.png)
When I was young, I used to love to cook with my mom in the kitchen or sit at the
counter and chat with her while she cooked. For me, the kitchen was a place of love. The
warmth, the aromas, the flavors; all of this was always something that brought me comfort. I have so many memories of my mom cooking and the dishes she served to my family while I was growing up. From the quick and easy dinners we had, to the recipes that my Memere (my grandmother) was known for, to her serving our family quail with a triple berry reduction, a dish I will simply never forget. I was in fifth grade and my friends and peers from school were all eating things like pizza, chicken patties and fish sticks and I thought it was so cool that my mom served something so ‘fancy’. My mom would make these grandiose meals and it was so fun to assist her. I loved it when my mom started to teach me how to cook as I got older. I had a lot of interest in learning her recipes, mostly because they tasted so damn good and I wanted to be able to cook like her someday, later when I had a family, too.
As I got older, cooking and food was something I really enjoyed. In my 20's, I loved to cook something fabulous for dinner or make something easy. I loved the delicious flavors that I was learning to make in the kitchen. Living on a 22-year-old's budget, I couldn’t always afford the best sushi place or go out to a great steakhouse, so I began experimenting and I learned how to cook things I wanted at a young age. When I moved into my very first apartment, my mom actually threw me a Pampered Chef party. It was kind of like a house-warming Pampered Chef party. She invited her friends and they all ordered things they wanted and then each would order me a housewarming gift. In addition to all of this, I
received all of the free items that were awarded to the host. Because of this, my very first
kitchen had all of these Pampered Chef pots, pans, utensils, amazing knives, fabulous cast iron, you name it I had it. When the big boxes filled with the Pampered Chef items arrived at my apartment, I was so thrilled. I remember putting them all over my kitchen, tearing them open and starting to play with the items. When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to play with in the kitchen with my mom was the chopper. I was so excited to have my own! I pulled it out of the packaging and just started to push the top down over and over to make the chopping motion. It was so fun! I remember pulling out so many items, from my new baking stones to the Season's Best cookbook, to some fancy knives, the large batter bowl and other utensils. I still actually have a lot of my original items today in my kitchen. I know how fortunate I was to be able to start off my kitchen this way, and I am so thankful that my mom gave me this start.
When I was growing up, we did go out to eat from time to time, but not very often. It was very much a special treat we went on occasion. When I went to college and to my first dorm then to my sorority house, and eventually to my own very own first apartment, I was still used to eating home-cooked foods. It became second nature to always whip something up even if it would be a dessert, a treat, or fun cocktails for my friends. The summer between junior and senior year of college, we would have cookouts and parties and I always loved to bring a side dish and a dessert. Something about it brought me comfort; being able to bring something homemade to these events with my friends. When I was living on my own, I would experiment a lot in the kitchen and I did some fun things! I remember at one point I figured out how to make California rolls (without the seaweed because I had no idea where to buy it or how to do that back then). I also made these little bowls that were similar to rice bowls, before those were even a thing, and that was something I really enjoyed.
When I first moved up to Peoria and I moved in with my ex-husband, I started making a
"Friendsgiving" dinner each year. I would have a big group of people over, we’d all gather around the table and I would make all of my mom‘s recipes from scratch. I did this for many years and it was such a joyful time and brought me so much comfort. I loved making cookies at the holidays and general entertaining, but my ex-husband really preferred to eat out. When we first started dating, we were eating out three meals a day, which was so much for me. I put on a few pounds to say the least. I had moved to the Peoria area, and we got busy after our wedding, eating out became something that was common place. From meals out to banquets and events that we attended for work, we were always eating extravagant and rich foods. We used to joke around that 'event season' would mean appetizers and wine for dinner multiple nights a week. We were always on the go.
When the pandemic happened and everything shut down, and then shortly after I went to treatment, a lot of things changed for me. When I was in treatment, I really started working on the issues that I had with food and my issues surrounding my body image. One thing they had me do when I was there was learn to enjoy eating. We had a fantastic chef at treatment and they didn’t want me counting calories. They didn’t want me paying attention at the food groups or anything. They just wanted me to learn how to enjoy food again. When I began my foodie Instagram, @thedooziefoodie, it was because while I was at treatment in 2020, they told me that I needed to learn how to have a better relationship with food. Although I loved cooking and entertaining, I was so anxious about anything I would put into my mouth and what it could "do" to my body. While I was at The Refuge, they encouraged me to throw my negative thoughts about what I would be eating out the window and learn to enjoy food and eat what my body needed. The dietician I worked with there told me that she didn't want me to focus on what I was putting in my body in a calorie sense but she wanted me to focus on what I was eating in a nourishment sense and eating for the right reasons. When I got home and I started to cook, I decided to start to take photos of my food so I could have a record of what I was eating. Eventually, after I had been doing this for a while, I got really inspired by the beauty of the photos and the @thedooziefoodie was born. This Instagram account shares the highs and lows of what I like to eat, my successes in the kitchen and my failures. I was/am doing this because it has allowed me to stop hiding from food and allowed me to no longer feel ashamed of what I was eating.
