My dad’s parents were a large part of my life growing up in North Carolina. I remember them at holidays big and small, birthdays, tractor driving, Easter egg hunts, shooting, fishing trips. My mother’s parents did not live long enough for me to know them. My folks moved across the country to California when I was an infant, and not soon after Dad was transferred to the colder climate of Illinois. One of my favorite early memories is of my grandparents on an old wooden toboggan, sledding down the hill behind the house in winter jackets they’d had to buy when they got to town. Being from the south, I suppose winter didn’t seem like a threat till they got there. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that was the only time my Grandma got on a airplane.
My grandmother is still well, although at 86, she moves a little slower and is no longer cooking or living on her own. My life is a long way from NC these days and one of the things I have always looked forward to the most on my trips home has been sitting at the counter at grandma’s eating dumplings with a side of cole slaw and sweet tea so strong it takes measurable amounts of enamel off with each glass. When it became apparent that her dumpling days were soon to be over, I started paying attention and asking questions when she cooked. The dumplings will be here once she is not, but they will never be the same.
dumplings:
1 pound of flour
1 whole chicken, cut up
pepper to taste
water
Part of the goodness in this recipe is the simplicity, and it is one of the few that I do not embellish or take liberties with. Place the chicken in a large stewpot and cover with water. Add pepper to taste and simmer on low heat for 2 hours. Remove the chicken from the pot (not the broth) and remove the meat from the bones. Discard the skin and bones, and put 1/4 of the chicken back into the pot. Return to a low simmer. Pour the flour into a pile and make a hollow in the center. Pour about one-third cup of water in the hollow and mix it around with your fingers, collecting more flour from the sides of the hollow till it binds well and stops sticking. Roll this dough out on a floured surface as thin as you can, and slice it into strips. Lay them ina single layer in the simmering pot, add a bit more pepper and another quarter the reserved chicken meat. Do not stir. Wait five minutes or so until the dumplings in the pot have absorbed enough liquid to start thickening, and repeat this process. You’ll do this 2 more times, and then allow it all to simmer for 15 or 20 minutes more. Serve it up with slaw and sweet tea and think about your Grandmom.
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1 cookbook porn at alaska cooks // Aug 13, 2006 at
[...] Kim Severson published New AlaskaNew Alaska Cookbook in 2001 with Glenn Denkler, and somehow I missed it. She’s an ex-pat Alaskan foodie and journalist that has since left Alaska and moved on to bigger and better things, even getting a nod from food god Frank Bruni. Denkler is a chef and culinary instructor and served as the recipe tester, making sure that these ideas could be recreated in the home kitchen. The twelve chefs that contributed their favorites all cook in Alaska, and the emphasis is decidely on showcasing fresh local ingredients. Not everyone outside Alaska is going to have an easy time finding halibut cheeks, fiddlehead ferns, salmon eggs, locally smoked goose breasts, or caribou sausage, but there still are lots of things here that don’t require a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to make work. For us, the fun part is knowing the chefs and the restaurants they come from and the effort all put into new and creative plates. Anchorage, for all its pretention, is a small town I am not a baker, yet, and I picked up Peter Reinhardt’s American Pie with a bit of trepidation about where it might lead. Sure enough, a week after purchasing the book I’ve also become the proud new owner of a mixer. This isn’t just a cookbook, as it says there on the front cover, it’s also Reinhart’s search for the perfect pie. The first 90 pages are a great read on what Reinhart feels and experiences as he looks for the perfect pizza. He delves a bit int the problem that we all have trying to recreate the great meals or dishes of out pasts - no matter how exactly the same the dish and preparation may be, the cook and situation are different and thus the result and satisfaction will be as well. I can make the exact same dumplings I grew up eating at my Grandmom’s kitchen counter, but they will never be really the same because it isn’t her making htem for me. Of course we all have our own opinion about where the best pizza is in our town or region, but to get to travel the country and test those opinions as a way of making a living is probably one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard. As with the other Reinhart bibles, this one goes into exhaustive detail about pizza culture, baking, technique, variations, and how to try and recreate at home your version of the foundation of all good pie - the crust. [...]
2 five things…. at alaska cooks // Aug 31, 2006 at
[...] Food cooked with your Grandmother…Growing up we spent a lot of time with my Dad’s parents. Grandmom has always been a great country cook - the best. fried. chicken. ever. However, the specialty that’s gone down in family lore is the humble bird done another way. The mighty chicken and dumplings, served with achingly sweet tea, coleslaw, and Grandmom’s biscuits. If I had any meal to choose, I’d like to be back swinging my feet on one of her kitchen stools while she cooked this dinner for us. My grandmother is still well, although at 86, she moves a little slower and is no longer cooking or living on her own. My life is a long way from NC these days and one of the things I have always looked forward to the most on my trips home has been sitting at the counter at grandma’s eating dumplings with a side of cole slaw and sweet tea so strong it takes measurable amounts of enamel off with each glass. When it became apparent that her dumpling days were soon to be over, I started paying attention and asking questions when she cooked. The dumplings will be there once she is not, but they will never be the same. [...]
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