Summary: Christmas Dinner and How that Applies to Dog Shows<br> Now that most of us are home for a couple blessed weekends, we can all, even the most diehard of competitors, relax, restore, rest and recharge. The Christmas and New Year’s holidays give us a chance to take stock of the year past and plan for the one upcoming.<br> <br> Christmas and Thanksgiving are my very favorite holidays of the year. To me it is all about the food and the family and friends who become family. Which, of course, includes our dogs, usually a plethora of them underfoot while cooking and eating. We exchange a few small gifts at Christmas, but mostly we hang out and eat good food.<br> <br> JUST like dog shows, the profusion of cable cooking shows, and dog shows, have turned chefs and dog handlers into celebrities, but the reality is, ANYONE can do this!!! Just to give you encouragement in this area, I'll give you a brief tour of my own "cooking history." I have many friends and family who are trained professional chefs. I, on the other hand, learned at the school of "well, hell, the dog won't eat it either"....<br> <br> It's not WHAT's under the tree that counts, it's WHO's under the tree that truly matters.<br> <br> Growing up in Southern Oregon in the '70s and '80s in a one-earner household of four, meant Mom had to be very creative in her food budget. I was raised on home-cooking, home-canning, wild game and garden produce. Chicken, from the store, was a special treat. Lamb chops were a once a year birthday dinner. Mom and Gramma were the cooks. I was shooed out of the kitchen.<br> <br> Milk came from a friend down the road in gallon glass jars with three inches of heavy cream on top. My kitchen skill was to "skim the cream" from the milk using my tin baby cup. Mom used the cream to make butter as well as the richest, most amazing sauces you have ever tasted. I was proud of my ability to get all the chunks of cream, leaving just the whole milk for drinking with dinner.<br> <br> Mom was ridiculously good at this sort of pioneer lifestyle, particularly considering she'd been raised in a very urban setting. She also made her own soap from rendered lard and lye; butchered, trimmed and cut all our wild game meats; made Chinese food, including homemade egg rolls; taught us how to use chopsticks, even before a fork; and, canned anything that you could name. But that's another topic for another day.<br> <br> Fast-forward to life right after college. My refrigerator typically contained pickles, ketchup and beer. Maybe peanut butter and bread. I was working for a weekly newspaper as a reporter. My before-tax income was $1000 a month. My father literally laughed at me. He said a college education meant I was supposed to be able to eat something other than PBJ…. Hah! That was all I knew how to cook!<br> <br> As life trundled on, I had more money and less money at times. I ate out, ate in. Mastered scrambled eggs. And tuna salad sandwiches. I learned to cook by doing it. I had a definite ace in the hole, though, since I could call Mom anytime and ask her what to do.<br> <br> One of my most treasured possessions is a cookbook of her old recipes, food I grew up eating. Mom hand-wrote each of these recipes. I've added to it over the years with recipes cut out or printed out or made up. I would rescue that book from a house fire.<br> <br> During the "lost years" spent in Nebraska, where good meals at restaurants were both very difficult to find and impossible to afford, I did a LOT of cooking. It was during this time that most of my trial and (lots of) error occurred… I'll never forget the carrot cake that had baking soda instead of baking powder…. Oh, dear Lord…<br> At any rate, the point I'm rambling toward here is that *anyone* can learn to make simple, healthy, fresh, whole food meals. Literally, if I can do it, YOU can do it!! AND you can learn to show your dog!<br>
