Why Nana Cooks Best
Hi guys! How’s your day going?? Thanks for the sweet compliments on my recent purchases. I love pretty stuff, but I also love a good deal 😉
B-fast this morning was breakfast cookie dough cereal… can’t get enough! 🙂
In the mix:
-1/2 C oats
-1 T almond butter (I recently saw a recipe calling for a teaspoon of almond butter. I don’t even know what that is—it’s like saying “1 chocolate chip”, haha)
-1/2 scoop Sun Warrior
-1/2 banana
-1 T mesquite
-cinnamon, Stevia and cacao nibs
– ~ cup almond milk
+ some ginger and peppermint tea (1 bag of each)
While I was perusing through articles for “something to read”, I came across *this one* about why Grandmas are always culinary rockstars.
From the article:
5 Reasons Our Grandmothers Are (and Always Will Be) Our Culinary Muses: Tony Maws
1. They intuitively know that Mother Nature knows best
"Grandmothers were and are the first ‘locavores’ around – especially my grandmother, Baba Hannah. She always used what was fresh and in season and stalked (no pun intended) the local farm stand for the freshest possible corn. She phoned home so my mom and uncle could get the water boiling and not a minute would be lost. She shopped in little butcher shops and brought home economical cuts that needed to be braised or otherwise ‘enhanced.’ Tongue and livers were staples in her household. She was the true inspiration for our Craigie On Main’s ‘nose to tail’ style. Using all parts of the animal, fish, or veggie ensures that little if anything goes to waste and that our guests have a chance to try things they wouldn’t know about if they are only used to mass-produced fare."2. Grandmothers are not afraid of fat
"In baking they used Crisco or real butter – no wimp alternatives. Rendered chicken fat (schmaltz) was a staple in her kitchen. She knew that fat equals flavor. Yes, my Baba was all in favor of good health, but that was achieved through moderation, not by using a lesser ingredient where the real deal was called for – and definitely not by banning fat."3. Grandmother food makes us feel better
"Every single one of us will attest to our grandmother’s cooking – not only because it brings back memories, but because it literally lifted our spirits. My Baba always knew just the right thing to make for an occasion or your favorite food to lift you out of a funk."4. Seasoning to taste – not per the recipe
"When have you ever seen a grandmother with a measuring spoon or cup? They know you have to season and re-season until it tastes right. More was always more when my Baba manned the stove (just as it is in our kitchen at Craigie On Main)."5. Eating with grandmothers is the ultimate social networking activity
"Opening the door to Baba Hannah’s house ensured one thing – there would be great conversation, lots of love, raised voices, strong opinions and candid criticism – all around a table with amazing energy, food and aromas. Whether joining her in the kitchen, or around the table with the whole family, Baba Hannah’s food brought (and kept) us together."
So true, right??
I’m very lucky to have three nana culinary rockstars in my life.
Among the many foods she makes that I LOVE, my nana makes the most perfect Bundt cake and spaghetti so good it will make you cry tears of happiness.
My great-grandmother makes the most beautiful frijoles and homemade tortillas… you could sit at her dining room table and along with Mexican pastries, eat and chat all day.
And my nana (on my dadoo’s side), used to be a caterer, so every meal is a culinary journey to foodgasm city.
Why is your nana/grandmother famous for making??
Well I’m off to Turbofire, get started on the day’s to-dos and grabbing some groceries so I can cook tonight 🙂
See ya later today with how to make jarred marinara sauce taste homemade when ya don’t have time to do the scratch thang.
xoxo,
Gina
Something to do: If you’ve been wanting to pick up some glass straws, today’s your lucky day 🙂
We’re running a Glass Dharma promo for $25 (two glass straws and a cleaning brush.. I paid $16 for one straw when I bought mine!!)- they’re so beautiful, can be cleaned in the dishwasher and pretty difficult to break (I’ve dropped mine many times). To hit up the deal *click here* – Tina and I are having a cross promo, so if you buy her stainless steel straws + my glass straws, enter the code “TinaGina” to get an extra 10% off 😀
Something else to do: Please send some happy birthday wishes to my roomie and good friend, Sabrina! <3 Love you, friend
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This makes me miss my grandmas so much! One of them was known for her incredible pies and mac and cheese, the other was known for this fabulous filet and her texas sheet cake. I wish I had a little plate of all of it right now!
