Canned Confessions
Photo credit: iStockphoto.com
The best recipe I own came from my mom. It was passed down to her from her mom, a first-generation Polish woman who, from what I remember, never actually cooked. Unfortunately, the recipe isn't from the Eastern European "homeland." And sadly, it wasn't lovingly passed down by my great grandmother. No, it's a recipe for Swedish meatballs.
And better yet, there's not one ingredient in it that's fresh. (Actually, that's a lie—the meat is fresh, thank goodness.) But why is that better? Maybe it's because out of all the figs I stuffed with gorgonzola, all the expensive pounds of gouda-goat I've charged to Visa, out of all the farm-fresh tomatoes I've diced for bruchettas, there's some indescribable satisfaction in knowing that the best appetizer recipe I own consists of one packet of Lipton onion soup mix, one can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, and one chicken-flavored bouillon cube. There's a teeny nugget of pride in knowing that what people are lapping up involved no chopping, grating, or reducing. And that this recipe, one that's totally unnatural (and let's not even talk about the sodium content), is the one that I'm asked to share the most, out of all the expensive, time-consuming, silly little dishes I have served. And it costs less than $10 to make.
