Friday, January 7, 2011

Never Thought I'd See the Day

I didn't post a meal plan for this week because I was out of town for two days. I left 'the boys', meaning my husband, D and my dad, who came in to help out while my mom and the baby and I traveled to Edmonton for meetings, to their own devices. I thawed porkchops for them to use one day, suggested they cook the whole frozen fish in the freezer for the day we returned, and otherwise left it up to them.

When we came home last night, the fish was in the oven, and my dad had stuffed it with a rice pilaf, the recipe for which he'd found in Rose Reisman Brings Home Light Cooking. I shouldn't be so surprised by this, but I am, for a couple of reasons. First, I have never seen my dad look up a recipe. Ever. Second, his typical cooking repertoire almost invariably includes an open flame or vat of hot oil (usually heated over an open flame). The few times this is not the case is when he's frying bacon and eggs, boiling macaroni, or offering up Ichiban noodles or 'tube steaks'. To whit, when I mentioned there was fish in the freezer that I thought was a whole Pacific cod (gifted by my friend's dad who fishes in Prince Rupert), he was all set to fillet it, bread it and deep-fry it.

I'm not really giving him enough credit. He CAN cook—he just prefers to deep-fry whenever possible. But last night, he proved he really can cook, and the baked stuffed salmon (which it turned out to be—not cod) was absolutely lovely (and it was endearing to see how much pride he took in his creation). But when we laughingly pointed out that he got the recipe from a "Light" cookbook, he looked quite disgusted. He was about to tell me how he didn't like many of the other books in my cookbook collection, but we didn't get to the details. I'll try to get that from him next time I see him.

1 comment: