From Wikipedia:  There are many theories as to how the dish ropa vieja was named. One of the more popular ones is a story about a man whose family was coming to his home for dinner. Being very poor, the man could not buy them enough food when they came. To remedy his situation, he went to his closet, gathered some old clothes (ropa vieja en español) and imbued them with his love. When he cooked the clothes, his love for his family turned them into a wonderful beef stew.
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All my adult life I dreamed of having the perfect kitchen–a gleaming Viking stove, a proper stone surface to make pastry, a Kitchen-Aid mixer, a chef’s sink in addition to the apron front farmhouse sink–and for a while I had it.  When we moved to Anchorage my husband designed and built me my dream kitchen.  But circumstances were such that I was working full time and writing full time and there was no time to make the fabulous meals I’d planned for decades and decades.  He did learn to cook, though!  When we sold the house and moved I felt sad at all I’d missed in that wonderful space and figured I’d never have it again.  Oh, poor me.

Now we are in Santa Fe in a little house I love.  The kitchen is galley-style, features a plain old electric stove and tile counters in a space one-tenth of the size of the other kitchen.  Yet I find myself cooking more than ever.  I spend my day working on my new novel, following my characters on their hikes, picture-taking, the wedding receptions they host on their tiny ranch with secondhand horses, goats, chickens and rescued dogs.  When I stop working for the day, I head into the kitchen to see what’s there to work with.

The Calphalon pots became too heavy for my arthritis, so I gave them to a student who likes to cook.  I bought a set of Revere ware on eBay, which were the first pots and pans I cooked with when I got married, and every time I touch one it’s like seeing an old friend.  The gunmetal gray Kitchen Aid mixer takes up a whole corner of the counter top gathering dust.  I use the handheld mixer I bought at Sears a jillion years ago, my cast iron fry pan never leaves the stove top, and my McCoy mixing bowls that are so old they’re now collector pieces see use every day.

Returning to those early tools, my cooking has gotten simpler.  If I can serve a one-dish meal–stew, pasta salad, soup–I do it.  Do we grow wiser as we age or do our palates simplify?  Maybe we finally realize that there’s only so much energy to go around and we must decide if we want to spend it on making our own crackers or enjoying conversation instead?  Yes, I used to make my own crackers.  Chilled a fragile dough of unsalted butter, cheese and flour, and sat on the floor by the oven and peered through the glass until they were perfectly done.  For the first twenty years of my marriage I did not buy frozen food or commercial jam or bread.  I made it all.   And on holidays or for parties, I’d cook for days and still have energy left to enjoy what was going on.

Now I have a few dishes I cook well and they are my go-to menus when I have guests.  I watched my Italian grandmother make gnocchi and risotto and pizza and couldn’t duplicate her work because it wasn’t work to her, it was a lifestyle.  I maintain fidelity to my writing and bless her heart every time I cook a frozen pizza.  Eventually I decided that it was better to have a couple really great dishes than try to make a dozen.

Ropa vieja–its translation is literally “old clothes”–is the one my family and friends always request.  It’s a lot of prep work, but after that all you do is simmer it all day, stir it once in a while, and then you eat it, savoring the blend of flavors that only mature from slow cooking.   On a cold night, it warms you to the core.  On a hot day, the spices seem perfectly suited to icy limeade and conversation in the shade.  When I make ropa vieja, I always make a ton because that way everyone can take home a serving, because the next day you want more just from the memory.

In other recipes there are variations using yucca and plantains, but I don’t like those tastes so I make it simpler.  Some recipes will say to use cheap cuts of meat, and you can, but make it with better cuts and it really shows.  All the measures below are approximate.  It will serve 6-8 the way it’s written.

1lb pork tenderloin
1-2 lbs tri tip steak or any other cut
olive oil
1-2 onions, sliced in rings
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
one whole sack of those baby carrots
4-6 green chiles (roasted, skinned and diced)
1-2 red bell peppers (roasted, skinned and diced)
2-4 T vegetable broth–I like Better Than Bullion Organic Vegetable Paste*
4 C water
1 bunch cilantro
1-2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

*Once you try this kind of broth paste, you won’t go back to the hard little cubes.  It’s great, organic, and it comes in several flavors.  If you need a cup of broth to get to feeling better, this is the stuff.

Cut the meats into stew-sized chunks.  Salt and pepper liberally and then brown in olive oil.  Once meat is brown all over, remove it and set aside.  In the juices and oil caramelize the onion and cook the chopped garlic until it releases its scent.

Roast the bell pepper and chiles and remove the skins.  Dice and set aside.  Put the carrots in with the onions and the bell pepper.  Add the meat back in and cover with water.  Add in the bullion.  Place the chiles in when it’s simmering nicely.  Cook for hours, simmering slowly, stirring and tasting.  Eventually the meat will start to shred and most of the liquid will evaporate.  Taste it as you go.  The recipe is forgiving, so you can add water, take away water, add chiles to make it hotter, remove them if it’s too hot.

