Part of any great blog is the 2 way conversation that comes with it. To inspire more conversation Knickerbocker Glory will host a blog series called “Food Moments and Other Take Out”. This series will include stories from our readers and other contributors.
The following post was written by Daniel R. Daniel is a practicing physician in Chicago, Illinois.
Lists
Some of my favorite food memories are, in a sense, tangible memories- a growing pile of lists of ingredients, dishes and prep work for what I’ve considered ‘major meals’ that I have hosted in my home over the years. Yes, lists.
Parts of them are type written, some hand written, they contain plenty of scratch outs, arrows, exclamation marks, question marks. I’ve kept them all. It wasn’t a conscious effort initially. I would randomly find these lists stuffed in a cookbook or a folder long after the occasion had passed. And then I started saving them on purpose. Remembering the process of creating these meals is an incredible trip down memory lane. Looking back over these lists also give me a sense of pride and fulfillment- I am by no means a culinary professional but, by and large, the meals have been pretty tasty with only a few (cough) glitches.
What are some of these meals? After moving back to Chicago in 2007, I started the tradition of having friends over for New Year’s Eve dinner. For each year’s meal, I’ve started planning the multi-course meal by scouring recipes (thank you Bon Appetit, thank you Martha, thank you many, many more), making lists of eligible dishes, crossing off contenders deemed ineligible or not cohesive with the rest of the entries. Then there are the shopping lists, notes of where in the city I’ll be getting my fresh ingredients, and the hourly schedule of when to get things in and out of the oven, all synchronized so that everyone can eat a (mostly) hot meal, from appe’s to dessert.
For the first time, in 2011, I hosted my whole family for Thanksgiving. I still have the menu, shopping list, and of course side bar goodies-for-my-nephew shopping list. All of them. They’re a source of inspiration and motivation to keep up the creativity for the next meal. I look over those lists, remember the food, remember the errors I made in the trial and prep phase in the days prior, and most importantly remember the friends and family that all of the lists helped bring together.
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