The Dinner Essays - Part 1

 

Who were you in the 90s?  I was a young bride straight out of college, starting out with my half-French husband and about $250 between us. We worked and pinched our pennies between the two of us until we finally hit the $800 mark on the wall chart, meaning we could now go to France to visit his family there. On the plane, my husband explained the one rule I could not break: eat a little of everything – it’s culturally important. His family there, nine aunties, one uncle, and many cousins took me in, despite my complete lack of ability to say more than, “merci”. They treated me with a warmth and respect that grounded me right into our new marriage. While terrified of what I might have to eat, what I experienced there was an entirely different food culture.  I cannot ever forget my first baguette, warm from the Paris ovens, the golden-rich butter, or the delicate Parisian ham. Even the simplest of foods were packed full of flavors. The Comte cheese blew apart my whole world, what was this?  I went to France a picky eater, and came back transformed.

It inspired me to learn to cook and bake. 

I had a husband working in a new IT field, little kids, and a starter house with a cheap mortgage.  It was the dream. I sat and nursed my babies and watched HGTV and PBS to educate me on my new food obsessions: Martha Stewart, Ina Garten, Rachael Ray, and Alton Brown.  The options were limitless and the information was available everywhere on an internet that was still new.

What’s for dinner? That became a fun experiment that left us with some great classic family recipes.  I thought I had it all figured out.

Read the Full Essay on Substack

https://open.substack.com/pub/mytreehousekitchen/p/the-dinner-essays-part-1?r=88wfpn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true