EAT MY MEMOIR is an ongoing series about family and food. It gives me great pleasure to remember and then try to recreate these family dishes. Along with the recreations are layers of familial memories that I had almost forgotten. The recipes have been tested two or three times, until they taste pretty damn good to me. But of course you may want to introduce your own tweaks, or scold me for going about things all wrong. Be my guest. —Ann Landi
“ ‘Eat My Memoir’ is simply delicious. It’s like being invited to a family dinner where old stories are told and secrets revealed, amid a clatter of cutlery and plenty of laughter. And, oh yes, the food. I defy you to resist making Ann’s Devils on Horseback after reading about the Coogans’ cocktail parties and Mrs. Coogan’s ‘hollow leg.’ Enjoy, eat up, and get ready to giggle.”
—Mary Gabriel, author of “Ninth Street Women,” “Love and Capital,” and “Notorious Victoria”
15. A Tom Jones Dinner and Slow-Cooker Ribs
In early August, before moving to New York, before my brother left for freshman orientation at Dartmouth, we held a special farewell family dinner for him. We had all seen Tony Richardson’s movie of Tom Jones—yes, even the 12-year-old me, […]
14. Chicken Pot Pie at the Gramercy Park Hotel
And then, glory hallelujah, my father got a job offer in New York City, a better management position with a company called Joy Manufacturing, whose name would be the butt of jokes for years to come. The timing was perfect, […]
13. Emmy Bence’s Thoroughly Disgusting Mashed Potato Candy
I have lost so many photos over the years. Too many moves, too little interest in preserving the past. The boxes upon boxes of family snaps, the little albums of black-and-white photos, held together with a metal clip. I see […]
12. The House on South 22nd Street
The house in Allentown is another I return to often in dreams and memories. Not all of it, because I’ve forgotten the look of the main rooms, but downstairs was a cherry-paneled den as an extension off the back of […]
11. Hoppy Heel Pork Chops in Allentown, PA
My dad was a company man, which meant he expected to be with the same firm, Ingersoll Rand, from recruitment through retirement. That is not how it turned out, but it was the way it looked in 1960. So […]
10. Dad’s Dark-Beer Pancake Syrup
Before we leave Mountain Lakes—as we must, because my father was transferred to Allentown, PA, around 1960—I offer up some random snapshots of that blissful little town. Written snapshots because that seems to be how memory works for me, little […]
Eat My Memoir" is an ongoing series about family and food by Ann Landi, a journalist with more than 25 years' experience reporting on the art world for ARTnews, The Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, and other publications. Landi is the owner and editor-in-chief of Vasari21.com, a community of artists.
