My 9/11 story . . .

I wrote this several years ago before we ever dreamed of moving to New York City. It still resonates today - and I still feel the loss of my Daddy every single day. Now that we live here, it is even more real.  

Everyone has a story about 9/11.  Maybe that’s why I want to share my remembrances – it’s a collective memory that is meant to share.

Mine? Well, it’s a bit complicated.  My Dad, Quentin, (in case you wondered where my name originated) died on the Friday before 9/11, after fighting his battle with heart disease for more than 24 years. We had his funeral on Monday, Sept. 10, 2001, in a town of 2,000 people in western Kentucky, where the sign leading into town says, “Welcome to Hartford, Kentucky; Home of 2,000 Happy People and a few Soreheads.”  The day before, more than 700 people – roughly ten percent of the people in their rural county – visited the funeral home to pay their respects.  We greeted these folks for more than nine hours. On Monday, my Mom – married to my Dad since she was 17 – guided the casket out of the church to the song, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” 

On the morning of 9/11, my husband, Larry, and our two daughters, Dana and Jennifer, were in the air at 6 a.m. – roughly the time the planes were hijacked - flying Delta back to Gainesville from the Nashville airport.  There was no time for them to stay in Kentucky to mourn; there was school to attend for the girls and Gator games for Larry to work.

Thankfully, we didn’t have the television on in the family room of my Mom’s house that Tuesday morning.  Instead, my brother and I were talking with my Mom, planning the day ahead.  We still had legal issues to address, and final payments and arrangements to settle with the funeral home.  So when my daughter Dana called to tell me they were stuck in the Atlanta airport – which I immediately assumed was because of the incompetence of ASA – I never envisioned that Hartsfield International was as far as they would fly that day.

“No, Mommy,” Dana said. “You don’t understand.  Turn on the TV.  Planes have just flown into the World Trade Center.”  She didn’t need to go on and say what I could hear in her voice: that we’d had Father’s Day brunch at Windows on the World just three short months earlier or that her Dad had grown up in the Bronx and considered himself a New Yorker for life.

Suffice it to say that Larry and the girls finally made it home that day, thanks to a UF student from Atlanta who was on their Atlanta-to-Gainesville flight and after realizing no one was flying back to UF that day, asked her Dad to drive her and her new friend and his daughters back to Gainesville.  

Me?  I had a rental car in Kentucky (gold in those early days after 9/11) that was due in Nashville Thursday morning when I was supposed to fly back to Gainesville.  Instead, I drove it 11 ½ hours back to Gainesville on Wednesday and upon delivering the sedan to the Budget Rent-a-Car counter at the Gainesville Airport, said “You know that car you THINK is going to be in Nashville tomorrow.  Well, instead, it’s in Gainesville today.”  Budget didn’t charge another penny: no additional drop-off fee, no additional mileage – and to this day, if Larry and I have a choice, we rent Budget.

The toughest thing of the entire 9/11 experience for me?  It was and still remains today: it is difficult to mourn the loss of my father.  Instead, my loss was – and is today – wrapped up in the loss the collective country felt.  I wonder. Are the families of those people who died that day, or the citizens of the cities of New York and Washington, D.C., where life will never be the same, or for those Americans whose sons and daughters have died overseas in places most of us will never view, able to separate their loss from the whole? I can’t. 

My Dad – who landed on Omaha Beach on what we believe was D-Day +5 – would have been devastated to view 9/11.  The first words my Mom uttered after we turned on the television that Tuesday morning shortly before the first tower fell was, “Thank God your Dad didn’t live to see this day.”

My three favorite cooking magazine issues from the past 25 years

I think I've made it fairly clear I love to cook.  As you can read in a post from last July, I started learning to cook when I was in junior high when my Mommy was attending nursing school; I've been experimenting and having fun cooking ever since.  In addition to my favorite cookbooks I’ve written about earlier, I also love cooking magazines.  I get a ridiculous number of them (just ask Larry): Food and Wine, Bon Appetit, Saveur, Cooking Light – and before its demise, Gourmet.

I pour over these magazines each month and while I don’t make something from every issue, even today I study the articles and use what I learn to improve my cooking. If I do the math right, I’ve gotten at least one of these magazines for more than 25 years, starting in the early 1990s when I first started subscribing to Gourmet and discovered the amazing writing of Laurie Colwin, who tragically died in 1992 at the age of 48.

