My mother was international enough that I thought myself urbane. But I discovered Polish food in university and thought I was being pranked, and Thai food and thought I'd been being tortured by living without it. But she was good--outside of wherever we were living and always J'can, she was diligent about her Italian, Chinese, Greek, French, Spanish, American, Mexican, and a touch of Japanese. And then there's be theme weeks like West African (no rice, what???) and the like. She cooks what I call "food" and the rest is "ethnic". But I think she would cook most anything if there's the right level of challenge (a little, not a lot--new food is fine, time is okay, hard work is for holidays. So I'm sure I missed shit because I was 12 and not taking notes other than "okay, so ratatouille is lasagne with different food, and baklava tastes better with cheese and spinach" (because that's how I filed stuff at 12).

She never baked bread, though, which I thought was weird. When I started she said she'd never been able to get it right, and I was startled "It's an experiment with reactants! How can you do your job and not grow a bit of yeast in the kitchen???"

I'm sorry, -t! I wasn't thinking.

Even chinese was exotic where I grew up! We didn't have much in the way of chinese takeout. Every variety of NMican cuisine, a couple italian places...that was it, outside of standard american and some health-hippy stuff. Now, they have thai and mongolian and plenty of cheap chinese takeout. There was at least a couple indian places, but not sure how they've fared. One was really good, too.

I'm not so confrontation avoidant that I can't yell at the kid knocking trash cans into the alley as he danced home. 'Seriously?! Go put them back' 'Yes ma'am, sorry ma'am.' slinks back and rights them. 'Thank you!'

I was just thinking that my phone has been ringing off the hook, and I wonder how long people will keep saying "ringing off the hook," once there are no hooks!

Heh. Your mother and I have similarities in how we cook. One of the reasons I rate myself a "good" rather than "excellent" is that I am not a good baker. (The other reason is, other the special occasions, I won't put more than a certain amount of work into cooking, and will take all sorts of shortcuts to save labor, even when not taking the shortcut would make a better meal. Most of what I do cook gets favorable comments, but I get away with it mainly because I'm being graded on a curve by people who don't really know cooking basics.

Oh and a separate post - Fuck Cancer. Sadly that is always in order.

My mother can and will kick the ass out of cakes and pies (short crust pastry only), but considers bread and other pastries too fiddly to do from scratch, whereas I prefer that fiddle to decanting a cake from a complex mold (god, our birthday cakes were...we were the cool kids in our own heads, even if she had also sewn our dresses. No, BECAUSE).

Even chinese was exotic where I grew up!

My mother's food was exotic where we grew up. Just not in her kitchen. I can't remember going to a "restaurant" other than maybe a Chinese, or a KFC or a very late Pizza Hut before we left--places that served Jamaican food were just, you know, food. I don't think I knew anyone eating fufu but us, but my mother wanted to give stuff a go.

I love baking, but in each new house, I have to relearn the stove which sucks. There are plenty of things I make once just to see if I can (all dim sum falls in this category, as does macaroons and many tortes). Then there are things I make repeatedly that are also fussy.

I got dim sum from the local Chinese place, and it was all very fishy scallops (which I usually love the most).

Sorry about Sleepy Hollow in here, I have no idea why I thought I was in Boxed Set earlier.