Preface

The foods we eat and the holidays and occasions we eat them, tell the history and culture of our lives. I realized this as I began putting together our family recipes. As I started this task of collecting and writing family recipes, my mind was flooded with warm and wonderful memories. I began for the first time to see the richness of my heritage.

I am one of five daughters. We were raised in Salt Lake City Utah with the strong influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in our home.

My parents came from diverse backgrounds. My father was the eldest of eight children all of to whom he was half brother. He was raised under extremely humble circumstances, for a time their family home was a tent. Their family moved often and finally built a one room log cabin on their homestead in Idaho’s Teton Valley.

My mother was the youngest of eight children. She was the only child of her parents second marriage and was born and raised under her parent's financial security. She was raised in a beautiful home that was set behind her mother's dress shop in Price, Utah. Life brought them both to the Capital Hill Ward in Salt Lake City where they met. Their conviction to their faith and their mutual love of the gospel brought them together and it was the common thread in their lives that held them fast.

My mother was a convert to the church. When she read and the 89th section of the Doctrine and Covenants she learned the counsel God had given us on what foods and substances we should and should not partake of. She accepted this “principle with a promise “ and applied the teachings of this “word of wisdom” to her life and to ours.

All summer long my mother would fix us meals and snacks of the different fruits and vegetables as they came into season. As she would serve us she would paraphrase a passage from this word of wisdom, “We should eat these fruits and vegetables while they are in their season.” When I would complain about one of my sisters carefully filling their cup of soup trying to get all the meat, or when I would see my friends ate things like pork chops and ask why we didn’t , my mother would reply with another scripture, “Meat should be used sparingly and only in times of cold and famine.” I of course, thought this to be a story. Being that we were poor, I reasoned that soups and salads were the only foods we could afford. Now I realize how rich we were, not in monetary ways, but that every day I could count on two or three wonderful meals.

In our home our appetites seemed to change with the seasons, eating foods that complimented each turn in the weather, satisfying our appetites and awakening our senses to each new season.







In our home every holiday was an event, and the highlight of our celebration was our meal, with recipes that had been handed down from mother to daughter over generations. This is my inheritance from my mother, and this is what I want to leave my sons and daughters. Oh how I love the seasons and the holidays.




Sunday, June 6, 2010

Spring and Dandelion Salad


The frozen ground softens underfoot and the crowns of the crocus announce that spring has conquered winter at last. Fresh rains and Hyacinth fill the air with crispness and newness. Nature wakes from it’s slumber bringing hope and anticipation of fruitful times ahead.

My mother took time to enjoy the beauties of the Earth. She is a true romantic. Life through her eyes was always filled with joys and wonders. As we observed the wonders of spring, she would declare “Spring is a testament that God loves us.” She drew analogies between the hope we maintain through the dark cold winter because we know spring will come; to the hope we have through the dark feelings and remorse of sin because we know of Christ's atonement; and the hope we feel with the death of a loved one because we will see them again. Bending down, admiring the plant pushing through the earth and she would say “At the resurrection we will all come forth from the earth after the sleep of death, just as this flower came forth after the sleep of winter.”

I love spring. Spring is hope.

Dandelion Salad
Pick a bowl full of *young dandelion greens and wash well.
Sliced radishes
chopped green onions
Sliced tomatoes

Toss in dressing of olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Enjoy.
*Note: Pick dandelions before they get a bloom or they will be bitter.


For those who have never had dandelion salad, you likely think I am kidding. Well I am kidding...but only about the “enjoy” part of the recipe. Because every spring my mother would gather dandelion leaves and make them into a salad. You can also use Swiss Chard from your garden. It is not quite as awful as dandelions greens. My father's mother made this salad also.

My mother would tell us that since we had been eating root vegetables and meats all winter long, fresh greens would clean us out. I don’t know what needed cleaned out. I think it might be your blood or something else. Her reasoning always made sense to me, even when she talked about eating greens, regardless she couldn’t get me to eat them. She couldn’t get any of my sisters to eat dandelions either, no matter how much my dad would eat them while saying “yum”.

My sisters and I sat around the table, empty salad plates in front of us, watching as my dad stuffed long green dandelion leaves into his mouth. Our eyes were glued to my father's mouth, his grinding jaw like a close up in a horror flick. With each chew, the ends of the dandelions were pulled into this masticating nightmare. The climax of the scene ending with a audible swallow, relieving the tension in our faces as we watched his Adam's Apple force the rough and bitter leaves into the place we knew they could no longer be tasted or felt. "Yum". The whole act played out for us, to convince us how "good dandelions were". We watched our parents stand in front of us and lie. We knew better than to tell them they were lying, we had no way to prove it, but we just knew.

I confess I don’t enjoy the spring mix lettuce in the grocery store. It reminds me of dandelions. There is not enough dressing to hide the strong taste of dandelions. I have thought in my adulthood that I might want to try them again to see if a mature pallet could handle it, but my grass doesn’t have any dandelions. My husband, Mark, is a landscaper and did landscape maintenance for years. He sprays my lawn to get rid of dandelions. And if I do see a dandelion that Mark hasn't sprayed ... well ... my dog might have.

I love Mark, more than I love spring.