Of the hundreds of cooking magazines I’ve gotten over the years, I’ve saved just three.

The first is a Special Collector’s Edition of Bon Appetit from May 1997 that was my inspiration for tackling real Italian cooking. From it, I learned to make risotto and Pollo alla Marengo (Chicken with tomatoes, onions and mushrooms), and discovered how wonderfully diverse the regional cuisines are in this relatively small country.

The second magazine takes an amazing look at the history of American food. Also Bon Appetit, this issue from September 1999 chronicles the American century in food. Starting with 1900 it takes the reader through a century of food, restaurants, libations, cooking essentials and made-in-America food products.  Its timelines share the years when thousands of iconic items such as Tabasco (1868), Oreos (1912), Tupperware (1946), Cuisinart (1973), and Velveeta (1928) were created. The articles on each decade share those years' favorite recipes and the societal changes that impacted the foods Americans ate and the people who cooked them. It is a fascinating look at our country. (One of the most interesting articles in the issue is each decade’s take on apple pie).

Crab cakes

The third cooking magazine I’ve kept is Food and Wine’s 25^th Anniversary issue published in September 2003 that featured what they considered their 25 best recipes ever. From this issue have come many of our favorites: an amazing macaroni and cheese with buttery crumbs, spaghetti with Bolognese sauce, molten chocolate cake, and Mrs. Duvall’s (Robert's mom) pan-fried crab cakes. (Note: Jenni and I always got a kick out of the irony of the tofu with spicy meat sauce recipe that’s described as the “tastiest tofu recipe the magazine ever came across” – not hard to imagine why that tofu tasted good. LOL).

Over the years, I’ve adapted Mrs. Duvall's crab cake recipe to create my own version.  Here’s the recipe:

Crab cakes with mustard sauce

¼ cup mayonnaise
¼ minced onion
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon dry mustard
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 pound jumbo lump crabmeat, drained (break each piece into a couple of smaller pieces, but don’t shred or get pieces too small)
Approximately 2 cups of panko crumbs

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

In a large bowl, combine mayonnaise, onion, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, dry mustard, salt and cayenne. Using your hands, gently fold in crab, being careful to not break up the crab any further. Start adding in panko crumbs with your hands, a 1/3 cup at a time until the mixture comes together and will form small cakes. Form into 6-8 crab cakes depending on the size you like. Coat the crab cakes on both sides with the remaining panko crumbs. (At this point, you can cook right away or refrigerate for a few hours.

In a 12-inch nonstick skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of vegetable oil over medium heat until it foams. Add half of the crab cakes, cook for 2-3 minutes each side. Place in a warm oven. Wipe out the skillet and heat another 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of oil and cook the remaining crab cakes.

Serve with mustard sauce.

Mustard sauce

1/3 cup mayonnaise
¼ cup sour cream
2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon of English dry mustard
Dash of hot sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Combine all ingredients and refrigerate for several hours for flavors to combine.

Remembering the Fourth of July on Rough River Lake . . .

The Fourth of July is the holiday when I most miss my parents. Most people would probably choose Thanksgiving or Christmas, but not me. The Fourth of July always found us on Rough River Lake for at least two days; more often than not, we managed to stretch the holiday to three days. My heart aches just a little when July looms.

By early July, Kentucky temperatures would rise to the 80s and low 90s, warming the clear lake water to where it was refreshing (and not bracing as mentioned in an earlier post). The sun would sparkle across the water, the warm wind blowing through my hair as our ski boat flew across the water (my Daddy at the helm, a silly hat covering his head).  We’d spend countless hours on the lake (we’re talking 9-10 hours a day) water skiing and swimming.

The best part of boating in those days was the group of families (and the slew of kids) who spent those idyllic summer days with us.  Danny and Suzanne Schapmire, Kenny and Sandy Baughn, Bill and Phyllis Vincent, J.B. and Delores Eskridge, Joey Triplett.  Every family brought their best homemade goodies that when piled together, created lunches for the ages. Some brought desserts like oatmeal cookies and cherry cream-cheese pies; others’ favorites included bean salad, Watergate salad (Google it), cold fried chicken and cole slaw. My Mommy’s contributions were always blonde brownies, tuna fish salad and pimento cheese spread – sometimes she’d add in this wonderfully decadent banana pudding (with real homemade custard).