After treatment, I was alone in my home, as I have mentioned before in my previous blog post. My ex-husband did not want me to be served with a subpoena for his trial. He continued to go out to eat quite a bit and sometimes it be a special treat to go to Bloomington and eat with him, but most the time I cooked at home. It provided a lot of comfort for me. I got back to my roots of learning how to make something and enjoy it. I started taking my mom‘s recipes and re-creating some of them. I started following a cooking blog and I would regularly request a certain grocery list or I would order pick up groceries so I had the ingredients I needed to try new things. Recipes that I was finding on different food blogs like Half Baked Harvest. I am a huge fan of her blog and I love how she can take something that would seem so simple and make it an entirely new and better dish. I took that thought process and started to do that with simple everyday things that I would make at home. Fast forward to Spring of 2021, I had asked my ex to move out, and I was spending a ton of time alone which was the best thing for me at time and I was cooking a ton. If I wanted a steak for dinner, I would make it a delectable dish. At this point I had discovered @cookingwithdarryl on TikTok and the first post I saw was how to make the perfect Wagyu strip steak. I now make almost all of my steaks his way at home. Adding the fresh herbs and basting the steak the way he suggests make it even better than you would think it could be. If I wanted fries, I would cook them up and then lightly toss them in some brown butter (a local restaurant in Peoria, Blackband, used to have the best fries on their menu that were prepared this way) or some truffle oil and parmesan cheese or I would whip up a quick and simple aioli to pair with them. If I was not feeling motivated in any way, I would throw some chicken nuggets in my air fryer and then when they came out I would plate them nicely, garnish them with some parsley and I would always have Chick-fil-A sauce with them, because why the heck not? There is something wonderful about just making your food look beautiful that feeds the soul.
Between that amazing food blog and my mom‘s recipe box, my love for cooking was ignited again. I really enjoyed it. I had always loved cooking. I had even loved food, but I started really having fun with creating during this phase of my life. I was doing things that I honestly had never really thought to do before. There was this grilled cheese that I remember seeing from Half Baked Harvest. It was a very adult grilled cheese. The unique thing about this particular recipe is in the crusting of the bread. It is made with sourdough bread that you butter, obviously cause it’s grilled cheese, but she would add Everything But the Bagel Seasoning on each side of the bread and some Parmesan cheese; crisped it up and, oh my gosh, it was delicious! I started cooking a lot of things like that and it was fun for me, so I just kept experimenting. Cooking brought me so much peace when there was so much chaos, uncertainty, anxiety, and fear in my life.
It’s definitely been a trial and error process for me and I have made my fair share of mistakes. In June of 2021, I was baking a birthday cake and I absolutely destroyed it. Baking has never been my strong suit but it’s always something I wanted to try to do. I was in the middle of baking this cake from scratch and had waited to do it the day of the birthday. The directions called for two different types of milk. It was calling for whole milk and I didn’t have whole milk. I was not going to go to the grocery store and get whole
milk so I ended up trying to figure out what I could do to make this work. I ended up
using creamer and that was just the first of many things that went wrong with this cake. If you go to my food Instagram account, the doozie foodie, I have an entire highlight reel dedicated to, what I call the "Cake Chronicles". It’ll take you some time to go through it, but as I am baking this cake, I am sharing the process, step-by-step; videoing it and posting it in real time. I destroyed it but I had to keep it playing out because I wasn’t going to stop half-way through! This is just one more example of how I very much live my life with authenticity. I own my mistakes and am honest about what I do, whether it be good or bad. In this case, I destroyed that cake. At first I cried, then I laughed, then frustration. To top it all off, I ended up knocking my Apple Watch off the charger on the counter and it shattered all over the tile floor. Things like this were just happening one after another that entire day as I’m trying to bake this cake and by the end of the day, I was so exhausted! It was probably the worst baking disaster I’ve ever had but it still gave me memories. I think back to things that my mom has taught me. She would say, "Heather, baking is chemistry. You can’t mix things up in chemistry because you need things to react correctly." That’s one reason why I don’t like baking.
I do love cooking though, and I love a good sauce. I feel like sauce just makes something so much more special, whether it be a good béchamel or a delicious gravy. I just love love love a sauce. I think that goes back to when I was a child and I remember my dad making Eggs Benedict. I don’t know why I remember that so much. I don’t remember much about what he cooked when I was growing up, but I do remember those Eggs Benedict. I absolutely love Benedict sauce. It’s the only sauce other than sausage gravy that you can really have at breakfast and not be judged! I think one reason why I love a good sauce is because every sauce is a little bit different. When you're cooking, you’re probably going to you follow recipe, but when I make something, I like to feel it out. I like to season and add flavors. Taste and adjust as I go. I like to use something fresh if I have it. Maybe I have a nice lemon in my fridge and I have some fresh dill, why not make a lovely light lemon sauce for a piece of salmon or a red wine reduction on a fabulous steak or aioli with fries??
After my mom died, when I was living in utter chaos for a few years and the stress of a
marriage falling apart, cooking was something I could do that always made me calm. It made me feel good. It put a smile on my face and that is something I’m so thankful for. When I created my food IG when I was at treatment they told me I needed to learn how to have a better relationship with food. I thought, if anything, taking pictures of it might help and so I created an account just for my food adventures. It didn’t go live until after the trial was passed for, but I was taking pictures before and during that time.
