My father was a foodie, a farmer, an engineer, a conservationist. It feels strange to say “was” because it wasn’t very long ago he was instructing me on how to make wine, telling me “no, no, not like that!” (He was teaching me to hold the siphon steady when racking the wine so that it didn’t stir up the sediment.) It seems like just yesterday (and simultaneously a lifetime ago) that we were talking about how he wanted to go out for Mexican food. And he and I were splitting a beer on the deck with the birds and the trees, and Mom, of course, at his side. That was his last taste of beer. I can’t even begin to describe how much I miss him.
While we didn’t “go out” for Mexican food that night, my dad did order Mexican food on his last trip home the next day. We stopped on the drive home to pick it up. I helped him walk back to the bathroom in the Mexican restaurant. Dad and I then shared a mandarin orange outside in the sunshine while mom waited for them to package up all the food he had ordered. I am so, so glad he decided to do that on this particular trip home. We had no idea at the time that this trip home would be his last.
After we picked up the food, Dad chatted about how he and mom always stopped at this Mexican place whenever they went to this town to do their shopping. He had fond memories of the people, the place, the festive atmosphere. He told me how he and my mom could eat there for $10 because of course they split a meal. Mom’s a light eater and typically had just a bit of dad’s meal as her entire meal.
Making Mexican Food with/for Dad
Over the years, we made a LOT of Mexican food. Dad taught me his blender salsa recipe which I adapted oh so many ways. He also taught me how to ferment salsa, a trick he learned from my sister. The grilled zucchini corn salsa was one I made for mom and dad for fish tacos that we all loved. Of course the tomatoes, peppers, onions all came from the garden. It was also tradition for me to bring dirty queso for EVERY family gathering. The meat in the queso was ALWAYS ground venison from the hunt. My dad absolutely loved to hunt!
Let’s not forget the guac! My dad adored guacamole and pretty much always had several ripe avocados on hand. We sometimes added garden veggies to the guac, like with this asparagus guacamole. Mom and Dad have a HUGE asparagus bed, so this was a great way to “stretch” the avocado and use up some of the abundance of asparagus (or spinach).
As a teenager and into college, I worked at ChiChi’s Mexican Restaurant and of course, mom and dad would visit me at work. One of the favorite dishes from ChiChi’s was their seafood enchiladas. My dad called me one day, many many years afterwards and told me he had figured out how to copy the ChiChi’s seafood enchilada recipe. I was intrigued and of course had to try them myself! They were amazing.
We made and shared many other Mexican meals as well: tamales, fiesta hash, quesadillas, breakfast burritos and lots and lots of tacos!
- Copycat ChiChi’s Seafood Enchiladas
- Copycat Qdoba Taco Meat
- Heart Healthy Tamales
- Avocado Black Bean Fiesta Hash
- Chipotle Fish Tacos with Mango Salsa
- Tasty Lentil Tacos
- Beef & Bean Taco Cups
- New Mexican Breakfast Burritos
The funny thing is of all the Mexican dishes we made, aside from breakfast burritos, we rarely made burritos. Yet when we went out for Mexican food, Dad pretty much ALWAYS ordered a burrito.
Dad’s Bread
Dad’s mother was a foodie too. Gramma was an amazing bread baker. Everyone absolutely RAVED about her buns. When I was little, she taught me how to shape a bun. And she passed down her bread karma to her son (my dad). My father made such wonderful bread. He showed me how he did it … and I am eternally grateful to have at least a couple of his bread recipes recorded for posterity.
- Dad’s No-Knead Sourdough French Bread – crusty on the outside with tender bubbles inside
- My Dad’s Awesome Yogurt Bread – so soft and fluffy!
Meals and Gardening with Dad
We shared countless amazing meals together. We were constantly scanning for the most amazing breakfast recipes. Then while we were enjoying breakfast, we were planning lunch. As we ate lunch, we were contemplating dinner. We made pies and cakes and all sorts of amazing desserts too. It was an endless happy conversation centered on food.
The food supply was endless as well. My parents always planted a huge garden. The soil at their home is that rich, black, fertile soil: every gardener’s envy. So we always had too much of everything. We called it “the land of plenty”. I would often return from my parents’ home in summer or fall with my car completely loaded with produce.
My dad invented a garden trick he called “the Quad”. It was four tomato plants planted together so that it would seem like the four different color tomatoes all came from the same plant. He got the seeds for the four colored baby tomatoes from a multi-color pack he bought at the store. The Quad was hugely successful and he planted me a quad for several years! This pushed me to learn how to oven dry my tomatoes – but lately, I’ve been drying them in a dehydrator. Dad called the dried tomatoes “flavor bombs” and loved to use them in dishes like dirty rice.