These foods are seared into my summer memories.  Even now, when the Fourth of July rolls around, I reach for my Mommy’s recipe box and make a few of her favorites.  This afternoon, I made blonde brownies – they are simple, don’t require a mixer and just melt in your mouth.

Here’s how to do it (the recipe also halves well – just bake in a small square pan).  I will warn you, it’s important to be careful with the measurements – if you put in too much brown sugar, they get runny; if you’re heavy-handed with the flour, they’ll be dry and cake-like. Here goes . . .

Blonde brownies

1 stick unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 cups of brown sugar, lightly packed
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped pecans or coconut

Melt the butter, cool slightly. Then mix all ingredients together by hand.  Put in light metal 9x13” baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until the brownies start to pull back from the side of the pan and are a golden brown along the edges. Don’t over-bake or they’ll be dry and lifeless. Place baking dish on a wire rack until completely cool. Slice and enjoy (they also are wonderful with vanilla ice cream).

The world I no longer recognize . . .

My connection with Kentucky – the place of my birth – and the views of some of the people who still live there has recently caused me to question my current relationship with the Bluegrass State. While I have wonderful memories of growing up in Kentucky, the views I’ve seen from many of its residents over the past several years have caused me to wonder if the state has changed or if I have.  Maybe it’s both.

I lean – and have always leaned – socially and politically moderate. I have followed an interesting path: I lived in Kentucky for my first 22 years – nurtured by similar families living in our tiny, Protestant-dominated, dry county; spent the next 35+ years in a liberal college town (albeit in the South); and now have moved to New York City, one of the most liberal bastions in the country. 

Over the past few months, I’ve asked several people I trust who either still live in Kentucky or have strong connections to people who do if they understand the vitriolic comments I see on my Facebook news-feed on an almost weekly basis. Yes, I see similar comments from people who live in other states, but it surprises me by how many I see from my home state. My Kentucky-based friends call them UCs – ultraconservatives.

Growing up, I felt most of our family and friends were similar to us. My parents often went out of their way to help those in our community who needed assistance. I remember one fall day my Daddy and I went up to what is today the back part of the Hartford cemetery to help an elderly black man (I believe his name was Lucian) whose home had burned. My Daddy called businesses throughout Western Kentucky and finally found an old, silver Gulfstream trailer that we could help the man buy, and my Mom and I went through our extra household goods to find everything we needed to set up Lucian’s new home.  I don’t remember my family voicing anything disparaging about Daddy’s friend's race or those of his neighbors.

Today I wonder when I see racist, sexist comments, have the ultraconservatives always lived in those parts – and if so, did I not hear their views because my parents didn’t follow that mantra? Or in those days, did they not publicly voice those thoughts in places we entered? Did the parents of the friends I grew up with agree with the racist, sexist comments being strewn about by their children today?  Did I look the other way? What has changed in what I have always considered a kind, God-fearing place that would make some people feel comfortable in voicing the hatred I hear today? The not knowing the answer is what bothers me most.

While it’s not my place to pass judgment on the current political environment or the comments I see, I am thankful I’ve been fortunate to live in vastly divergent regions of our country that I hope have helped me learn tolerance through a cacophony of voices.

It has taken me a long time to consider the labels people apply to themselves and I’m not sure I still understand why they're necessary: liberal, moderate, conservative.  Even now, I’m not sure I know where I truly fit. I certainly didn’t understand this in my formative years in Kentucky or in my first few years in Gainesville where it was easy to just vote for the Democrats on the ticket whose names were commonly known around town - because let’s face it in those days, if there were Republicans on the ticket in Gainesville they had a snowball’s-chance-in-hell of winning. Thankfully, it’s gotten a little more balanced in recent years.

So what does this post mean? It means I’ve always felt I belonged somewhere in the middle: socially liberal, fiscally moderate, and committed to personal responsibility. I lived through the 1970s when abortions were hard to come by unless you had money to travel out of state, when LGBT friends were afraid to let others know their true selves, when minorities – especially those who lived in our part of the Midwest – were few in numbers and looking back, had even fewer opportunities. I’m proud of the gains our country has made in these issues over the past 40 years.

I have never voted a straight party ticket. I’ve supported both Republicans and Democrats for every public office, including President. I hope that this strong division we see today throughout our country is not permanent. That it, too, shall pass.  These thoughts, however, keep me awake at night.

Growing up on the water . . .

