February 1st, 2010

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It's no surprise that I love to cook and bake because I got a great start. I literally began my life in a basket by my mom's side in the kitchen. Mom loved to make everything from scratch and she could make anything — sometimes for 5, sometimes for 50 — and to her, the whole point of making something to eat was to make it taste good.  Let me tell you, Mom's homemade, melt in your mouth, hot out of the oven bread  slathered with real golden butter was legendary.  Keep in mind that Mom started baking bread 60 years ago, long before anyone had even heard of the word cholesterol, and she baked bread until she died at the age of 80 so I'm not convinced cholesterol ever affected her, and it sure never changed her way of cooking or baking.  Nor was a piece of anything ever too big.  In fact, Mom made the biggest pies you've ever seen on huge aluminum sheet pans, and just like her bread, her apple pies were to die for.  No one could ever wait for her pies to cool and set, we just cut sinful hunks the size of dinner plates and devoured them scalding hot with the carmelized sugar still dripping.  Heavenly!

My mom was the most generous giving person I've ever known, and she was in her glory when she was sharing her talent for baking and cooking with others.  It was a common occurrence to come home from school and find Mom in the kitchen with 20 or so wives and mothers, teaching them how to make bread or chicken soup or even "pirogis," stuffed dumplings from her Polish heritage.

In keeping with Mom's generosity, I'd like to share some of my favorite recipes with you and if you ever get a chance to come to sunny southern California, I'd love to have coffee and show you how to bake bread too!

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