This weekend, Marian and I hosted our supper club for one of our small group's theme meals. We've done Thai and Indian and a few other regions of the world that escape me at this late hour. We also went off the board one July and hosted a red, white, and blue dinner - all foods being in those color groups. This weekend, we prepared German food for our friends and while it may be immodest to say so - it was a hit. 

As many of you know, my mother is German. While she is very Americanized (dang, she makes a killer grilled cheese sandwich), we enjoy her traditional German fare for holidays and special occasions. My mother learned to cook not as a child but as a young Army wife stationed with my father in Fort Riley, Kansas. An older German woman (my sister and I called her Aunt Margaret) took my mother under her wing and showed her around her German kitchen. That's where my mother mastered rouladen (braised beef rolls) and rot kohl (red cabbage) and other tastes of the motherland.

I didn't spend much time in the kitchen with my mother while I was growing up. When I was a teenager, some guy from one of the utility companies came to our door taking a survey to determine how many households in our neighborhood were cooking with gas versus electric. I had to invite him in to take a look at the stove. Mind you, that was back in the day when you could still invite strange men into your home. I remember the look on his face as he was leaving and I chirped in adolescent ignorance, "So what was it?" He made a notation on his clipboard (I'm sure he wrote the word IDIOT), told me it was electric, and descended our driveway shaking his head. I've since learned the difference and, this weekend, stood in front of my six gas burners with a pot of red cabbage on one and a pan of rouladen on another. This was not my first batch of red cabbage but never before had I rolled rouladen. 

My mom coached me over the phone. And, I always have confidence in the kitchen when Marian is at my side. Nonetheless, I was a bit worried about our meal because we weren't simply cooking - we were accepting the baton of culinary responsibility from my mother. We were channeling the spirit of Aunt Margaret and Magdalena Gerbig Schellenschlager (my mother's mother) and all the other proud and sturdy women who populate the branches of my German family tree. I felt generations of German cooks watching over me as I carefully seasoned the beef and prepared the generous rolls of bacon, pickles, and onions. And when Marian asked me how long we should simmer the rouladen before serving, I told her just as my mother told me ... "cook it til it's done."