People always ask me if I cooked as a child in mom’s restaurant and are surprised when I say no. I did cook with mom at home on the weekends in our kitchen but in the restaurant, I only remember drying the silverware, that is all she would have me do!
Actually, Mom didn’t physically cook in the restaurant kitchen either, they were her recipes but she never cooked. Mom had 20-30 people to prep and a kitchen manager. I never saw my mom cooking in the kitchen at the restaurant. She had the bakers, vegetable people, meat people… from my recollection, she never cooked in the kitchen. She would create recipes, she would do that at home but never cooked them.
One thing Mom was famous for besides her cooking was her back scratching. She would go over to her customers, touch them, and scratch their back. People loved that from mom but they also knew that especially at lunch time, a backscratch also mean’t it was time to go. Funny, years later I find myself also reaching out to my customers in a similar way.
In the past few weeks there has been lots going on. I have been thinking a lot about mom as I’m writing the blog and recently in the Farmhouse I am signing my mom’s cookbook…. to have 3 woman asking me to sign my mother’s cookbook…. it amazes me. Someone asked me for my red pepper soup recipe the other day and I realized I just kind of put things together. I was able to give her the ingredients but don’t really have the amounts written down.
It still seems weird to me that people ask these things.
…….it even makes me think of my own cookbook one day!