My mom, Muriel Brody, died in August 2018, just a month shy of turning 102. She was a success at more than just longevity. She became an art teacher rather than a journalist because her father thought it was a safer profession for women in the 1930s. And even though she’d never picked up a paintbrush until she entered Moore College of Art, her watercolors were as masterful as if she’d been born with the divine gift. Navy Wife She gave up teaching to serve as a Naval officer’s wife at a time when “entertaining” was serious business. Throwing dinner parties and organizing wives’ club luncheons were part of the job, and she had…
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Olympic Seoul Chicken, or How My Mom Met Frank Perdue
Olympic Seoul Chicken, a dish popular all over the Internet, began with a contest. After all, winning cooking contests runs in our family. My brother created a prize-winning peanut butter and provolone sandwich (see the PS in the last post). Decades later I too started dabbling in cooking contests. I even entered one of my mom’s heirloom recipes with only a minor substitution and it came in third. My mom could have been ticked off that I used her recipe. But instead, it stirred up her competitive juices. If her daughter could do well with her recipes, why couldn’t she? Her target: the 1988 Delmarva Chicken Cooking Contest. Her concept: an adaptation of a…
