Buttermilk cornmeal pancakes for supper. They came out good! I was kind of craving cornbread, but I don’t really like the mouthfeel or the way it crumbles when you try to butter it (mine does, anyway). My usual buttermilk pancake recipe does have a touch of cornmeal in it, but not enough to really notice it. I like this new recipe I found. It has only slightly more AP wheat flour than cornmeal, but came out lighter than I expected. The taste was midway between a buttermilk pancake and cornbread—a perfect balance IMO
(I did not cook them in bacon grease as the recipe recommends. Just canola oil. I used High Lysine cornmeal.)
In Japanese, we have the expression 猫舌 (literally “cat tongue”), which refers to a person who cannot eat hot food (hot as in temperature; it has nothing to do with spiciness). I am afraid that I too have a cat’s tongue, but I love ramen. It’s a struggle…
My mum died a few weeks ago after a two year fight with leukaemia and while we don’t have any elderflower wine or anything similar, she taught me most of what I know about food.
When we were growing up every Christmas her grandmother made traditional shortbread and what the grandkids called “twirly shortbread” - made with a mix of rice flour (not the course ground rice) and plain flour, a lot of butter and piped into beautiful swirls. They practically dissolve in your mouth and are amazing. My grandmother and later mum made them too, and all made them the same. They’ve always been a part of my life.
Dad was caring for mum at home for the last two-plus years, and it was her ultimately successful wish to die at home. As he cared for her he started filling her sleeping hours with preparing whatever kinds of food he thought she might like, including picking up her recipes for twirly shortbread and traditional shortbread as well. He’s been making them ever since, and the sense of connection and continuity has somehow kept me tethered. He’s also extended his repertoire with cardamom and maple syrup-flavoured shortbread and … wow, for a man who rarely cooked outside of the BBQ three years ago he’s nailed it.
I gave her eulogy two weeks ago today, and after sharing a draft my sister edited it from “she gave both her children a love of food and cooking” to “she gave both of us a love of food and at least one of us a love of cooking” , so I think I’m going to have to learn to make twirly shortbread, at the very least to teach it to one of my kiddos, or a niece or nephew.
I know this is a food thread and a weird place to unload but @robertmckenna’s comment got me started, and food was always such an important part of family for me. Whenever mum and dad would come back from Europe, North Africa or Syria, dad would speak at length about Roman ruins they’d visited while mum remembered every meal and would try her best to recreate them (and then be critical of her own efforts). Sometimes months later she’d invite us for dinner and say something like “I realised it was preserved lemon!”, and then she’d be satisfied.
Inheritable and shared culture is the closest (and maybe the best way) we get to immortality, and food is such an important part of that.
I miss mum but I know she’ll be alive whenever I or any of my family eat twirly shortbread.
Good call! When I get it I’ll post it. I’ll have to wait a couple of weeks until I’m in Brisbane to make it though (I also want to make it and post photos) - our stand mixer is there and from memory there’s extreme creaming of butter and sugar.
It’s Saturday night and I was desperate for something new. So I made egg sambal (recipe here), which turned out to be fantastic. The tomato in the sambal meant it was very wet in the wok and took a long time to cook down until the oil showed but it was worth every moment. This is one of those dishes you know is ready when your eyes start watering.
Served with broccolini with veg oyster sauce and jasmine rice.
, so I think I’m going to have to learn to make twirly shortbread, at the very least to teach it to one of my kiddos, or a niece or nephew.
