Yes!
See, that’s the thing-people learn how to cook, and they are great at it, but...sometimes, they do it like nobody else, and often, without all the spice-related pomp and circumstance...:)
Funny. It is a common experience in my family to try to cook some of my mother’s recipes, but...they never seem to come out the way my mother made them.
I had three recipes I pinned her to the wall on...I made her show me, and I watched her like a hawk and took copious notes! Those were her Portugese Kale, Potato, and Chorizo soup, her Beef Stew, and her Apple Pie.
I am expert at all those, but I’ll be damned if I can replicate anything else of hers.
She used to do a pork roast where she trimmed off the fat, ground it up in a blender mixed with some spices and herbs, rosemary, and garlic in it, then smeared the paste concoction on the outside of it before roasted it.
My God. When that thing would come out golden brown, somehow that gooey paste she put on had turned to a crispy shell with moist roast pork inside. Unbelievable.
Damn. I wish I had made her do that one too. I just cannot get it to taste or feel the same! The outside is kind of...mushy, no matter how hard I try or how long I roast it.
Both of your highly descriptive posts on your mom’s learn-ed cooking were at the same time, mouth watering (even the gritty spinach, because that is a marvelous combo dish prepared without the sand! heh) and a testament to your mom’s individual way of approaching fine cooking. Wonderful memories.
Mom-in-law was at State Dept. all over,including Beirut in the days when it was called the “Paris of the Middle East” (now look at the destroyed port, one more Hezbollah nightmare, a destroyed city and cultural wonder)—
Anyway, she was always welcome on visits because coming back from work i’d call in and ask “what’s for supper?” and she’d say something like “Coquille St. Jacques and a light salad Med style, and a light dessert of ice crean with puff peach filling pastries”. Needless to say, stuffed myself with fantastic food and just the right wine. Now it’s beans and rice (Acadian style,and economizing).
Your mom and my inlaw would have made fast friends.
“Damn. I wish I had made her do that one too. I just cannot get it to taste or feel the same! The outside is kind of...mushy, no matter how hard I try or how long I roast it.”
Might try turning up the oven temp about 50-75 degrees hotter for the first 20 minutes or so to get the crust started.