Hard Lessons From the Kitchen and Garden

Survival in Tough Times

Dr. Bruce Smith

Family | December 18, 2023

This is from the IMHO file. Your mileage may vary, perhaps widely. Too bad.

I’ve been called lots of things in my day, but a chef was never one of them.

Here are some of the anecdotal thoughts that blow around in my attic on a given day.

Never call a chef a cook. They really don’t like that. They’ll be prickly about other things, too.
Never walk away from a pan while you’re still making a grilled cheese sandwich in it.
Never fail to put a wooden spoon across the top of a saucepan full of either potatoes or peas while cooking.
Always have towels and cleaning supplies handy for when you forget to put the wooden spoon across the top of the potato or pea pan.
Never pour cool liquid into a superheated pyrex dish. The more expensive the contents of the dish, the more you’ll regret it. I did this with a full tenderloin of beef one time. It’s still the stuff of nightmares.
It’s extremely rare for something out of a box to be “just as good” as something made from scratch with plenty of love and tradition behind it.
Hand wash high quality pots and pans and utensils.
Never put heirloom Pyrex bowls in a dishwasher.
Loose tea and the same thing in a tea bag are not the same thing.
Never buy avocados to eat the same day.
Never buy marked down meat you can’t eat the same day. Beef sometimes is an exception to this rule. Don’t get crazy about it, either.

Never allow a produce worker or checkout clerk’s abuse of fruit. By the time you pick one to eat, the deterioration resulting from the damage they caused will have begun. Not infrequently, it will have well begun.
Don’t hesitate to reduce the sugar in a fruit pie. Don’t get crazy about it, either.
When old cooks or grandmas talk about their cooking, listen and take notes. And be careful. They sometimes leave out details they include without thinking.
There are few things that people cook fast that aren’t improved by cooking more slowly. Relax! I said these were just my opinions!
Apples other than Granny Smith make perfectly good pies, too. Often better.
If I prep dishes properly, the rapid wash cycle is always enough. There is no earthly reason for a dishwasher to run for four hours other than to sell more dishwashers and soap.
My own Grandma Smith taught me to always slice the apples very thin for a pie.
Anyone who can combine four ingredients in the right order can make a pie crust people will swoon over.
Some recipes are mere suggestions, others are law. The trick is knowing which is which.
Everything has an expiration date now because they want you to go to the grocery every day for that day’s meals.

If you’ve ever had cold pizza for breakfast, it’s a good bet you can handle pie before 8 AM, too.
In a pinch, breakfast can be any time of the day or night.
If you’re doing real farm work all day, you can eat anything you want for breakfast so long as there are enough calories and fat in it.
If you are watching your waistline, don’t go to Micky D’s. It’s not a diet place in spite of their having “Diet” Coke.
McDonald’s specializes in high-fat foods with remarkably high calorie counts. That’s because that stuff tastes really good. Lesson: fats taste really good.
Always cook maple syrup and jellies to the proper temperature, not to a given time.
Toast at a diner is always better than what I make at home because I never use a mop to put the butter on at home. Duh.
Ripe produce does not ship well. If you bought it in a grocery store, it was either picked when immature or bred to be very hard to survive the shipping process.
Grocery store produce is supposed to look good until you take it home. After that, you’re on your own.
Never buy mushrooms you can’t eat the same day.

Never buy marked down fish or shellfish.
Produce today does pretty well with rough handling during shipping. The first day fruit cannot be handled a little roughly is the day you buy it.
Don’t complain about bread until you’ve made plenty of your own.
Spring water and purified water and tap water are not the same.
Never heat the water for tea or coffee in a microwave. It changes the flavor. For the same reason, never heat a cup of brewed tea in a microwave.
Never fail to set a timer for the correct time it takes to make a soft boiled egg. And never wander outside of easy earshot before it rings.
Cheesecake is always a delight for the consumer, assuming you don’t get too fancy-pantsed about making it.
Microwaves only heat stuff. If your recipe just calls for heating something up fast, rather than cooking it, then you can use the microwave.
There is no need to cook every meal fresh every day. It’s a better use of time to cook for more than one meal and have leftovers for the next day.
To be a kitchen hero any day of the year, buy a can of Reddi-Whip and make a pumpkin pie from scratch.
You’re welcome.

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Dr. Bruce Smith——Bio and Archives Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II, may be ordered from Indiana University Press.