Both of my grandmas are/were culinary rockstars. They both made amazing sauces, meatballs and chicken cutlets. Also the soups they make, I could go on forever about. They are the best best best cooks ever.
pancakes! i never had a pancake as good as grandmas’ on saturday morning. she even let us eat them while watching cartoons- a real no-no with mom and dad.
Biscuits! Love the pic of you and your grandmother.
My grandmom makes the best brownies and cookies. Three years ago she went blind, and she still makes the brownies as good as ever…she “feels” for the ingredients and cooks by the smell and says she just remembers how far to turn the knob on the oven…I don’t know how she does it but she is amazing.
that is seriously incredible
my grandparents and parents are from poland.. when my grandmother was alive she would make tonnsss of polish food for all her grandkids. it was all in her hear, never did i see her look at a piece of paper. when i was younger and she was still healthy and cooking, i spent a lot of saturdays with her learning the recipes and writing everything down. everything had such great flavor, but most importantly all her love went into it. i have all the recipes treasured and one day will be making it for my kiddies. thanks for posting this 🙂
I love this post! So true though! My grandmother could feed me dog food and I’d prob enjoy it b/c she’s the one who served it to me….well, maybe not dog food but you get my point. My dad’s mother makesTHE best biscuits and gravy and chocolate chip pancakes :-), and my mothers mother makes the best baked goods…everything she made was so delicious!
off topic for this post but a response to one a few weeks ago … can you veganize nutella, or do you know of a recipe? believe it or not i’m very new to nutella; for some strange reason i just recently fell in love with it. great timing as i’m trying to transition to a vegan, partially raw lifestyle. go figure;-). i made some crepes in the dehydrator, slathered a little nutella and added some strawberries – heavenly! now if i can just find a recipe to veganize nutella i’d be that much happier. thanks!
here ya go! 🙂 http://www.choosingraw.com/sweet-spreads/
Oooh, this is a tough one. On my dad’s side we have a lot of “family recipes” for dessert. I would say the most famous, that my grandma would make was chocolate sauce. The most amazing chocolate sauce ever that is 🙂 Extremely thick and almost chewy like caramel. That was then used to make “snowballs.” Vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce + toasted coconut. OMG. Hmmm, for my other grandma, I would say this jewish sweet egg noodle dish called Keigal or mondel broit, which is similar to biscotti but 10x better! Why is it that I only remember the desserts? 😉
Neither of my grandmas (God rest their souls) were good cooks. One of them made a “lamb cake” every Easter and the whole thing tasted like moth balls.
hahah oh no!
omg YES my straw dreams come true!! off to hit it up! some of my favorite “grammy recipes” are peppers and eggs, googootz (italian zucchini soup), pasta fagiole, easter pie, and ravioli. she is an absolutely wonderful cook, and i have never once seen her open a cookbook. im making it a mission to cook with her so i have all of her “recipes,” just in case… 🙁
My grandma makes the best mac and cheese in the world. Even though I’ve recently discovered I can’t eat cow’s dairy, I still have some everytime I see her b/c she makes it especially for me. I’ll take the tummy ache to make her happy!
Oh the Canadian chicks are crying 🙁 Why won’t OpenSky let us share? lol
i’m sorry! 🙁 i’m really hoping opensky gets on the canada bus soon
My grandma made the best french toast, dip for chips, and macaroni salad. I just lost her last week and I’m sad that I won’t be able to taste her food anymore, but at least I got to spend a lot of time with her over the past few years learning her recipes. Hopefully I can get the same amount of love in them!
My Grandma (on my dad’s side) used to have her own cooking show years and years ago — I have never seen any episodes but I’ve heard so much about it. She made the best food. It tasted great, she used real butter and real ingredients and real LOVE in her food!
She passed alot of her good cooking techniques to my dad 🙂
My grandmother-in-law (ha!) is also an amazing cook/baker. She made these amazing chocolates for our wedding and her sweet potato casserole is the best!
What a nice post Gina, I love reminiscing about food memories!
My Gma used to make the best cinnamon rolls..to die for ooey gooey centers. I’ve never even attempted to recreate for fear of runing my perfect memory.
Awww, I love this! One of my grandmothers makes awesome coconut cake. The other makes a mean margarita. 🙂
i guess my grandmother is famous for her jam that she makes every summer. but she’s more famous for her ability to make the lumpiest mashed potatos for the holidays hahah. the women in my family aren’t the most rockstar-like people in the kitchen 😉
Honestly, my grandmother can’t cook. Everything is greasy and kind of gross–even as a kid I knew that.
