Saturday Suppers

I come from a long line of kick ass bakers.  I’ve acquired my kick ass baking skills honestly and naturally as I inherited the baking gene from my mother and both my grandmothers and their mothers before them.

Some of my fondest childhood memories revolve around baking – learning to bake Italian cookies wearing one of my mom’s aprons as she prompted me to frost quickly before the cookies cooled;  weekends at my Nana’s baking cookies and cakes for Nana and her girlfriends who regularly gathered around Nana’s kitchen table for coffee and endless hours of girl talk; baking German chocolate cake for my grandfather; rushing home from school on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the house filled with the aromas of my mother’s pie baking – apple, pumpkin, pecan, mincemeat for Grampy, blueberry, chocolate cream; learning to make Nana Brown’s chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting that was always served with my Dad’s memories of his mother, who died when I was only two years old.

Recently, my dear friend Sam “sammylynngirl” challenged me to blog about baking – her argument being that in my bio I claim to be a kick ass baker.  Now, she knows this to be true but my readers do not know whether this is true or just my self-inflated imaginings.  I need to show it to them through my blog postings, Sam argued.  I believe I whined something about being the only person left on the planet who takes people at face value believing them until proven otherwise.

Okay so not so recently, sometimes it takes me time to get out of my own way.  You do know I have perfected the art of procrastination. However, Sam and I did have this conversation sometime around the end of last year.  At the time, I had been toying with the idea of starting a blog feature about my adventures with cooking.   I would classify myself as a tentative cook, I am cautious and rely totally on recipes.  I envy the cook who can open the refrigerator and pick out a bunch of ingredients and create a dish.  That is not the type of cook I am or ever imagine being, but I would like to develop my skills and confidence while at the same time writing about my kitchen victories and mishaps.  It is a feature that I am calling Saturday Suppers – I am going to start out slow and post two Saturdays per month about my adventures in the kitchen – both cooking and baking.