The Waller - Warren Family Cookbook
Lisa Waller

Jenn Waller was born in Maryland in the late 60s, while her father, George, was stationed there in the Air Force. She grew up in New England and has remained there all her life. In this photo, she's the older of the two girls.

Her earliest food-based memories are probably of Ukrainian dinners with her mom's mom - lots of steaming cabbage and rice rolls, keilbasa, potato pancakes with sour cream, a strange black-spotted-rice/bean concoction she hated, hard boiled eggs. Pirogies.

From Ann, Lisa's mom: The cabbage and rice rolls as you call them are stuffed cabbage: cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and hamburger mixture. I don't remember a rice and bean thing. You probably mean Kutya which is made at Christmas. It's cooked whole wheat grains and poppy seeds, flavored with honey. I used to love it.

Favorite Foods from Childhood:
Potato pancakes!! At Baba's house we'd also take chocolate chip ice cream and pour TONS of chocolate jimmies onto it and stir it up into a soup that was really 99% jimmies and 1% ice cream. Devilled Eggs were always a special treat. Shell pasta COATED in margarine. I hated butter, I only liked margarine.

Home-Grown foods:
I remember mom having a garden behind the long garage in Willimantic, but I don't remember eating anything from it. Hmmmmmmm.

Birthday Tradition:
Dressel's!! It was a store-bought cake with sprinkles on the side. I LOVED that cake. I have hunted for it for years and apparently they went out of business. *sigh*. I remember Mom making little gifts for the party visitors, like little colored-paper baskets with looped handles to hold candies in.

Normal Daily Fare:
Bizarre concoctions that we were guinea-pigged on, like Eggplant Pizza. On the other hand, nights when Mom was at class or something I remember endless supplies of Macaroni and Cheese and these infamous boil-in-the-bag salisbury steaks that would come out of the hot water dripping with dangerous drops. Then you had to cut them open with scizzors without steamifying your face.

Seasonal Treats:
I don't remember anything really seasonal, maybe the ice cream truck by Baba's house that would stop right next to it. Spritz cookies were always fun around Christmas with little colored sugar crystals on top. I do remember when I was maybe 10 and went to see my mother's Ukrainian cousin in Canada, they gave me a strawberry milkshake thinking it was a treat. I remember thinking I hated strawberries and tried to drink some, but just couldn't.

Parental Food Memories:
Pork chops in a rich cream of mushroom gravy.

Drinks:
When I was a teen, I used to enjoy Rum and Coke but in my late 20s I pretty much stopped drinking them. I switched to wine and began writing about wine for WineIntro.com and the New England Wine Gazette. I now enjoy Amaretto Sours, Strawberry Daquiris and just trying random mixed drinks to see what they're like.

Other notes:
Even though we lived in New England I don't think we ate ANY seafood growing up. Mom has said it's because her family came from Ukraine and never ate any. Her mom in fact wouldn't eat Starkist tuna because of the mermaid label, she thought it was mermaid meat. So I don't think I ever ate any seafood (except fish sticks) until I moved out at age 18.

I remember in high school going for a career day at a hospital and seeing liver on the menu at the cafeteria. I figured I'd gamely give it a try, but with one bite I realized it was TRULY awful and I could not eat it. The table thought this was vastly funny as I went back for another lunch option.

I remember experimenting with food coloring at around 13 and making the family blue pancakes. I tried to convince them that the color shouldn't change the flavor but they were not impressed.

RECIPES
Devilled Eggs
Rum and Coke

SIBLINGS
Jenn Waller

Profiles of the Waller - Warren Family Members
The Waller - Warren Family Cookbook