I have been taking a journey down food memory lane. It’s been a very interesting journey that has shown me interesting things about why I cook the way I do. The meals I had growing up and the way my mother made them I now see had a greater influence on my cooking than I thought. There was a simplicity in her cooking that I see in my cooking. Simplicity doesn’t mean food doesn’t have a complexity of flavours, it means it’s easy to make. It means you only put in flavours that the people your cooking for like. It means you cook it in a simple way that doesn’t hide the flavour of what your cooking. This is how my mother cook and is how I cook. When I look at recipes, that my wife has me look at, immediately my mind goes to take that out, use this, sauté it rather than bake it, keep it simple. So I think the history of how are parents and grandparents cooked and the types of food they cooked is the driver in how we cook. At least with my cooking that is the case. For years I have blamed Graham Kerr for the way I cook, but in reality it was my mother. What Graham Kerr did was show me it’s fun to cook. God bless them both.
-
Archives
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- April 2013
-
Meta
How I Cook — by Graham Stewart 
I remember Graham Kerr. Everything he cooked was laden with butter, cream and wine. No wonder it tasted great!
There was one thing he made with no wine. Swiss Steak he cooked on his show without wine. It’s the first thing I ever cooked. The recipe is on my site. It had no wine because he forgot to put it in.
Grandma was a wonderful cook and influenced many of us. Thank you for sharing so many great Recipes.
Graham? Well, galloping goulash.
I remember the Galloping Gourmet and although I don’t cook anywhere like he did (wine is rarely used in my cooking) I try to make my cooking fun. My mom cooked for work though she had no input in the recipes etc so when she got home, where she had little free time for cooking for the family, her main concern was getting it done in a timely manner. And with my dad’s limited food preferences, she didn’t experiment. Cooking from scratch (few convenience foods) was a monetary necessity. I think my own cooking is a practical blend of those philosophies. 🙂
There are only a few recipes where I use wine, you can make things just as good by increasing other flavours in dishes. In gravy wine is just a waste, good gravy doesn’t need wine, it’s not a wine sauce. Graham Kerr did make somethings without wine, the Swiss Steak recipe on my blog is one of them.
I like white wine in my risotto. Beer (Guiness) in beef stew. Other than that, I pretty much don’t use wine.
Never tried Guinness in a stew. Did try to drink a Guinness at Christmas the first year our daughter and Irish son-in-law were together. Didn’t like the burnt chocolate taste, but with stew with some adjustments to flavours it could work well.
I can drink about half a pint of Guiness when it’s really COLD, however, into the 2nd half pint, as it warms up it’s harder to get down. So, I buy a can, use some for my cooking and drink the rest. 🙂
https://aboleyn01.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/guiness-beef-stew-and-french-macarons/
LOL! I couldn’t get a 1/3 of the can down even ice cold. Thankfully the Irishman drank the rest. Ginger beer I have used in pork stew and it works well, and I enjoy the beer that’s left
Ginger beer … there’s a company, Grace, that makes an amazing ginger beer. I’ve not used it in cooking but it makes a tasty drink. 🙂
https://a-boleyn.livejournal.com/153895.html
Try it in a pork stew.
My mother was a superb cook when I was young…as was her mother. But when convenience food came in she took to it with a vengeance so by the time I left home for university I was sort of on my own. Fray Bentos pies cost too much to be a staple, so when we were moved out of halls of residence into dingy flats in our second year our mixed bag of students had to shift for ourselves. We were lucky in that we were an international lot, so mums’ recipes from China, Africa and Latin America were sent for and tried to the best of our ability, having sought out ethnic markets and shops. Happy, haphazard days in the Flattleship Potemkin which engendered a frugal attitude and wide horizons when it came to food.
I loved the galloping gourmet as well. Robert Carrier also was very fond of the saturated fats and booze. Great!
Yes he was very similar. Later in life Graham Kerr cooked without the alcohol and with olive oil rather than butter. His recipes from that time are still good.