My Own Quotes

My Own Cooking Quotes

2/19/2025

Cakes and Pies
Gumbo and Roux
Cooking Experiences
Seafood and Shrimp

Mama and Family Cooking
Food and Memories
Dessert

I once ate FIVE Irish Cream Brownies at the Houston Festival, where they were sold at a Foley's Department Store booth. The original was made with Myer's Rum Cream, but I like my Irish Cream version best. I walked away from the festival with a full tummy and a new boyfriend. He didn't last, but this recipe is a keeper!

Cakes and Pies

2/19/2025

Make a cake and you have an instant party! My mama and all her five sisters loved a pound cake. When they visited each other, a pound cake usually travelled with them.
This German Chocolate Cake is famous! It has graced our family tables on many special occasions and has travelled across many state lines with Mama and her sisters. It's so good that traveling with it could be considered illegal.
Fluffy is desirable for cakes, towels, cats, and blankets.
Mama, the patron saint of patience, would curse when trying to remove cakes from their pans. Mama only had one curse word in her vernacular, shit. She claimed it was acceptable to say it, because her mother used it only when sewing. Mama used it while sewing, but expanded it to baking, as well.
Springform cheesecake pans - every I want to make a cheesecake – the bottom of the pan cannot be found. It's like that elusive sock that gets lost. No matter where you look, it is gone!
To cut your cheesecake: Unless you've already grabbed a fork and are digging in, use a hot knife.
My Grandmother Annie used to yank a straw from her broom and stick it in the cake in the oven. If it came out clean, the cake was done.
Do not be tempted to open that oven door and check on your cake too soon. Do that and your cake will sink like the Titanic.
Aunt Bessie was a great cook, a dry wit, and had fantastic posture! Maybe her pies had something to do with all that.
I grabbed one of those pies. My miserable mood magically disappeared with one swing of my arm, as I hurled Mama's famous chocolate meringue pie into the ditch.
Mama used to eat all pies with a knife. Hmmm... I'm thinking she did not want to share.

All quotes by Miss Cookbook ~ Pam Ricker

Gumbo and Roux

2/19/2025

Mama just made a great gumbo! That's all there is to it.
This recipe is all mine. I copied lots from Mama's Gumbo and learned some from my sis-in-law (Jane), but the rest is me!
A good roux takes time, a beer or a glass of wine, and lots of patience. It should be the color of milk chocolate when ready. It should never be burnt. If it burns, throw it out and start over.

All quotes by Pam Ricker.

Cooking Experiences

2/19/2025

Ha! Next thing I knew there was grape juice and "grape guts" all over the kitchen, including the ceiling. Great sorbet in the end!
The right sauce can even make an old shoe taste elegant.
For years I kept a biscuit that I made in Mrs. Pinkston's Home Economics class. It was harder than granite and never got moldy, even after years. Even after I threw it out, it was a constant threat to me.
Oh, do those Italians ever know how to use flour!
Being in the kitchen should be fun!! If you don't succeed with a recipe, it's not the end of the world.

All quotes by Miss Cookbook ~ Pam Ricker

Seafood and Shrimp

2/19/2025

Growing up a couple of blocks from the Gulf of Mexico was a seafood bonanza. Love me some shrimp.
Our family could put away fried shrimp as fast as Mom could cook them!
In my opinion, nobody makes shrimp Po Boys better than Bozo's in Pascagoula on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It's been a mainstay since 1957. They also sell Christmas trees during the season. I remember going there as a little girl with Daddy to pick out our tree. It's a winning combo - Po Boys and Christmas trees!!

All quotes by Miss Cookbook ~ Pam Ricker

Mama & Family Cooking

2/19/2025

I'm sorry if I'm insulting YOUR mom, but MY mom made the best hamburgers in the South.
Chicken Pot Pie - Mama's favorite - however, I never knew her to make one from scratch!
Aunt Bessie Holdaway and Aunt Anniebelle Bellia (Mama's sisters) were the rebels in the family, what with knowing about exotic dishes like tetrazzini.
Mama made good fried chicken too, but she allowed that Daddy's was the best.
Mama made the best French fries ever! You need 2 paper grocery sacks.
Aunt Pam cooks a great salad. ~ Daryn Ricker
Where's that salad with those little marshmallows? ~ The Ricker and Young Families
Daddy made this orange sherbet several times every summer, outside in the shade of the Chinaberry tree. We didn't yet have air-conditioning. I can still taste how refreshing it was in the summer heat!

Unless noted, all quotes by Miss Cookbook ~ Pam Ricker

Food and Memories

2/19/2025

Guacamole, I could just eat an entire mixing bowl full of this stuff. Forget the chips, I'll just use a spoon!
Thai Peanut Dipping Sauce: Forget dipping, just give me a bowl of this stuff and a spoon, and I'm quite happy!
There's absolutely nothing more refreshing on a hot summer day than the taste of a lime.
Just so you know:
Pecans are pronounced "puh cahns", not pea cans. Pralines are pronounced "praw leens", not pray leens.

I spent the first 40 years of my life not knowing what a leek was. If you don't know, find out soon; they're delicious.
There's nothing so good as butter beans or crowder peas fresh-shelled in the summer. Mama and Daddy used to go to the Farmer's Market in Mobile and get bushels of these to put up in the freezer. I remember sitting under the China Berry tree in the front yard shelling those beans and peas, until I could sneak away!

All quotes by Pam Ricker.

Dessert

2/19/2025

Growing up, the local bakery was located across the alley from my elementary school. Each year, we always hoped to be in a classroom on the side near the bakery, so we could smell the yummy baked goods cooking all day. Thus began my lifelong love affair with baked goods.

I once ate FIVE of Irish Cream Brownies at the Houston Festival, where they were sold at a Foley's Department Store booth. The original was made with Myer's Rum Cream, but I like my Irish Cream version best. I walked away from the festival with a full tummy and a new boyfriend. He didn't last, but this recipe is a keeper.
Keep it moist; use the correct amount of baking powder. Too much and your dessert will be a desert.

All quotes by Miss Cookbook ~ Pam Ricker

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