My View Through Kat Eyes: May 2013

My mom was a famous cook. Maybe not famous in the terms that you think of Paula Deen (whom mom loved!), or Wolfgang Puck; but, she was certainly well known in a particular area of southern Indiana, and a small county in Kentucky.

Mom spent a major portion of her life cooking in restaurants. Sometimes it was her own and sometimes she worked for other people. Either way, she was known for her wonderful home cooking.

I can remember sitting down to home cooked family meals as a very young child thinking my mom was the best cook in the whole world. Every Easter she would make us a chocolate cake in the shape of a lamb, covered with fluffy white frosting and coconut. Those were special times.

Me & my big sister Jane with our lamb cake

As I got older, we spent more and more time at the restaurant mom owned called the Mill Inn. It was the local hangout for all the kids in the evenings and all the coffee drinkers in the mornings. Everyone, no matter what age, loved mom and her cooking.

Mom passed her love of cooking down to her daughters in varying degrees, with all of us inheriting at least part of her skills. Some of us just enjoy it more than others (there are 4 of us). To our dismay, some things, no matter how hard we try, never seem to taste like Mother's.

A couple years ago, my sisters and I decided to record our legacy of cooking for our children. We decided to write a cookbook. This book would record mom's best recipes, our recipes and a short family history. We began and I spent several phone calls collecting information from mom and dad for our history pages. I am so glad I did.

Mom will never see the finished product. She was killed unexpectedly in a car accident on July 7th, 2011. Since the tragedy, we have struggled to finish the book that we had once been so excited about. None the less, we are more determined than ever to finish what we started. It will now be a labor of love, dedicated to the memory of the woman who taught us not only the love of cooking, but simply, how to love.

Mom was not only a great cook, she was a great mother and a true friend. I miss her terribly. I will always be thankful that she instilled in me not only a love of cooking, but also the importance of family. That is a legacy that will live on as my sisters and I pass it down to our children. Mom would be so proud.