I wonder if that will be the case as we grow up. All the people who eat McDonalds, etc. will become grandparents who aren’t known for cooking. We might have to change the sentiment of grandparents cooking natural foods.
My grandma is the BEST cook I know! She can take 5 simple ingredients and make the yummiest dish ever! Corn latkes, casseroles…anything!!
Hahaha unfortunately my grandma made everything with margarine. It has led me to be able to differentiate is brownies were made with butter or margarine pretty quickly. But she did make excellent milkshakes. She made them all to our liking, my brother liked vanilla, my sister like smooth chocolate ones and I like “lumpy” chocolate ones. Lumpy being that not all the ice cream and milk were blended. I have no idea why I liked it that way hahaha.
My grandma is famous for her Dobos Torte. It’s a Hungarian layer cake, and in my family it is worth its weight in gold. It’s a very labor intensive cake, and requires special pans. Needless to say, when the annual Dobos Torte arrives at our house around Christmastime, we are all scrambling to get the last piece. I’ve never seen or tasted anything else like it.
My dad and his brother love to tell the story of the summer they asked Grandma to ‘teach’ them how to make Dobos Torte. Grandma was tricked into ‘teaching’ the boys how to make her famous cake – I don’t think they learned a thing, they just wanted an extra cake that year!
i just googled “dobos torte” to see what it looks like and i’m drooling right now. that looks absolutely amazing
Hi Gina! I’m just wondering about he straw deal……it seems like a better deal to do the 4 straws for $32 as opposed to just two straws for $25….or am I missing something?
yep you’re right
My Grandma rocked my food world when I was a kid. I was never allowed to say I didn’t like something until I tried it. Now, I’m in love with all sorts of things that I never would have eaten if she hadn’t made me – asparagus, pickled beets, stuffing, peas. She lived on a farm, and her garden was GINORMOUS. I miss helping weed it and eating peas freshly picked and still warm from the sun.
Her specialty? Not sure, but my absolute FAVE was bluberry buckle made with bluberries that she sent us out in the back yard to pick!
I read that article and am writing about it too. I love Tony Maws and I’m a huge fan of his restaurant here!
your nana was a snazzy dresser <3
i always hold on to old photos and when i get bored i look through the albums to put a smile on my face. especially old wedding photos, the vintage dresses, hair, and makeup made women of that era look like goddesses. timeless beauty 🙂
nana's know how to make pure, whole, comfort food. i try to base a lot of my recipes off of her cooking.. and i have her old cookbook she used (German one that called "Food that really Shmecks" hehe) and she's still got her handwritten notes and recipes slipped inside too which is so exciting!
xoxo <3
This is so true!!! Grandmothers didn’t have all the new overly processed items readily available to cook with. Perhaps a reason their food tastes better? 😉
My gradma makes the best ever cakes, all kinf, and the Frensh one “Napoleon” also a delicious creamy potato soup and fish!!! 🙂
Aww such a good blog, made me miss my Nana. My one grandmother makes the best apple pie on earth..its stunning to the eye and the tatse buds. My Nana used to make the most amazing roast beef…it would just about fall apart and then there would be lots of beef in the gravy. Also when I stopped being able to eat dairy (and egg for a time but I got that back) she CREATED a chocolate cake recipe that was dairy and egg free so I could have birthday cake 😀
so awesome <3
Aww too cute! And those 5 reasons are definitely all true. My gran was famous (well, in our family anyway) for making Yorkshire puddings at Christmas time. SO SO delicious!
my mimi made the best garlic cheese grits in the entire world. my other grandma makes amazing breakfasts, and my papa is famous for his cakes and GARLIC SALAD DRESSING. YUM!
Oh how I miss my grandmother’s Polish cooking! Homemade pierogi, piggies (cabbage/tomato/ground beef rolls) and desserts like no other… she really knew how to cook some comfort food. I have been making many of her recipes recently and I hope that she would be proud even if I can’t get them quite as perfect as she could 🙂
Lurve this post! My grandmother makes the best Persian stews along with amazing chocolate chip bundt cake, plum cake, chocolate chip cookies, and apple pie! Seriously, there should be like a worldwide grandmother baking showdown. Mine would totally win.
Great read, very true. Love the pics! My grandma made the ultimate Grilled cheese, she even had a special grill for it.;)
Thanks for the birthday wishes!!
My grandma makes the BEST crepes, calamari, meatballs, tomato sauce, etc etc etc… the list could go on for days!!
