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How My Grandmother Ran Her Kitchen Is Good Enough for Me!

Notwithstanding my love of my I-phone and other I-things, I am an old-fashioned girl at heart.  For as long as I can remember, my food-related motto has been, “How my grandmother ran her kitchen is good enough for me.”

I have never owned a microwave.  Native Americans teach that it kills the spirit of the food.

Even before hearing of that teaching, it intuitively felt wrong to put food in it.  We even use the phrase “nuke it” – I rest my case with that statement.

Our society has become so dependent on microwaves that some foods come only with microwave instructions. I recently bought a spaghetti squash with a label for microwave cooking — no other cooking instructions.  I was grateful to have a pre-microwave edition of The Joy of Cooking to tell me what to do with it.

I’ve developed an easy reheat method to use in place of a microwave:  I use a vegetable steamer. Yes, it involves a little more cleanup than food heated in a microwave, but I believe the health benefits far outweigh the work.

My grandmother was a great cook and baker and had every modern convenience of the 1950s and 1960s: a dishwasher, stove, refrigerator, mixing bowl and blender.  It was all she needed to make wonderful meals, and I try to follow her example.

With all the controversy today surrounding fast and packaged food, here’s another grandmother-related piece of food advice:  If your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize it as food, don’t eat it!

We’ll all be healthier for it.

[quote]“If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.”  Common Sense[/quote]

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