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times of want and times of plentyby Monika Kramer CopelandNot everyone has the fortune of having a professional chef for a mom. Not every such mom came from a line of naturally talented cooks, women in villages whose gifts were called upon for family occasions or regional feasts in the part of Saxony, Germany that borders on the former Czechoslovakia. This was before the age of catering and those ladies cooked without recipes, but with savvy palates, and their skills guaranteed savory, delicious fare. They did without electric kitchen appliances, there were no business cards, but they enjoyed renown and popularity beyond their villages. Their talents made dishes, such as sautéed red cabbage, into tradition. My mother trained for the profession of chef. She started as an apprentice, being taught thoroughly and precisely with excellence the goal. She worked in hotels and restaurants, even spent two summers as chef on a vacation riverboat touring the Elbe between Dresden and Czechoslovakia. She fortified her passengers for a day of hiking in the mountains with the most potent beef broth ever. After WW II, there was more hunger than food, especially in the Soviet-occupied zone where we lived. Mom created innovative dishes, all made with potatoes, and with hardly anything else but herbs from the lifesaving garden. She would cook potato patties, then marinate the patties in a mixture of vinegar, onion, salt, and if we had it - pepper, and if we had it - oil. After marinating, the patties would taste like sour herring. She made 'fake whipping cream' from a flour and water paste, cooked, cooled, and beaten by hand beyond the endurance of the hand. In the end it was so full of air and so velvety that with a little sugar and almond flavoring, it tasted like a cream dessert. After we escaped to the American zone, my mom's talents were no longer handicapped by food shortages. A great favorite of hers and mine is leg of lamb marinated in buttermilk. Her basic approach to everything culinary is that there must be harmony in the seasoning. ABOUT MONIKA: Monika is a painter and a writer. A woman of the theater, her passion has been to see the works of Shakespeare produced. Try her mother's authentic German recipes.
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