Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Bound for Mom ~ The Roadside Cafe ~Mom's Cooking

The Bound for Mom blogging mini-series Carnival, hosted by geneabloggers.

The theme? The Roadside Café: “Was your Mom a great or inventive cook? Or perhaps cooking wasn’t her forte. No matter, gather up tales of food in your family and how Mom turned out great meals . . . or how she was an expert at dinner reservations!”

My Mom is an amazing cook…I have wonderful memories of many traditional German meals.

I grew up eating Mom’s German Pancakes, they are to die for, my daughter and grandchildren are hooked too! . Rarely do I eat them now as an adult, even though my Mom only lives about and hour and a half away from me. We get together mostly on holidays and birthday’s but whenever we do, she is expected to make her German Pancakes and there we are all sitting there with fork in hand starring at her!

They are extremely fattening, but you don’t care, you just keep eating them. They are as thin as a crepe, just add your favorite topping (sugar, jam or whipped topping) as you like. I always sprinkled sugar on them, rolled them like a burrito and they would disappear in seconds! Frequently we would devour no less the 3 in one sitting.

My husband likes to place a thin layer of jam with whipped topping in the center, roll them up and then destroy them and the kids all drown them with just lots of sugar. It’s a tradition whenever we spend the night at her home and especially on Christmas morning! She just knows how to make them perfectly.

Holiday dinner is always a roast, most of the time a pork roast with homemade potato balls. She uses a ricer and forms the balls and then boils them. Her gravy is second to none and over the potato balls is so incredible. She also makes a mean Sauerkraut with the traditional applesauce on the side.

Next to the German Pancakes, my all time childhood favorite is her Marble pound cake made from scratch! I only wish she could make you all one, so that you could taste what I mean! I have tried making it myself, but… it’s just not the same. She has no written recipe, she just knows, she estimates the ingredients and it comes out perfect. Getting it into a recipe form would be difficult because she measures by weighing the ingredients in German and I don’t read German. I have told her repeatedly that we need to get the recipe on paper so that we are able to pass it on to our descendants (of course my reasons are a little selfish, I want to be able to make it and enjoy it when I want too!).


My Oma, (that’s “grandmother” in German) is my mom’s mother, she is also an awesome cook and obviously my mom learned from her. She would always make me chocolate bread with Peppermint Tea on the side, occasionally sneaking me some Peppermint Schnapps and told me, “It’s a good way to settle your tummy”.

My Mom worked full time and then some, but loved to put dinners together in our home for our friends and family. I don’t have a clue how she did it so cool and calmly! The meals were delicious and the presentation was incredible. To this day she puts on Teas, dinners, luncheons and brunches enjoying each and every minute of it. It’s what she loves to do…she was Martha Stewart before Martha Stewart.

There are a ton of verbal recipes and meals I could write about, but the bottom line is that my mom is a wonderful cook and my memories of her in the kitchen baking and teaching me are extraordinary. Cooking was a big family tradition, a part of her and her love for us. I feel very fortunate that I was a part of her and for those memories she provided me and hopefully I can carry on with some of those traditions. The German Pancakes and sauerkraut I now have down to a science!

4 comments:

Terri said...

Great article - you sure made me hungry!

Greta Koehl said...

Pancakes, sauerkraut ... I'm so hungry now. Wonderful descriptions!

Gini said...

Terri, Greta, Sheela, I think we should all get together and have my mom cook us some of those meals! Now I am hungry!! Thank you for commenting, it's good to hear from all of you.

Linda Hughes Hiser said...

It's early morning and you are making me HUNGRY. Did you learn her secrets and when can I come over to eat!!! LOL Thank you for sharing.