Photo by Kensie Wallner

Sage Advice

By Kailyn Allen
Contributing Writer

My Nana has been one of the most influential people in my life. The lessons I value the most are those she gave in the kitchen. Throughout the years she has taught me everything from how to read a person’s fortune in coffee grounds to how to knead bread dough with a baby on one hip.

She showed me how to sift, how to glaze and how to hide vegetables and ground flax seed in meatballs. I gained skills that have added to the quality of my everyday life; I have come to realize there were a lot more than incognito vegetables in Nana’s recipes.

Here are some of the things I learned while cooking with my Nana:

Clean as you go. This doesn’t only pertain to wiping flour off the counter and rinsing the dishes as you finish using them. It applies to pretty much any aspect of life. If you just keep going ahead, single-mindedly, letting things pile up, you will soon find you have very little room to work in and a big mess to deal with. So whether your mess is batter covered spatulas, credit card debts or unexpressed emotions, do not ignore them. They won’t clean themselves up. If you clean as you go you’ll have more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor while they’re fresh.

Don’t hurt yourself. The world will conspire to throw trouble your way without any help from you. Use a hot pad, bend your fingertips in when chopping, never pare towards yourself, and please, for heaven’s sake, do not get a steak knife to do a French knife’s job. Just don’t stop there. Wear your seatbelt and/or bike helmet, respect your limits, and de-ice your walkway. When you make a mistake, instead of kicking yourself, just scrape off the burnt parts, add extra garnish and like it anyway.

Thyme heals all wounds. Food does more than sustain us; it heals us. That is why we use a casserole for a neighbor who’s lost a spouse, chicken soup for a sick friend or uncooked brownie batter for a broken heart. Homemade food is always the most effective remedy, because it has love in it.

Time really is the money of love. What is it that distinguishes a meal which has been cooked at home from one that has been prepared in a factory, frozen and then reheated in a microwave under a sheet of plastic wrap? Besides the obvious, it’s the time investment. When you make something from scratch, no matter how basic your skills are, you are investing time in yourself and whoever else you are cooking for. You can’t rush the release of the flavors from the herbs you put into a sauce any more than you can rush anything else in life. You can try, but it will be lacking flavor.

Be it your stews, your relationships or your ambitions, don’t accept prepackaged. Make them yours. You don’t always have to follow the recipes exactly, but for the best quality, give them the time they need, not only to prepare, but to simmer.

Take a small plate; you can always come back for more. This, if we are talking about homemade cake doughnuts, by the way, is actually a complete and shameless LIE.  In all other cases, however, this is a really important admonishment. Take a little less. Less refined sugar for your physical health, fewer unwanted obligations for your mental health and less unnecessary purchases for both financial and environmental health. If we all did this, we would all be better off.

Don’t just make supper for your kids; make supper with your kids. When my children were old enough to squish dough between their fingers, Nana made sure that I knew how important it is to teach them how to cook.

That’s sage advice, indeed; although, I have yet to let my kids in on the art of hiding vegetables in things.

Tips for hiding nutritional goodness within a recipe:
Grind flax seed finely and add a few Tbsps to anything that you could put crushed crackers/croutons/bread crumbs in, such as meatloaf, fish breading or muffins.

When it comes to soups, casseroles, hotdishes and pasta sauces, the secret is: if it’s little enough, they won’t notice. One of my favorites is teeny zucchini in marinara, it belongs there anyway; but if it’s small enough it will get eaten instead of being banished to the side of the plate under a napkin. You can even grate it on a cheese shredder.

Remember: cutting and pureeing things into near invisible sizes doesn’t diminish their nutritional value, overcooking it does.

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