Lemon Yum-Yum§

writer: russell j.t. dyer; posted: December 27, 2008; revised: March 24, 2018; readers in past month: 881

My mother is very good at cooking. I know that almost everyone says that about their mother, but it’s true in this case. She was taught by her grandmother — she lived with her for a few years as a child — and throughout her life she often and regularly would cook and bake from new recipes from magazines and books. With most meals, she would experiment and was learning about cooking. She didn’t settle on a few simple recipes and repeat them each week. The result for me was that I grew up with a variety of good food. This is why I like a variety of cooking and good restaurants.

Although I’ve never learned to cook, I am good at baking. I can bake because I am fastidious about following recipes. With baking there’s no vagueness as there is with cooking (e.g., cook until brown: how brown is brown?!). As I’m settling into my new home and now have a well equipped kitchen, I’m starting to bake again. This past week I baked a Lemon Yum-Yum pie from a recipe I got from my mother, who got it from a Louisiana magazine or newspaper long ago with the recipe coming from the then Lieutenant Governor, Jimmy Fitzmorris. It took some doing on my part to engineer given the different ingredients available in Italy as opposed to the U.S., but I think the pie last week came out well. It’’’s a heavenly pie and left alone I’ll eat it all. By the way, please don’t ask for the recipe — I don’t like to share.