My SP9 Contest

We were asked to write about our favourite recipe. Tough one- I have a lot of favourites-I really do. I love to cook. And I came from a long line of cooks, as well-both my mother and my grandmother-excellent cooks. In fact, when I was in university, I heard about a rather tony restaurant requiring a pastry chef for the summer. Well, honestly- I had been baking since I was about 8 or 9, so I knew my way around a stove-so I applied. And, when that part came to say why I was the best candidate for the job, I was prepared. I had cooked some of my favourite desserts! Black chocolate cheesecake (with a solid dark chocolate crust, and a surprise white chocolate ganache layer) and lemon blueberry cipote(it's a French Canadian thing-sort of a deep dish pie)- rich, syrupy blueberries (wild ones, mind- not those farmed ones) with lots of lemon peel and a dash of sugar in a regular bottom crust-but with a sour cream puff pastry topping-with crystals of sugar over the top and cream puffs-tiny little ones with spun sugar wrapped round and round them, filled with pastry cream (made with fresh cream and half a vanilla bean). Well, I got the job. I still cook, but it took me years to make cheesecake again (that was one of my "jobs" in that kitchen). And it took me quite some time to want to cook anything fancy. But my all time favourite? Hmmm-it's something I have never made myself. Every New Year's, my mother makes this jello mold thing-in a loaf pan-red and pears in one layer, green and pineapple in the other, and the middle layer is pineapple juice and dream whip. I LOVE it- but only for New Year's Day. She didn't make it last New Year's, and I really felt something was missing. I have never eaten it any other day-it is just the tradition of it. Like my birthday cake is always graham cracker crumb cake with raspberry jam filling and sea foam icing. I have had the same cake, every year, since I was about 8. So I guess my favourites have to do with my mom. She's pretty cool for a 77 year old. (yeah, she'll shoot me when she finds out I told her age! She has been 39 for a really long time). BUt that is the reason why those recipes are special.