Blame It On The Dill

Memories are the multitude of threads that weave together the tapestry of our lives. I have many food memories, and since cooking and baking are are two of my passions, it is fitting for me to tell the story of the food that has both nourished my senses and filled me with memories that are linked to the people who shared their cooking skills and recipes with me.

Soups are one of my favorite things to make. I grew up on a small dairy farm in SE Colorado. Along with milk cows, we raised pigs and chickens. One of my favorite food memories is chicken noodle soup, made with an old stewing hen. Once a chicken was well past the egg laying stage, my mother dispatched it with a wring of the neck; dunking the feathered chicken in boiling water and singing pin feathers over the burning barrel, are also experiences tied to the memory of chicken soup. These old hens need stewed for a long time for them to become tender. This was sometimes done in a pressure cooker, or for hours on top of the stove, while other farm work was tended to. The result of the “stewing” created an unction to the broth that is difficult to replicate these days. Hand-made egg noodles, or sometimes dumplings were added at the end. And if there was any leftover mashed potatoes that could be spooned in the bowl first, that was really something special. The four of us kids had lots of adventures on the farm, plus a little hard work, including how to milk cows by hand. The farm is perched on a gentle slope, not too far from the Arkansas River, where it is narrow, but grows into a mighty river by the time it reaches the Mississippi. Just up the road, sits a one-room school that I attended for first grade. A bus picked us up the next year for the thirteen-mile drive to town; schools were consolidated and the one-room school became a community center.

Although the weather is unusually balmy for the first week of December, I haven’t let that stop me from making soup today. There were sprouting potatoes and a lonely piece of ham in the freezer that needed used. I like for the ingredients to speak for themselves, so keeping it simple, I added a little butter to the pan, followed by chopped onion and smeared garlic, then chicken broth, cubed potatoes, chopped ham, broken green beans (my favorite vegetable). After the potatoes were soft, I used a masher to break them up, which makes the soup creamer. But It wouldn’t be “chowder” without a little milk and cream to get the right consistency. Then it needed something to give it that “something, something”, dried dill weed. Using dill in soups is an ingredient I only recently discovered when I ate the shrimp and corn chowder at Cajun Phatty’s near me. After several meals there, I finally realized it was the generous amount of dill in their soup that made it so exceptional. That soup is number one on my list of favorite restaurant soups here in town.

The soup memories aren’t the only memories in the feature photo: The Christmas mats were given to me by my quilting friend, Lynn. We share lots of memories, from our many years of working together, but also the numerous hours we quilt together (she is a talented longarm quilter). We both like birds and gardening, and we have traveled many miles together; some of them long highways, but many of them winding backroads.

The bowl the soup is served in is a lovely little carnival glass bowl from my mother. I will never have adequate time to list all the ways my mother influenced my enjoyment of cooking, as well as a love for the most important things in life – faith and family and friends.

The cereal spoon is engraved with my daughter Jennifer’s name. It was a promotional gift from Post Cereal for sending in collected box tops when she was somewhere around eleven. She was surprised that I still have it. My children are very important to me. I am proud of the people they have become and the joy they bring into my life. Then there are the two kids who hang out with me after school a couple of days a week who keep things fun.

The tiny clear snowman is from Russia, a gift from my dear friend Christine (Christy). She traveled to Russia and Siberia in 1997 with a group of school kids. I once had an extensive collection of snowmen, but somewhere along the way, I decided to give them all away, except for this little guy. He is my favorite and reminds me of the friendship of someone who had traveled halfway around the world with me to SE Asia – more than once, and has stuck by me through thick and thin.

The dill seed flower reminds me of the trial and error experiences with my new greenhouse this year. I have a lot to learn, but one thing for sure, herbs and flowers love to be in there. I am already looking at seed catalogs as I hope for spring.

Walking down this Memory Lane today, I realize there are many more memories I want to share in the days to come. With all that is going on in the world, 2020, I am thankful for recollections that have sustained me and even guided me into the person I have become. If it be my lot in life, there may yet be more memories to weave into my tapestry.