I remember my mom was always trying new things, especially when she stayed at home after my youngest sister was born. She was at home until I went to college and I can recall her making these delightful meals. She used to do other things too. She would sew my dresses for school plays or the magical dinner. She would help us with her homework but what I noticed most was when she would do crafts with us or she was helping us with something for our classrooms, she always put love into it. That’s one thing that I love remembering about her cooking. Cooking is something that I feel that you can do for someone else to provide care. They may have had a hard day and you can put the work into it and you can make a delicious dinner and it doesn’t even have to be anything extreme. It’s just about making the effort.
That’s something I really like to do as an adult now, whether it be cooking for a friend or my family, it’s something that I can do and I can put some effort into and I can try to make someone smile. When my mom passed away, we were all concerned about our holidays and how that would go. I remember looking at my stepdad, Gene, and my sister Shana and I said "I'm gonna cook mom's Thanksgiving dinner." She had sent me "The Turkey Table Timeline" years ago, which I still use all the time. I remember when she sent it to me in the fall of 2009 because it was the first year I was gonna cook my epic Friendsgiving and I wanted every recipe that I grew up with, and that included a lot of French Canadian dishes.
That Turkey Table Timeline is something that I still go back and use to this day. I shared it with family members and I believe everyone now has a copy. It’s like the Bible of Thanksgiving Dinners you could say. This comprehensive book walks you through every single step from start to finish and includes what order to go in, and the timing to ensure you have your Thanksgiving meal turn out perfectly.
After my mom died in 2020, and the first round of holidays was on the horizon, we worked hard to keep our traditions alive. In 2020, I made the majority of the Thanksgiving meal with my sisters and my step dad each making dishes all from my mom's recipes and the coveted "Turkey Table Timeline." I remember my anxiety that surrounded making the turkey. My mom always purchased a 25 pound Turkey from Yordy's Turkey Farm in Morton, IL and I was going to make that turkey just as well as she did, I was determined to (previously for my Friendsgiving dinners, I always made a bone-in breast which was also from Yordy's). I got up at the crack of dawn on Thanksgiving morning to prep the Turkey and get it into the oven. Somehow, that thing cooked way faster than I anticipated. It wasn't a bad thing, my step dad just had a different type of oven at the new home he was living at in Peoria. I remember when I pulled it out of the oven when it was finished and the color was perfect, I just couldn't figure out why it looked so different than a normal turkey. Then, I realized, I had cooked it upside down! I was so worried that I may have ruined it, but it tasted great and my family was so excited to eat it. I just felt so stupid that I cooked it that way, but I could hear my mom's voice in my mind and her contagious laugh and her saying to me in her faded Boston accent with her arm around my shoulders, "Heather, it will taste wonderful and no one will know unless you tell them. It is just a learning experience and now you know what side the Turkey should have been on." I miss her laughs and her hugs so much. That first Thanksgiving without her was so hard, not just on me but on the entire family. I missed her so much, but I felt so at peace looking down at the Turkey Table Timeline that she made for me when I was cooking my first Friendsgiving in 2009 and I could hear her voice in my mind as she walked me through it the very first time I cooked from it.
I always hoped that I was going to be staying at home with my kids some day. Feeding them breakfast every morning and making sure that they had what they needed in their lunchboxes with a little note telling them how much I love them and to have a good day. I imagine filling it up with all sorts of fun things like my mom used to when I was a kid. Then I would make sure that I had a great meal on the table for my kids and my husband at the end of the day. That was how I thought my life was going to turn out for a really long time. Unfortunately not everything goes as we plan and that’s not how my future turned out.
I am a huge comfort food person. I love mashed potatoes, cozy soups and stews when it is cold out, Cracker Barrel or Bob Evans take out when I have had a terrible day and just want to snuggle up on my couch with something homey, a grilled cheese sandwich, breakfast for dinner and so many more. These foods bring me back to my childhood, bring back memories of my mom and the rest of my family, and times gone by. I have always loved to cook, and I have finally learned to love to eat. Food is something that isn't just for survival, it is to enjoy. The delicious combination of flavors as you taste the sauce you are making on the stovetop, or the warm and cozy smell of a peach cobbler in the oven, to the crunch of a fresh summer vegetable in your mouth--eating is something that I now know should be enjoyed, not just to nourish your body but also your soul. When I am able to take the time to cook something from scratch, I relish the joy that it creates for me. I love to create recipes and perfect them as time goes on. Cooking brings me joy and it is a way to show someone that I care. I love to cook for my family, friends, and more. When someone is struggling, recently had a baby, has a family emergency, has a health crisis or any other life event, I like to make a lasagna and bring it to them. I started making my lasagna recipe back in 2011 and I have shared it with so many people ever since. Cooking is a way that I show others that I care, just like my mom and my Memere showed me and my family when I was young.
If you have enjoyed hearing about my journey with food, please follow me @thedooziefoodie on Instagram or Facebook and comment with one of your favorite recipes to make!
Comments