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Gold'N Musings
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Wednesday, 18 November 2009 20:50 |
By Nancy Backas
I take a lot for granted. I came from a loving, accepting home. I always knew that my education would be paid for. Not only was there always food on my table, but it was good food.
I had a typical, middle class upbringing in a suburb of Chicago. I chose to move to the city to experience more diversity than I had while growing up. I was able to choose where I wanted to live. I am more than fortunate.
As caterers, we often work for people with means. Because of our liberal, progressive political leanings, we are grateful when those people with means are also fellow progressives. In fact, a number of our clients are dedicated humanitarians and we often contribute a portion of what receive to those causes that our clients support.
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Gold'N Musings
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Tuesday, 03 November 2009 05:12 |
By Nancy Backas
Despite the fact that I was a home economics major in college, I have not been much of a homemaker type. I found my group of rebel/misfits in the home ec department at the University of Illinois, all of us from the big city. Most of the other women majoring in foods and nutrition were country girls who grew up in 4-H clubs raising sheep and pigs and entering canning contests.
Foods classes in college were scientific and learning about the chemistry of food was my favorite part of the curriculum. We did not learn how to can or to make pies and cakes worthy of blue ribbons at the county fair. In fact, we didn’t really learn how to cook at all. It wasn’t until I went to culinary school ten years later that I really learned how to cook.
So when I became intrigued about learning how to put up fruits and vegetables last year, it was a totally new thing. I’m sure my grandmothers both were proficient at canning at some point in their lives, but they were city women, too, and I never saw them canning food.
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Gold'N Musings
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Friday, 16 October 2009 20:24 |
By Nancy Backas
I really love grilled cheese sandwiches. I know it hearkens back to my childhood in the early sixties when mom made the typical fare of the day: grilled cheese made with Kraft American Cheese on Pepperidge Farm white bread (we were not a Wonder-bread family), served alongside Campbell’s Tomato Soup.
Is it any wonder that I resonate so strongly with the AMC TV series Mad Men? I was one of those kids, eating this favorite lunch while watching Bozo.
But of course, my tastes have changed. I can no longer tolerate American cheese, and my taste in bread has also evolved. I love the grilled cheese at The Heartland Café, and I always order it with Swiss cheese and tomato, sometimes avocado. It’s made with thick, white home-made bread, with a satisfyingly crispy crust.
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Gold'N Musings
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Saturday, 03 October 2009 19:47 |
 By Nancy Backas
I have an enormous affinity for bees. My great desire is to be a beekeeper some day. I think this yearning started when I was invited by the National Honey Board for a bee tour in Wisconsin.
We were taken to a bee farm somewhere north of Milwaukee. Good old boy Wisconsin beekeepers told us all about raising bees, took us through their little bee museum and then, with cautionary tales about how not to get stung, we went out to meet the bees themselves.
Something just kicked in for me that day. I wore the big beekeeper’s hood over my head, but opted not to wear the full outfit.
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Gold'N Musings
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Friday, 18 September 2009 04:36 |
By Nancy Backas & Terry Feingold
With our senses we gather information throughout our lives. For me the memories often come through taste and smell. For some reason the smell of damp cement reminds me of a certain subway station in Washington D.C. and the smell of sage brings me back to Greece every time.
But it is taste memory that is most interesting to me because of how very personal it is and how it often harks back to the foods we ate as children.
I didn’t realize how much my love for bitter and sour flavors had to do with growing up in a Greek-American household until I compared favorite foods with friends from different backgrounds.
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