At certain times of your life, you find yourself doing foolish things. Like vowing to make a new recipe every week for a year, or looking back at your family’s photo albums. You know that I’ve done the first one. The other day, I did the second. After being horrified by the way I looked as a child, an adolescent, and a post-adolescent, I was amused to see that, in my adult life, practically every third picture taken of me has involved cooking or food. Not that they aren’t horrifying too, but I think they say something fundamental about me. Here are some examples (crummy quality, many of them, which are digital photos of ancient conventional and Polaroid prints)..
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I admit, I didn’t make my own wedding cake:
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Tom and I always enjoyed wok cooking:
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Once I roasted quails in a friend’s kitchen:
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Food shopping with Joan at Campo dei Fiori, Rome:
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We were pleased with this handsome roasted suckling pig:
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One day, at someone else’s home, I got “volunteered” to peel a lot of asparagus:
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We couldn’t survive without our pasta machine:
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Here I’m tired out from too much cooking:
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And here I’m taking a refreshment break (in Zihuatanejo, Mexico):
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Making another suckling pig ready for the oven, while Joe watches:
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For a book photo, we pretended to be Ceres and Bacchus:
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Pastiera making for Easter, with Amy and Michele:
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Here I’m serving Jane my pastries at my 40th wedding anniversary party:
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These next two pictures are of us retesting one of our recipes for our mini ecookbook, Not the Same Old Spaghetti Sauce:
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A lovely seafood lunch on the shore in Barcelona, October 2012
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A friend gave us this fabulous bottle of 2002 Piper-Heidsieck Brut Cuvee Rare, with instructions to drink it on New Year’s Eve. It came with a gilt filigree casing meant to be removed and worn as a tiara, and so I did.
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At a garden party, we seem to be trying to figure out what the item on my hors d’oeuvre plate is.
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The dynamic duo makes spaghetti with clam sauce. (All you can see of him is one foot, one hand, and a piece of his shirt.)
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I practiced making pierogi at a workshop sponsored by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, at Veselka, a landmark Ukrainian restaurant. Here’s my post about it.
Diane,
The pastries were divine — my hips thank you for them. Love all the photos: hospitality and cameraderie at their best! Thanks so much for sharing!
These photos are splendid! Am crazy about the first suckling pig–wildly successful, and in your own NYC kitchen? Bravo! My other favorite is you and Tom as Ceres and Bacchus. Oh, OK, also loved the wedding cake. Am now going to settle in for a leisurely reading of missed entries.
I’m going to enjoy delving into your blog. I need to ask you how you keep so trim and eating so well?
Eternal vigilance! Actually, about five years ago my weight had crept up alarmingly, so I went onto Weight Watchers Online and managed to slowly lose 50 pounds. To date I’ve kept off all but about 3 of them, but it takes constant control.
I’m not much of a blogger – was looking for a seafood crepe recipe and happened on your site – what a treat! Recipes are great, but I especially loved the photos – didn’t we all look fabulous in our 20’s! Also appreciated the photo from Barcelona – we’re spending a few days there in May and are looking forward to the food culture (my husband is German, spent childhood summers in Spain, can’t wait for the Tapas!). Tell Tom to plan your next wine trip to New Zealand – our Marlborough whites and Central Otago Pinots are worth the trip! Will add your site to “Favourites” –
Best regards from New Zealand,
Jan Landmann
Had a bet with my little sister that there was a dish called , Mouse Stew !!
Went through a bunch of my cook books, lookin..,then got a epiphany , an looked on the net !!!
Wow !! What a fantastic find !!
Thank you so much!!!
You’re welcome! If anyone else is curious, here’s where I wrote about Mouse Stew:
https://dianescookbooks.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/%e2%80%9cmouse-stew%e2%80%9d-pasta-with-potatoes/
Diane, thank you so much! You have given me the idea and the courage to look back at photographic evidence of my life. You and Tom are eternally Ceres and Bacchus at their most generous.