Cooking for Someone Special...

Out of all the people I have fed or prepared food for, the most intriguing has been my husband, Charles.  The poor guy is the guinea pig of my cooking and testing...but it turns out he likes more things than he thought he did!

Me and Charles

One day we had a conversation on the food that we grew up with, and he told me his fondest memories of his mother cooking homemade biscuits every night to go with the fried pork chops and pintos, or meatloaf with tomato topping and mashed potatoes.  So I felt like it was my calling to reproduce these meals that were obviously so near and dear to his heart.  Preparing meals for Charles in the same way his mother used to, who is now deceased, fulfills my passion to share my love for food with the ones I love.

We both agreed that I will never be able to reproduce these meals exactly the way she did...her hands were so different from mine, and I don't own the wooden "biscuit bowl" that she used to make those lovely, rounded top biscuits.

But I sure was going to try...

The smells and sounds in my warm kitchen while I cooked the fried porkchops reminded Charles of times when he himself would prepare this meal down at the old white house he was raised in.  He pointed to a burn scar on his hand where the grease popped and burned him.  To him, and I guess to just about every home cook, a "fried" pork chop is dusted in flour and seasoned with "just salt and pepper,"  and then fried in a cast iron frying pan.  The smile on his face reminded me of why I love to touch someone's heart through food.