Growing up, Memorial Day weekend was the beginning of what was known in our family as “boating season.” My parents bought their first ski boat when I was just two – and I spent almost every summer weekend for the better part of the next 20 years on the water. I honestly didn’t know that you could take a vacation that didn’t involve a lake and a boat until we visited Florida when I was in middle school.

Daddy skiing

I still remember those Memorial Day weekends and those first dives into bracing water that had yet to be warmed by the summer sun.  Some people would ease into the water, one foot at a time, trying to acclimate themselves to the cold water. Me? I always felt it was better to just jump in.

My first few years of “boating” involved being engulfed by a lifejacket with my ponytailed-head bobbing around the water like a little cork. When I got tired, they’d either put me down for a nap on the shore (another term solely used in boating season) or they’d tuck me in around a bunch of lifejackets under the front-end of the boat. By the time I reached four or so, my Dad would put me on the front of his two skies and we’d ski around Green River. It was also on that aptly-named body of water that I learned to water-ski on my own when I was six.

Rock Quarry at Kentucky Lake

I still vividly remember when I learned to water-ski on one ski – also known as slalom skiing. Our vacation each year involved going to Kentucky Lake for anywhere between a week and 10 days, and it was the summer I turned nine – on the last day of vacation – that I finally succeeded in learning to slalom.

That last morning of vacation we checked out of our cabin at Moore’s Resort and spent the day on the water. While I had tried all week to slalom, I hadn’t succeeded in staying up for long.  It grew to be late afternoon and since we still had to drive a couple hours home, we went back to the marina and Daddy started loading the boat on the trailer that Mommy had backed into the water (she was better than anyone else at that).  As I wiped away a few tears that were rolling down my cheeks because of my disappointment, my Dad looked around and after realizing the reason for my tears, announced we were heading back out on the water.

Our second boat - Daddy at the helm and
Mommy in the blue shirt

Kentucky Lake has this wonderful little cove called The Rock Quarry that is tucked away in a corner of the lake. Because it’s protected from the wind and other boaters, the water is usually calm. We zoomed back across the lake to the Quarry, my hair flying in the wind, and over the next hour my Mom and Dad worked with me until I finally succeeded in staying up on one ski for an extended time. Exhausted (all of us), we headed back to the marina, pulled the boat out of the water for the second time and headed home. I’m sure I was exhausted and probably slept most of the way home, but even today, I’ll remember that summer day as one of the best days of my life.

So today – as I thought about the true meaning of Memorial Day – I also took a few minutes to reflect on my childhood in Kentucky, think about those lazy summer days on the water, and remember that on that one afternoon – as daylight waned on Kentucky Lake – all that mattered to my parents was my success.  They were the best parents ever and we miss them so.

The secret to delicious potato skins

So I consider myself a fairly decent cook – but there are just some things that always taste better at restaurants. For me, one of those dishes has always been potato skins. Although I’m hesitant to admit, some of the best potato skins I’ve ever eaten were at Bennigan’s in Gainesville.  You’re sitting there saying, seriously? Bennigan’s? I actually think that’s what I had for lunch after Larry and I went to the doctor’s office that morning and confirmed I was pregnant with Dana.

I hope you know what I mean when I talk about perfect potato skins – the ones where the potatoes are hot, the cheese is bubbling - but not gummy - and bits of bacon peek out from under the cheese. There’s a scattering of scallions gracing the plate and alongside, a heaping spoonful of sour cream. I’ve tried to replicate this dish for years, but always felt there was something missing in my preparation.

I’m excited to share that I’ve discovered the secret to truly terrific potato skins and I found it in one of my favorite cooking websites: https://cooking.nytimes.com. There you’ll find a recipe titled “Serious Potato Skins.” Now, I know what you’re thinking: really, potato skins in The New York Times?

So what’s the key? Bacon. Well, of course. Bacon makes everything better. But here’s the secret part: to make potato skins really delicious, you don’t just add the aforementioned scattering of bacon, but you bathe the skins in BACON FAT before adding the toppings.

Here’s my slightly edited version of The New York Times’ recipe:

INGREDIENTS

4 Idaho baking potatoes
8 ounces thick-cut bacon, diced
6 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1 bunch scallions
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup sour cream

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rub the potatoes lightly with butter and bake them on the wire racks of your oven for an hour, turning halfway through and piercing each one once with a fork to release some of the steam. Transfer the potatoes to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes.

