The new project

[serene]

I didn't tell you all about my new project yet, did I? I got to watching Mythbusters with the boyfiend and one thing led to another, so anyway, here it is!



A few years back (late '07, looks like), I decided to try to get the food of my childhood down on paper as recipes and, hopefully, create a cookbook for my mother as a gift. I made a special tag on my cooking blog and started having wonderful conversations and visits with my mom, in which I asked her to teach me exactly how she makes the foods she made us when we (my three siblings and I) were little.

Mom loves teaching me to cook, and has been doing it since I was a toddler. I love learning to cook, and my cooking style matches hers. As is the case with many, many intuitive cooks, mom doesn't use recipes. She reads cookbooks for fun, but I've never seen her use a recipe per se. So getting her recipes down involves some trial and error, and that's fine with me, and with my family, who love the kinds of foods mom makes: meat-heavy, hearty, family foods.

Our phone conversations when I'm doing this have been a total joy. She isn't used to having to think about things like how many eggs go into latkes -- she just does it intuitively. But she gives me a ballpark, then I go do my best with it, and report back to her on the results. If my knaidlach are like lumps of cement, she tells me I used too many eggs. I use fewer the next time and they're just right. Stuff like that.

Last month, I was brainstorming with someotherguy about Mom Food, blogging, and my desire to have some creative project that wouldn't eat my life (and break the bank) the way the magazine did. We came up with this, which launches August 1st:

http://www.momfoodproject.com

It's not just about my Mom Food, though I hope to get ALL the foods of my childhood up there. It's also about the foods that other people remember from childhood. It's about the stuff that you get all nostalgic about, and the stuff you can't find any more.

I plan to:

* Cook the foods of my childhood
* Cook the foods of my friends' and family's childhoods (or ask them to do it for me)
* Do some research and find out what constitutes Mom Food in other countries and cultures
* Put it all in the blog

I'm having a TON of fun building this project, and it doesn't feel like it will overwhelm me. It's also feeding my need to be home a lot, and to have something I care about to work on.

I have already lined up some guest posters, I think, and eventually, I hope to make a cookbook out of this that I can give to my mom. (I'm giving her the blog for her birthday, which is in a few weeks.)

In the next few days, I should have more pages up: one on how to contribute to the project, for instance, and a page of recommended reading.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you all about this. I'm having a ball.

Comments

[badgerbag]

Okay, once you want ads on that, talk w me and I'll hook you up. Also, our food conf is in SF in October. http://www.blogher.com/blogher-food-10 It's really amazing and is absolutely worth the conf. registration.

[serene]

Ooh. Love you! Thanks. Not sure I'll do ads, but if I do, I'll ping you.

Food conference looks to be sold out. Probably couldn't swing the fee anyway, but it looks awesome.

[badgerbag]

will see what i can do!

[serene]

Oh, I wasn't influence-begging, I promise.

And just the *second* the blog turns 30 days old, I'll list it on BlogHer. :-)

[badgerbag]

i didn't think you were no worries! anyway i don't have that kind of influence! was just gonna ask about volunteer/liveblogging (which I'm gonna do for the conference - it's fun)

[serene]

Nifty!

[(Anonymous)]

You are SO awesome! Lucky Mom!

[j00j]

This is exciting! *adds to RSS reader* Hmm, reminds me, I really need to get my mom to give me some more recipes... And now I really want plum pierogi.

[serene]

Thank you!

[serene]

Plum pierogi? Oh. My. Gosh! (I dislike plums unless they're cooked, and pierogi are food of the gods to me. Do you have the recipe?)

[wild_irises]

Oooh, I want to play!

[j00j]

They're amazing. Few people I know have heard of them, but they were something my mom's family learned to make in Poland (they were German, but the family had lived in Poland for a number of generations prior to WWII. It's complicated and messy history. A variety of good food, though.). Mom doesn't have a particularly specific recipe for making the pierogi, but as far as the plums: "re: plums: they are called prune plums and they have dark skin with golden flesh and are very small and oblong. They are usually found fresh only in the summer long after the usual plums are available. They work well for pierogi because half a plum is a good size; the others would have to be cut into chunks. Frozen might work; I should think canned would be too soft and full of too much liquid. Fresh would be best."

So you stuff the pierogi with those and cook as usual. NOM.

[serene]

Oh, we can get those prune plums here. I'm totally gonna try this; I just recently learned to make the dough from my friend Barb: http://web.me.com/barbschaller/Hanging_Out_with_The_Tattooed_Lady/Blahblahblog/Entries/2010/1/25_The_Pirohy_Princess_is_in_The_Kitchen!.html

[serene]

Yay! *bounce*

kinda too late

[aquaeri]

I understand what you're trying to do with this project, and I support that aspect of it. But I find calling childhood nostalgia food "mom food" doubly alienating - I have a mum, not a mom, and it's my dad who cooks that food, always has been.

And I have, and have always had, a mother. Many children (and adults who were those children) do not have mothers, particularly not the warm-fuzzy-nostalgia kind. Families come in a lot of complicated configurations.

Re: kinda too late

[serene]

I think I make it clear in several places on the site that it's mom food for me, but mum food or dad food or uncle food for other people. But I do thank you for the feedback.

Re: kinda too late

[serene]

(I meant to quote this from the About page: "For me, it’s my mom. For you, it may be your dad, your aunt, a grandparent, or the person next door who took care of you when your parents couldn’t.

Mom Food (or Dad Food or Aunt Food) is about that feeling of love you get when you eat that certain thing your mom fixed you when you were little, or when you were sick. Mom Food is the thing that makes you eat your Cream of Wheat with butter and honey, “because that’s the way Grandpa made it.”)