Alas I have no “quad” this year. I bought a couple different color cherry tomato plants so I just have a duo, I guess. Maybe next year we can recreate the Quad. This is a photo of the Quad in my garden taken in 2022:
Dad’s Lasagna … and Moussaka!
Many times when the whole family was coming to visit, my dad would get up early and make lasagna from scratch. He made his own homemade whole wheat noodles using the pasta machine I gave him. He cooked up ground venison that of course he (or someone in the family) had hunted and then cured, butchered, ground and packaged. The sauce would be the homemade marinara that he and mom made with tomatoes, peppers and onions from their own garden.
He often added mushrooms (that they had “hunted” in the forest), spinach or whatever fresh garden veggies they had on hand. He spent all day making his lasagna for us. It was definitely a labor of love. And it always tasted SO good! Everyone in the family just loved it. I regret that I don’t have his recipe (it would be a very LONG recipe if I did!) but I did do a post with my own take on Dad’s Lasagna, using eggplant as the noodles. You can always substitute store-bought lasagna noodles … or homemade noodles if you’re up to it!
Earlier memories, back to my childhood days, are filled with Dad’s Moussaka. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Moussaka is the Greek cousin to lasagna. I have no idea how Moussaka came to be one of Dad’s favorite dishes, but he made it many, many times for our family. Moussaka is a lovely layered dish with eggplant and/or potatoes in place of noodles, Greek spiced meaty tomato sauce, and topped with a creamy bechamel sauce.
When we were kids, we didn’t like eggplant, so we’d beg my dad to make it with zucchini instead, which of course he did, just for us. Later in life I learned to love the eggplant version. Either way, it’s absolutely delicious. My version of Moussaka uses a simplified sauce on top. Dad always made the white sauce. I tried to convince him to try it my way, but he kept on doing it his way. That’s just how he was. He had his own way of doing things.
When I made moussaka for dad, I always included included a layer of potatoes. Dad loved his potatoes, especially purple potatoes, which of course he grew. And he told me that purple potatoes have as many antioxidants as blueberries!
I’ve blogged several versions of Moussaka over the years:
- Mmmmm Moussaka!
- Garden Harvest Moussaka
- Mushroom Mixed Bean Meatless Moussaka
- Spinach Mushroom Eggplant Lasagna
Carrot Cake and an Interesting Riff by Dad
Earlier in my life, I used to travel to Tennessee for work and on one of those trips, I picked up a copy of the Jack Daniels Cookbook. On later trips back, I got that cookbook for several people in our family. In that cookbook, there is a recipe for Jack Daniels Carrot Cake. That cake became a family favorite, with our own twists on it, of course. Dad and I each had our own way of making it and as always there was a lively debate about whose version was better. Dad liked to use raisins in his carrot cakes, but he would always plump the raisins in the whiskey before adding them to the cake. I am not a fan of raisins in general, but I have to admit, his version definitely rivaled my cake (which used pineapple instead of raisins).
This recipe took on a whole new life one day when my mom and dad had a bunch of green tomatoes that fell off the plant. Dad had been reading and decided he wanted to make a green tomato cake. He had apparently already tried this with not-so-great results before I arrived (as my mother reminded him). But he had thought about it more and when I arrived at their house, he told me about the green tomato cake. I was very skeptical, but as he talked about it more and told me his plan to convert our favorite carrot cake recipe, I said to him, “well then, let’s bake a cake”. So we did. It was so fun because (as usual) he was right and it turned out AH-Mazing! The green tomatoes add a tart twist to the cake that is just delightful!
Here are links to both the carrot cake and the whiskey green tomato cake:
I have countless other food memories with Dad. We cooked together often and it was always such a joy to share the joy of cooking and food with him. We had some very lively debates on the best techniques. When I became a mom and my children were little, these “debates” sounded more like fights to my kids. But they learned that these heated discussions were all in fun.
We also made wine and mead together. I always relied on him to tell me what to do and there were certain parts that he always took care of. When my parents asked if there was anything of theirs that I wanted, I told my dad I wanted his wine-making equipment, but I wanted him to teach me how to do it myself before he died. He followed through on that promise, even towards the end of his life when it took all his energy just to walk downstairs to the wine-making room.
I hope you enjoyed this little food tribute to my father. Nothing can begin to fill the hole in my heart that he has left, but I’ll always cherish the memories we shared.
2 comments
Wonderful!!!!
Thank you, Julie!