While the potatoes are cooking, assemble the toppings. Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp, then transfer to a small bowl. Reserve the bacon fat (important step)!! Trim and thinly slice the scallions.

Cut each potato into quarters lengthwise to create four wedges. Using a small spoon, scoop the flesh from each wedge, leaving 1/4 inch or more of the flesh. (Save the scooped potatoes for another use).

Set the oven to broil. Place the wedges on a foil-lined baking sheet. Paint a bit of bacon fat on each, then top with cheese and bacon. Place under the broiler until the cheese is bubbling. Place the skins on a serving plate. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon sour cream alongside and scatter the scallions over the plate.

Trust me. These are amazing. 

Saying good-bye to Robbie and my Aunt Irma

Last Sunday in New York City was a glorious day. It was the first really warm day of the spring – over 80 degrees – and our favorite café along the Hudson River was finally open after a long winter season.  Our extended family of four – me, Larry, Dana and Nate – sat by the water for more than two hours, downing two bottles of Prosecco and a handful of Coronas. It was pure bliss.

It was during the latter minutes of sitting by the sparkling water that the first Facebook message came through sharing news of the death of a shining light of a man who had been a friend in our earlier Gainesville life. Robbie was just – it’s hard to explain – but he was just larger-than-life, with the most wonderful grin sharing space on his face with these marvelously twinkling blue eyes.  Robbie – along with his partner Dan – managed the wine shop whose door I often entered. He was one of a handful of people allowed to call me “Q” – and he gave me one of my more memorable nicknames: Chardonnay slut. I can still hear him yelling “Hey Q – I have several new bottles you HAVE to try.” Note: Thankfully, we’ve branched out a bit in our choice of wines, 15+ years later.

I still remember coming home from work and having my family (all of them – Larry, Dana and Jenni) sitting me on the couch and telling me they had awful news. I half expected them to share that someone had died. Instead, it was news that the wine shop had fired both Dan and Robbie – and that these guys who had become like family would help us no more. It took that wine shop a long time to recover – because Dan and Robbie had built a family of people who loved to shop with them. It was years before I entered its doors again.

We attempted to stay in touch with Robbie and Dan, but it was tough. Robbie battled demons – and after a while, news filtered through Gainesville that he and Dan had separated,and that Robbie had moved to a small Tennessee town where his family lived. We stayed closer to Dan - seeing him at a new wine shop he managed and having him handle the alcohol for the engagement party we threw for Dana and Nate. Later, with the wonder of Facebook, I connected again with Robbie and we’d occasionally chat online – sharing what life was like for him in a small, conservative town in Tennessee compared with my upbringing in an equally small Kentucky town. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for him – can’t imagine any places more opposite than Gainesville, Florida and a rural Tennessee town.

Late Sunday afternoon – about the time I’d gotten my head around Robbie's death – my phone rang and my cousin Carla’s name appeared on the screen. While my cousins and I have done a better job of staying in touch over the past few years, I always figure when one of them is calling, it’s not likely to be good news. And it wasn’t.

Carla was calling to share that her Mom – my Aunt Irma, the wife of my Dad’s younger brother, Cecil – had died earlier that day. Aunt Irma was one of the two relatives from my parents’ generation – either side – still alive. She was a wonderful woman – who along with Cecil raised five children, the oldest a boy who died of muscular dystrophy at a young age. The only one left now from my parents' generation is Uncle Kenny’s wife, Florence. I hope this doesn’t sound mean, but Aunt Florence usually wasn’t at family outings because she didn't feel well, and my Mom – who could be quite feisty – said on more than one occasion that even though Aunt Florence never felt well, she’d likely outlive them all. She has.

I spent the rest of that Sunday night trying to figure out how to get to Louisville for Aunt Irma’s funeral. I didn’t succeed. Thanks to the ridiculous system we have for air travel in this country, I couldn’t find a flight from New York to Louisville for less than $900 – unless you count the almost $600 flight I could take from New York to Orlando – yes Orlando – and then to Louisville. You can’t be serious!?

So, this Friday, I’ll think of my Kentucky family as they say good-bye to my Aunt Irma – and I’m sure somewhere in Tennessee, Robbie’s family will celebrate his life and send his sweet soul soaring. I hope both families will know how many people – whether there in person or scattered around the globe – will be with them in spirit, and hope and pray that their memories will provide them comfort.