I baked a quiche today, ham and gruyere, with crust entirely from scratch, something I haven't done since the first few years we lived in New Jersey back in the late 80's. We were so poor then, that we seldom went out to eat, but we ate very well at home. Groceries were cheaper in New Jersey than they are here, and things that we can't find here, like lamb, were more plentiful. That was also before the age of the internet, Food Network and so many sources of recipes that it is almost impossible to choose. All I had then, was a couple of trusty cookbooks. But that was all I needed. It seemed like every Sunday for a year, I would practice making pie crust after Sunday Dinner. I finally figured out the secret, which fortunately I still recall. The first time I took a pie somewhere and someone said, 'that's real homemade pie crust,' I knew I had arrived. I remember the years of cooking in New Jersey with fondness. We had friends over for dinner frequently, and solved a lot of the worlds problems over those meals. Most of the meals were certainly not what I would term gourmet, but they were good and the fellowship was even better. Something was lost along the way as we became more prosperous. We were not the only ones who got caught up in fancy french restauraunts and gourmet coffee. And we are not the only ones who, now that the economy is cooling ,are finding ourselves resurrecting some of our old skills and habits, and even resurrecting some of our old cookbooks. Not the fancy ones, but the ones with the ingredient stained pages. Once the quiche was in the over, I made a pecan pie with the other half of the pie crust dough, and showed Corina how it was done. Now she knows that there are no secret ingredients. Just a little time, a few ingredients and a good recipe.