Just before you serve, add a can or two of black beans that have been rinsed and drained.  Chop a whole bunch of cilantro and put that in just before you plate it, so the cilantro stays pungent.  If you want a shiny glaze to the juices, a pat or two of butter just before serving will make things shimmer.

Sometimes I serve it on top of garlic mashed potatoes or white rice, or even thick slices of sourdough bread.  It would make incredible burritos, but I prefer it in a bowl, where you can see each ingredient fall off your fork.  The Bisquick biscuit recipe made with cream instead of skimmed milk makes the perfect biscuit to accompany this stew.

Jo-Ann Mapson is the author of nine novels, most recently The Owl & Moon Cafe.  She lives in Santa Fe with her artist husband, Stewart Allison and their five dogs, Verbena, Cricket, Henry, Piper and Rufus, where she is at work on a new novel.  She teaches in the low-residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Alaska Anchorage.  Her website has cobwebs it is so out of date, but you can visit it anyway at www.joannmapson.com.  Her favorite meal is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with an Oreo and milk chaser.

It might be as basic as your mother’s spaghetti sauce or as special as Aunt Helen’s Christmas cookies. Maybe it’s the cake you always have on birthdays, or the pumpkin chiffon pie that says Thanksgiving to you.

The dish that means so much to you may have been in your family for generations or it may be a relatively recent arrival. You may be surprised to learn just where it came from, and when it arrived on the scene.  And the one person who makes it may or may not have it written down.

Get it in writing.

If there’s a dish that’s special for you, whether it’s a holiday treat or an everyday one, get the recipe and learn how to make it. Now.

Talk to the person who makes it. If the recipe isn’t written down anywhere, arrange to stand by while she or he makes it. As you watch, write down the ingredients, the method, the oven temp, the pan size, everything you observe. Then make it. If it doesn’t turn out well, talk to her and try to figure out what went wrong. Then make it again.

If you don’t, these treasured dishes will be lost. The one person who knows how to make the birthday cake or the sauce or the pumpkin pie will, sadly, not live forever. And one day, after she’s gone, you’ll realize that a birthday is coming up, and you don’t know how to make the cake. Thanksgiving will dawn, and you’ll have one less dish to be thankful for. You’ll hunger for spaghetti with mom’s sauce, but you’ll never be able to taste it again.

True, even with the recipe, it may not taste exactly the same when you make it. But it will be close. And it will make you feel closer to the one who’s gone.

You’ll make the birthday cake and laugh about the year you decided on a different one, regretted it, and never made the same mistake again. Or, on one future Thanksgiving, as everyone is saying how good the pumpkin pie is, you’ll remind them of the year your aunt dropped it, and it splattered all over the floor. And how relieved everyone was to see her take another one out of the refrigerator.

So call the person who makes that special dish and ask her to teach you how to make it yourself. She’ll be pleased and flattered and, in addition to getting the recipe, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re keeping tradition alive. As a bonus, you may hear a wonderful or a surprising story about how the recipe wound up in the family repertoire.

Don’t wait until next year or the next birthday or holiday, do it now. When you’ve made the dish, and you’re happy with the result, go to your computer and key in the recipe. Print it out on plain white paper. Or on colored paper with fancy borders and decorations.  Make several copies and give one to everyone who loves it and to a few people who’ve never had it, but who you know will love it.

Here is one I’d like to give to you.

Quiche Quinzio

This is a typical Italian spinach pie, but years ago my father had the happy idea of adding some cooked sausage to it. That took it from ordinary to extraordinary. We named it Quiche Quinzio for the alliteration, although it’s not a classic quiche. It is one of our family’s favorite dishes. I hope you enjoy it.

Unbaked pie crust- homemade or store-bought
One or two links of sweet Italian sausage
One ten-ounce package of frozen, chopped spinach
One large egg
One pound ricotta (whole milk)
Half teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated is best)
Half cup freshly grated Parmagiano
Teaspoon of salt
Butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Remove sausage from casing, crumble up, and fry slowly until cooked but not crisp. Let cool.

Meanwhile cook the spinach for a minute or two, then drain, squeezing to get as much moisture out as possible. Let it cool.

Whisk egg, then mix in the ricotta, nutmeg, salt and all but a couple of tablespoons of the Parmagiano together in a bowl. Add the cooled, drained spinach. Mix well.

Spread the crumbled sausage in the bottom of the unbaked pie crust. Spread the ricotta and spinach mixture over it. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmagiano. Then top with a few slivers of butter.

Bake at 350 for about forty minutes. The crust should be lightly browned, and the filling should puff up a bit. Let cool for a few minutes, cut and serve.

Jeri Quinzio is a writer who specializes in food history. Her new book – Of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making is just out from the University of California Press.
Her blog is – http://jeriquinzio.typepad.com.