Thank you for spending so much of your lives in my kitchen. And always offering to do the dishes. I love you more than I can ever say.

Thank you also to my brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and comrades in food. Our time spent gathered at the table has been my lifes greatest pleasure.

CONTENTS

From Peanut Butter Menus to Dinner at Home

I GREW UP IN A FAMILY THAT SIMPLY LOVES to cook and eat. Food takes center stage at every event, from reunions to picnics, birthdays, baptisms and weddings. Our obsession, passion and never-ending appetite for food started with my grandparents.

My paternal grandparents grew up in Glogowacz, Austria-Hungary. They immigrated separately to the U.S. with their families nearly 100 years ago. Martin and Mary met again in Chicago and were married in 1925.

My grandmother baked, pickled and scrimped her way through nourishing eight children. My grandfather, a bricklayer, butchered and smoked hams and sausages between gigs working on some of Chicagos most iconic buildings and churches. His brick smokehouse (tucked under the stairs in their Chicago bungalow) was my favorite spot in the house.

Martin and Marys children cherished old-world traditions. My aunts prepared all of Grams recipes, putting their own skill sets to good use making strudels and slaws. Her sons, including my father, still make the family sausage for our annual reunion to this very day. My generation knows the stories and recipes well, even if we dont cook them often.

Charles, my maternal grandfather, was a professional baker of Sicilian descent. To my mothers dismay, she didnt naturally inherit his skills. Instead, she took cooking classes at the local gas company. She tells tales of pie crusts gone wrong and spaghetti sauce my father wouldnt taste. Dinner parties tested her nerves. Little wonder, since she cut her cooking chops in the real Mad Men era. She had to not only be the perfect hostess, but look beautiful, too. Fait accompli.

I have two brothers and two sisterswe were five smart, willful children who tested my parents and their wallets continuously. We were always ready for dinner, but late to the table nearly every night thanks to reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show.

I started paying attention to food in the fourth grade. My teacher brought avocados to the classroom after her Florida spring break and let us all taste this exotic fruit/vegetable. I was captivated by its creaminess. Then my Uncle Jake shared his Gourmet subscription with me (which I maintained until the magazine folded in 2009). He also bought me my first cookbook. When I complained about hot dog night, my mom, by then an accomplished cook who prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner for 7 people every day of the week, happily passed the dinner task on to me. I consulted my new cookbook and made hot dogs stuffed with cheddar and wrapped in bacon. In middle school, I made a four-course all-peanut butter meal for my Uncle Charles, the fanciest eater I knew. Food remains a common bond.

My grandparents shared what they knew: old-world baking, pickling and smoking. Grandma Dorothys fruit trees started my peach jam-making habit. I will never forget Grandpa Kaisers smoky speck or Grams powdered sugar-coated nut and meringue-filled pillows and crescent shaped, jam-stuffed kipferls. She measured with her hands, not tools, with instinct and experience.

Little wonder that I loved chemistry in high schoolafter all, most experiments meant following a recipe. I pursued chemistry in college and kept cooking. By sophomore year, I had made nearly every recipe in both volumes of Julia Childs Mastering the Art of French Cookingtoo bad I didnt have a blog or a movie deal.

My folks didnt flinch when Id invite friends over to cook crepes at midnight. I once made chateaubriand after a Yes concert for a special friend. I paid for college by waitressing and catering parties. Dessert tables were my specialty.

Comfortable in the school kitchens, my foods and nutrition professor, Mary Abbott Hess, suggested I interview for an internship at Cuisine Magazine. With that, my world changed overnight from chemistry to the culinary arts.

After receiving a B.S. in foods and nutrition, I opted out of dietetics to do a chefs apprenticeship. I was the American Culinary Federations first female apprentice in Chicago. They placed me at a high-end hotel on Michigan Avenue. I was scared.

It was the late 1970s. There was only one female chef in the kitchens. At 5 a.m. on my first day, she advised me to go out and buy a good bra and support hose to counter the physical toll 14 hours a day spent cooking takes on a body. Thirty minutes later, I cut my thumb so badly I fainted. Fortunately, my father had supplied me with a first aid kit. I pulled myself together and got back to work mincing celery for salad dressing. No one was the wiserI think.