I LOVE my grandma’s cooking more than any other thing in life. She was Italian, so we always had scratch made pastas and sauces, out of this world gnocchi, polenta, minestrone soup, garlic bread, everything! Every night was a family feast overflowing with food and warmth. I have yet to find anything that compares to the food or the memories.
I always feel so left out when people talk about their gradma’s cooking! Unfortunately, neither of my grandmas (Nano and Mamaw) are very good cooks 🙁 My GREAT-grandma (Teen Teen) always made great desserts, though!
Oh my Grandma I swear everything that she makes is delicious. I especially love her Garlic Bread, Spaghetti, chicken noodle soup, and pretty much any other Italian food. I attempted to obtain her recipes, and her response was “Well I don’t really have any. I go by the way the food smells, what spices are on my counter, and I am a frequent taste tester.” I swear even her coffee tastes the best 🙂 She used to make me when I was a little girl, princess coffee. A teeny bit of coffee with delicious creamer. She made me feel special when she did that 🙂 I always remember any time I would go over to her house, I never left hungry and I always left with a full and happy tummy 🙂 Why is it that when we are sick with a cold, only Grandma’s chicken noodle soup always makes you feel better. My Grandma says it because that they add extra love to their food and that’s the best medicine 🙂
My gma makes the best orange cake!! Btw not to sound like a creepster lol but u said “baba” on ur post. Totally random fact: I call my dad baba & was wondering if u did too or were u referring to a person with that name?? Haha take care! Luvvv ur blog btw 🙂
My grandma makes amazing collards, and then she makes dumpings in the pot liquor. It’s definitely my favorite part of holiday meals.
“Grandmothers are not afraid of fat ” –oh so true!!! Butter, crisco, animal fat, you name it, grandmas know how to cook with it, but their food doesn’t taste greasy or like it’s dripping in fat, it’s just perfect. They know what’s up!
” Seasoning to taste – not per the recipe “–totally true! Sadly when my grandmas both died, their recipes died with them. Nothing was written down and even tho my mom tried to write some of my grandma’s recipes down before she died, she never made the same thing twice really, it was never an exact science, so writing it down or using measuring cups and spoons was pointless. Sigh.
Childhood memories of being w/ my grammie and making cookies with her and eating sweets at her table all day and chatting..I miss it so much. Ok tearfest over now 🙂
My grandma used to make THE BEST chicken noodle soup! Mmmm…
I’m not close to my grandmother, but I did learn how to make real chicken adobo from her and I’ll always be grateful for that. She also makes the best Filipino feasts (pancit, lumpia, etc.) for special occasions – there’s nothing like it.
That excerpt seriously made my heart smile! My Grammy made the BEST sticky buns and beef stew. We’re Danish and she came from a family that owned/operated a few bakeries (hello, Danish pastries??) and she was just amazing. Luckily, she passed on some of her skills to my dad so we still enjoy her food even though she passed away about 10 years ago. I miss her. 🙂
This post made me think about my great-grand’s tea cakes- I took them for granted as a child, didn’t know she was the only person on the planet that made them. After a visit she would always send me home with a sun-tea jar full of them.
It’s hard to describe the taste- like a slightly sweet biscuit, but more the texture of a scone, but they were not entirely like scones. They were perfect and delicious and I wish I had paid attention when she was in the kitchen.
I am trying these oats tomorrow!!! I am in love with my overnight oats but atleast one day a week i like something different and this looks super delicious!!
Non of my grandmas were cooks lol kinda funny how they are supposed to be. My mom’s mom could would bake more (delicious peanut butter cookies!! But a full on meal got her super stressed! My dad’s mom mainly stuck with pre-made food items that could be easily heated up since she worked all the time.
My mom is an amazing cook and when im home i never cook cause i like everything she makes more then what i would make:):)
I think about this a lot. I am already starting my own traditions that I want to carry with me until I pass. The thought of having my children talk about my famous cooking brings a smile to my face. =)
ohhh my goodness that pumpkin log has me wishing it was Thanksgiving! Thats my specialty 🙂
Aww that picture of you and your grandma is cute! And she sounds like she makes killer food!
I love my grandma’s chocolate chip cookies, baked beans, shortbread cookies and apple pie! She doesn’t make any healthy substitutions, but that’s what makes them so good. 😉
What a sweet and inspiring post! My Yaya and I didn’t see eye to eye on food, but I think if she were still cogent today, she’d see how far I’ve come, and how I love to eat, and she’d celebrate that.
<3