Heal the World, Cook Dinner Tonight
By: Jean Anne Feldeisen
Tags: Eating, Cooking, Family, Celebration, Food

Heal the World, Cook Dinner Tonight

Cooking with love and hope

photo courtesy of the author, cupcakes by Megan

Making mayonnaise in the rain

It was my 70th birthday and I had decided to give a party. I bought a tent, borrowed tables and chairs, and planned a menu with only food that I especially loved. My friends Don and Argy volunteered their beautiful lawn and gardens as a setting and helped with everything.

My family went to a lot of trouble moving and lifting tables and chairs, erecting tents and cooking my favorite foods. I had set out some posters that were a kind of pictorial retrospective of highlights of my life. I sent invitations to about 35 guests. I was happy about the whole thing. It was just what I wanted.

Everything was complete except for the last minute things- making mayonnaise to mix with lobster for the lobster salad. Painting my toenails. Setting out the glassware on the bar, buying and chilling the beer. Just a few last-minute things.

Unfortunately, it was raining. Not just a polite occasional shower, though there were some of those. Most of it was a hard, right-down-your-neck, driving kind of rain. And things were not going smoothly in the kitchen.

I broke the bright orange yolks into the bowl of the food processor, added dry mustard and salt and began slowly adding the oil. My processor lid has a little circular plastic piece with a small hole for precisely this purpose, adding the 2 cups of extra virgin Spanish olive oil in a thin stream. I had done it countless times before. While waiting for the oil to fall through and create a lovely emulsified mass of yellow mayonnaise, I chopped the cold lobster into bite-sized chunks, minced the celery very fine and sliced the chives I’d picked from Cara’s herb beds this morning. I was stressed since I had a number of things to do and I was worried about the rain. Could we have the party in the rain? Would the tents leak? Would people stay home?

And the mayonnaise didn’t work. Knowing how to fix the situation, I poured the, pretty- gross- looking, oil and eggs into a pitcher and started again in a bowl with another yolk and a whisk. I whisked and whisked, changed to a bigger bowl, a bigger whisk, and beat until my arms and my patience gave out. I put what I’d gotten so far into the processor again and allowed it to start dripping through. By the end, nothing had changed. Not an emulsion to be found. I had told myself we could use Hellmanns mayonnaise, it would be ok, if that was what worked best. But, I was still a little disappointed.

I had the inspiration to take my none-emulsified mixture up to the big house and see if my granddaughter, Lindsey, had time to fool with it. I knew she was in the middle of making garlic knots for the party. But maybe she could help. I’d seen her spend a lot of time whipping up egg whites or mayonnaise by hand before and perhaps she had the patience I was lacking today.

I went off to do the several errands I needed to do. A few hours later, she texted me a picture of a bowl filled with gold: “it’s looking better”. Then, later, “Success”. She says she had added another egg and yolk and some more mustard and spent 45 minutes carefully whipping them together. Thank you, Lindsey.

The mayonnaise was beautiful. Because of all the extra yolks, already bright orange because the chickens were free ranging it up, the mayonnaise was nicely golden yellow. I adjusted the seasoning, added it to the lobster with celery and chives, a bit more lemon juice, some white pepper, and garnished it for serving. Then into a cooler with plenty of ice below and above it until serving time.

Everything went well, the food arrived and was enjoyed. Most of the guests came despite the rain and we had fun crammed together in the tent, occasionally making forays to the beverage bar for more drinks. Coming back dripping wet, laughing.

The lobster salad was delicious, and nobody believed Lindsey had made the mayonnaise. “You made your own mayonnaise?” Of course, that’s what we do.

Heal the world, cook dinner tonight

The title of this chapter is borrowed from my bumper sticker. I appreciate the advertising campaign of the Penzeys Spice Company. They send these and similar messages as bumper stickers and mugs and tea towels along with every order of spices, encouraging people to cook, to share food with family and friends and hope to heal our troubled world, one meal at a time. I appreciate this philosophy and the Penzeys company for their efforts to make things better.

I thought I’d end this series with a quotation from the introduction to the 1949 edition of The Lily Wallace New American Cookbook. This message from the seventy-year-old cookbook is still relevant today. (The highlights are mine)

Through all the centuries of recorded history food has played a leading role as the motivating force behind great events. Arable lands, where foods could be cultivated or livestock grazed, have been the chief prize sought by all great, warring leaders of nations and men.

Other great, historical figures, who achieved similar victories in the realm of diplomacy, employed, food, sumptuously and lavishly prepared and served, to add persuasiveness to their arguments. A dinner, banquet, or feast has almost always been a leading feature of any meeting, conference, or gathering where great decisions, often affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people, have been made.

So, too, can food be used by every clever homemaker to influence persons and events which can enrich the happiness of a home and its’ members. Good meals, attractively served, go a long way toward keeping the family together. Those with a tendency to stray will spend more time in homes where every meal is an event to look forward to. Fine family dinners, where exquisite aroma and savor bring a general feeling of content and good humor, provide exactly the right background for the younger members of the family who are at the age when they are seeking partners with whom to make new homes. And, when those homes are made, the new homemakers with naturally emulate, as far as possible, the finest things in the homes they left. It is unquestionably true that the manner of living of many persons today has been directly influenced by the well-prepared and properly served meals in the homes of ancestors, long forgotten. And, traveling with time in the other direction, it is highly probable that the lives of children, whose grandparents may be yet unborn, will be influenced by the meals being served in many homes today.

My philosophy

While I don’t agree with Lily Wallace in everything, it seems important to me to cook well and to feed myself, my family and friends the best I can offer. As a caterer and professional baker I saw the difference it made to buy fresh high quality ingredients and make most of my foods from scratch.

While I sometimes use a frozen pizza crust for a quick dinner, I know how easy it is to make my own dough and generally do. I do use a commercial mayonnaise but for special occasions it is worth it to make my own.

It’s all about standards, I guess. I respect the raw ingredients I use — often dairy from our cows, vegetables, and herbs from our gardens or neighbors’ gardens, meat from our pigs and chickens — and resent that there are preservatives and fillers and emulsifiers and stabilizers thrown in for some reason when I don’t need them. I try to make my own, whatever it is.

I cook hopefully: hoping I can eat something delicious and feel satisfied and nourished myself, hoping to share food with family or friends, hoping to please, excite, inspire, comfort. Cooking keeps me going, giving me pleasure and purpose. I hope that my efforts are one small step toward healing.

photo courtesy of the author

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