“Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.”

– Anthony Bourdain

 

Hi There and Welcome to Mimi’s Recipe Box.!! 

I’m Katie Chiasson and invite you to go on my journey as I cook my way through my grandmother’s recipe box, reinventing some of my most memorable dishes from my childhood!

A little about me.  It’s interesting trying to write about yourself, kind of weird actually.  Letting you get to know me through a serious of words, without boring you to death!  Who am I?  I am Katie, born and raised in south Louisiana, and mom of two beautiful girls, the first of whom went away to college this year.  YIKES!!  Okay, okay, proud mom here.  Both of my girls have and are still growing into strong, independent, and wonderful women.  It’s bittersweet, losing your babies, but I am so excited about the women they are becoming.  I can’t wait to see all that they do!!!

 

Other than my two girls, I share my life with my biggest supporter and partner in crime, the “Martman” and two crazy cats, Salem and Azrael, who like to supervise my kitchen antics.

Now, back to me.  My hobbies include, well this . . . cooking.  I LOVE cooking and more importantly LOVE seeing the smile, that look on people’s faces, when they take that first bite and are like OMG!!  Holy shit this is good!!  I’ve actually always dreamed of opening a restaurant or food truck.  

Many years ago, when my girls were younger, I did have the wonderful opportunity to stay home with them and be a stay-at-home mom.  I cooked, and I cleaned, and I cooked, and I cleaned, and on and on.  I forgo all boxes and cans in my kitchen.  Everything was from scratch, and I mean everything, even made all of my own organic baby food.  Trust me that was all a lot of work.  LOL, when I was pregnant for my second, I cooked so much that I would feed other families in my neighborhood.

Once the girls got older, I went back to work, full time and using short cuts to cook dinner became key again.  We actually used to eat out way more than anyone should.  But hey, I was tired!  Before I went back to work, my grandmother passed away and somehow I managed to inherit her recipe boxes.  Recipe card after recipe card, clipped articles from magazines, from newspapers, there were hundreds of them.  Sadly, they pretty much just sat and collected dirt.  Such a waste, all of the memories of gathering around her table, and family meals at home as well.  But we were all just to “busy.”

Then 2020 hit, what a year, one that no one will ever forget happened.  While being on lock down for months, I started cooking again, and I mean really cooking.  Then my partner in crime, best bud, biggest supporter, and love of my life (the Martman), bought me a Kitchenaide stand mixer and it was game on!  I scowled the internet for cinnamon rolls, turnovers, pastas, breads, anything that I could whisk and paddle like a pro.  I even taught myself how to make Raviolo al’ Uovo!  I’m not sure if it would pass Joe Bastianich’s taste test, but it was delicious.  And, of course, I pulled out those recipe boxes and started reliving all of the wonderful memories of being a child and sneaking bites of dinner before it was served.  I was a tried-and-true test tester.  No joke.

Ah the memories, we didn’t live in the same town as my grandparents, but we did spend almost every holiday at their house.   I can still smell the turkey cooking on Thanksgiving, and of course the pies!  One of the only times my grandmother would fix pie, Pawpaw was a true cake person, and there was always one in the house.  Period.  The anticipation of waiting for her brisket to come out of the oven, watching her make hushpuppies while by grandfather fried fish in the back yard.  Or of Pawpaw smoking something in an old trash can that he had converted to a smoker.  And not just being at their house, but sitting around the table with my parents and my sister and brother, then with also their kids, and then with their grandkids.   Food has always brought my family together.  Whenever there is any kind of get together it is always the first topic.  What are we eating and who is bringing what.  When we are all together now there are over 30 of us, so we all pitch in.

However, as an adult, going through all of Mimi’s recipes made me realize that she was in fact a product of her time.  I mean, I guess we all are.  My grandparents grew up in the depression, and nothing was ever wasted.  But then the rise of cheap canned and boxed goods came freeing women from the kitchen at hours on end.  Her recipes are now old and dated.  I mean come on, who is going to make that giggly shrimp mold thing again.  The obsession with gelatin in the 1950’s is definitely a trend that needs to stay in the past.  The recipes do make me smile, knowing how much they meant to me as a child, but reading them now is a little bit WOW!  Did I really eat potato nachos made with melted Cheezewiz?  Yes, yes I did!!

So, I started thinking and realized that, even though I don’t still completely cook 100% from scratch, I still really limit cans and boxes in my house and can throw down some yummy dishes.  At least my family tells me so, hey in all honesty they might just be too scared to tell me the truth.  So, I started thinking some more.  Which is really scary.  But why not take all of these recipes (well not all, I’m not touching the shrimp mold) that I loved growing up (with a few from Mom, she’s gonna be mad when she figures that one out) and update them.  It’s been a slow process now that I am back working full time from the office, which happens to be an hour away.  But I think I have come up with a few, and hopefully many more to come, recipes that I have shared with my family and want to share with you as well. And so, Mimi’s Recipe Box was born.  From my grandmother’s kitchen, to my mom’s kitchen, to mine, and to hopefully yours as well.