Rising to the Occasion:
Tips for Seasoning Your Meals with Soul
with Karen Mitchell-Wilcher

My Summer’s Bounty

Even though I grew up in Chicago, my parents were good about taking us to “the country”. On most weekends of the summer we would pack up the caravan of cars complete with kids, friends, beach towels and dogs. The destination was our family’s summer place in Union Pier, Michigan. The interstate drive from door to door was about 1 hour without traffic. Harbor County was my parent’s idea of “the country”.

In the early years we would travel through the small towns of northeast Indiana and southwestern Michigan. Back then US 12 had numerous farms, roadside farm-stands and truck stops so the power of suggestion was overwhelming. Needless to say, upon arrival we were always hungry. My dad and aunt would plan the weekend’s menu based on what they saw and purchased at the roadside stands along our route.

My mother would comment that all we seem to do was to eat away the whole weekend. My dad’s response was that it was the country air that whetted our appetites. A typical weekend stay included Friday arrival snacks, Friday night dinner at a local restaurant and late-night snacks. Saturday’s line-up started with breakfast, snacks on the beach, a lunch of early grill offerings, Saturday night’s grilled dinner, my aunt’s homemade desert of the weekend, and the requisite late-night snacking. Culminating the weekend was the big Sunday breakfast with fresh farm-stand picks and pastries from the bakery. In retrospect, as I look back on those days I think both my parents were right!!

My dad was especially fond of the vine-ripened tomatoes and cucumbers from the local growers. He would buy both green and ripe tomatoes. Since my mom wasn’t big on kitchen duty she made recipes that were simple to prepare. Easy Cucumber Salad was paired with the grilled meats cooked under the watchful eyes of my father and uncle. My aunt always had her eye on what would make for a good dessert. The sweet, juicy peaches she purchased in late summer always ended up in a cobbler. She would make an industrial sized dessert for Saturday’s dinner yet it rarely made it to see the light of Sunday at all.

The house rule was that first folks up started Sunday’s breakfast. Usually you needed two people for the task… one to start cooking and one to walk to the bakery for the pastries. If my grandmother was the cook you could expect her to fry up those green tomatoes, make some grits and sausage and have the ability to time everything to hit the table just as the bakery treats were arriving.

Now days the weekend cooks are usually my sisters and I. We don’t take the same route to get to the summer place but we do make it our business to stop at the farm-stands and pick up the bounty that we use for our weekend fest!!

Featured recipes:
Easy Cucumber Salad
Auntie’s Peach Cobbler
Fried Green Tomatoes