Upside-Down Pear

I learned to cook very young. I remember my parents helping me choose a meal to make, taking me shopping for the ingredients, and helping me prepare it; I remember the sweet-and-sour chicken I chose for my first try and hated. In retrospect, it was not all that bad - a bit watery and too sweet, but I’ve had worse in Chinese restaurants over the years. I remember going to the supermarket, the Italian grocery, the Asian market, the East End Food Co-op, the Strip.

We were taught to make salads, to make our own school lunches, to figure out our own snacks, to function as sous-chefs for my mother. My sisters and I talk of our “home training” - this steady exposure to choosing food, to preparing food, to serving food. By the time I moved out at seventeen, I had been cooking for twelve years. I spent the next few years learning to deal with no prep room, a tiny, terrible stove, a microwave, a budget. I moved into an apartment with Nat and learned to cook with gas. I tried new things as I got bolder and more confident, and I called my mother up for recipes, and went over to her house to eat dinner and get more ideas to try.

I started visiting Nat’s mother, and learned about fish and boat rice and cookies I’d never dreamed of, and I took those ideas home with me as well.

Now, when I go over to visit my mother, she has to chase congregations of her children out of the kitchen, a legacy of all the years she spent having us help her and teaching us to be useful. We love kitchens, love spending time in them, hanging out, talking, doing prep work or stealing bits out of the pot. When we were younger, this was one of the best ways to get uninterrupted time with Mom. Nowadays, it’s one of the ways we reconnect.

Chicken dijon
My mother makes this a lot; I’ve had a photocopy of the recipe for years. I don’t know where it came from, originally, but the copy hanging up in my pantry has her handwriting and mine all over it. I’ve included the notes here.

• 8 chicken breasts, skinned and boned (I cut these up into smaller cutlets or fingers to make them easier to wrangle.)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup oil (I use extra virgin olive oil. I also use less butter & oil than the recipe calls for.)
• 6 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 6 tbsp freshly chopped chives (I’ve only used chives with this once. Sometimes I just increase the basil. Sometimes I use scallions. Sometimes I add some other herb. Whatever.)
• 1/2 tsp dried basil (I like more.)
• Dash black pepper (more!)
• Dash cayenne pepper (more!)
• salt (kosher if you have it)
• 2 cups fine bread crumbs

Melt the butter and combine with oil. (Melt the butter w. oil in microwave - 20-35 sec.). Set aside 1/2 of the mixture. To the other half, add mustard, peppers, and herbs. Whisk until smooth. Salt chicken lightly (I always skip this), brush with mustard mixture (I always just dunk it to coat it), roll in bread crumbs. Line 9×13 baking pan with foil (Mom says: I also don’t line pan w. foil - but it is easier to clean up if you do.) Add part of the reserved butter & oil, coating the bottom of the pan well. Place chicken breasts in baking pan and bake at 375°F for approximately 1 hour. (I find that the chicken is slightly dry if you cook it this long.) Baste as necessary w. the remaining butter & oil. If crumbs begin browing too quickly, cover pan lightly with tent of foil.

I find this a bit too greasy as originally written, but just perfect if you cut the amount of butter & oil a bit. It expands easily - I like it for parties, since it’s almost as easy to make 40 pieces as 8, and it’s great cold, and (if cut in half like I suggest above), can be easily eaten with the fingers.

It’s good with rice, spinach, pasta…well, actually, it’s good with almost anything.

Thank you, Mom.