Article originally published March 19, 2004 in Grapevine, Colleyville, Southlake Up Close a monthly supplement to the Star-Telegram
| Cook's creativity delights family, friends By Jane Ramos Trimble Special Features Writer Judith Wills of Grapevine has been cooking almost all her life. "My mother was a very active cook and I just loved to go into the kitchen and watch and work with her. She was considered a very good cook," Wills said. Her mother, Julia Geffen, was also a bit adventurous in her St. Louis kitchen, Wills remembers. "She loved to bake and made her own bread and rolls but wasn't any good at pastry, and I'm not much better. She would get on tears sometimes - like when she got a pressure cooker and cooked everything in it for a long time. I didn't like that because it made everything gray and dull," Wills said. She learned a little more about cooking in her high school home-economics class, but the routine fare didn't excite her much. "About the only cooking we did was to make canapes on Ritz crackers. I'd already been reading cookbooks and loved trying recipes since I was 8 or 9, so I was ready to get into something more than Ritz canapes," Wills said. Even though she started early, Wills has never experienced culinary burn-out and is always ready for new cooking challenges. "It's what I've always loved doing - having a dinner party, creating a theme and doing everything from scratch," Wills said. "I even enjoyed it when Iwas putting my first husband through school and there wasn't very much money. I like challenge and it was fun to be creative." When Wills was dating her current husband, Kenneth, she had about all the challenge she could manage when he hosted a dinner party she cooked for. "On the morning of the party, he handed me a cookbook and said, 'I'd like you to make this.' It was coq au vin, which I knew would take just about all day, but I was so eager to please him that I agreed," Wills remembers. "What I would ordinarily do on a Saturday when I was giving a party was clean house. I had all the cooking basically done. But this time, I went into the kitchen early in the morning and didn't come out 'til 6 p.m. It's the toughest assignment I've ever had." For dinner parties and family meals, Wills enjoys trying new menus. "I like to cook all kinds of things. I like to try new things and I like the old-fashioned stuff, too. I like cooking with butter and cream. Food just tastes better with the traditional ingredients. With so many people on Atkins today, it works out sometimes. Hollandaise, for example, is one of the stalwarts with Atkins," Wills said. Family favorites include caramel bananas, a dessert made with bananas split in a serving dish, then covered with homemade caramel sauce. "If you want to really dress it up, you add whipped cream or ice cream," Wills recommended. Another favorite with her three grown sons is eggs Benedict with from-scratch Hollandaise sauce, and one daughter-in-law has praised her vichyssoise as the "best in the world." "My kids really love my scallop soup, which is made with bottled clam juice and white wine, a little butter and chopped celery leaves, a little cream and tiny bay scallops," Wills said. One of her husband's favorite foods is brussels sprouts. "He's English and the English like brussels sprouts. I have to make them so I like them, too, so I always use fresh ones, often with melted butter and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. He also loves my risotto and his favorite food is homemade bread. I can make a lot of different things with my bread machine, which I'm very dependent on. For dessert, he really likes my chocolate pot du creme. It's fabulous and mostly fool proof - dressy and elegant and people are wowed by it." The Wills family also likes a variety of ethnic cuisines. "We used to think French was our favorite, and we do like a lot of French things, but now we think Italian is the best," Wills said. For inspiration and new recipes, Wills' sources are Bon Apetit and Gourmet magazines and some favorite cookbooks. "I have a collection of about 200 cookbooks - I just love reading them. I love the Joy of Cooking, all the editions," Wills said. "Irma Rombauer was a St. Louisan and my mother was acquainted with her before I was born. I also have had an awful lot of luck with San Francisco A La Carte, by the San Francisco Junior League and California Heritage, by the Pasadena Junior League, and Robert Carrier's cookbooks - I've practically worn his out. I also really love the cookbooks of Barbara Kafka and Elizabeth David." Another favorite cookbook was privately published by the late Bill Browder. "Bill was my dear friend and a wonderful Southern-style cook. Some of my very best things come from that cookbook, like Bill's recipe for Waldorf salad. He elevated it to a new level. You leave the skin on the apples and use apples of different colors. You plump raisins with orange juice or wine- I use orange juice because I like that flavor - then drain them really well on paper towels so they don't make the dressing watery," Wills said. "There are walnuts, but you don't have to use them. My husband is allergic to nuts so I use toasted pistachios, which he can eat. You can also use pecans. The surprise ingredient is a tablespoon of finely chopped watermelon pickle, and for dressing, he uses a combination of sour cream and mayonnaise, in equal parts, then lots of freshly ground black pepper. You have to taste for salt, because you won't know how salty the nuts are. These favorite magazines and cookbooks inspire a lot of what Wills cooks, but another of her kitchen-related passions is fueled entirely by her own creativity and training in theater. "I always do my own table designs for my dinner parties, and I love doing it. I'm a designer by nature, and my experience in theater has motivated me to do several things. I design and make costume jewelry, creating one-of-a-kind neckpieces. I make all my home furnishings - window treatments and draperies, bedding," Wills said. Her table designs have won several prizes, including honors in the Midcities SOS fund raisers, Art of the Table. "I did the first table for this fund raiser in 1999 with my best friend, Diane Foia, who has since moved. We called it Angel Food and it was all whites, creams, ivories, gold and silver. I have angel-decorated plates and we used all white foods," Wills said. "The second year, our table was called Forever Amber. A good friend lent us her collection of amber jewelry and we used it in teapots, had it coming out of napkin rings and everywhere else we could use it. We also had a first edition of the book displayed. We used a beautiful centerpiece, my very large bowl, 16 inches across, of Italian brown amber glass full of dried fruits." Wills puts as much creative energy into tables for her dinner parties at home as she does for competitions. "I love to give formal sit-down luncheons and dinner parties and they always have a theme that will be worked out in place cards, napkin rings, favors - all kinds of things. One party theme was Cosmic Burst, a birthday party for Diane, and I had great place mats with suns and stars in blues and golds with some reds," Wills said. She draws on her collections for many dinner party themes. "I like to collect things with faces - owls, moons, stars, angels. If you take something that's a favorite object, you can create around it using a color or shape. I have glasses and serving platters in the celestial theme and I have a lot of angel-related tableware. I have a shoe collection and for 2002 did the table for the Colleyville Women's Club with shoes and a menu that had things with shoe in them like shoe-fly pie, shoe-peg corn, sock-eye salmon, oyster shooters, bootleg gin martinis and leg of lamb. I tied up red and green cabbages with ribbons in salad bowls with shoe ornaments perched on top," Wills said. Wills' next party is a bridal shower luncheon for a friend's son who is getting married in Italy in September. "I am doing it in my house, and it is going to be Italian foods that will be white for the bridal theme. We're having Italian cream cake, a carbonara dish, a salad and definitely a semi-freddo, a frozen desert that you make with whipped cream, broken up nougat and candied peel and then put in frilly paper cups and frozen. The party is in April and I'm still working on the table design. The menu is always first," Wills said. Three of Judith Wills' favorite menu items are a unique Waldorf salad, panini and almost anything with Hollandaise sauce. Blender Hollandaise Sauce 3 large egg yolks 2 sticks unsalted butter 2 tablespoons lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/8 teaspoon Tabasco Place egg yolks, lemon juice, salt and Tabasco in blender. Melt butter in glass Pyrex measuring jug. With machine running, very slowly pour melted butter in. Serve immediately and refrigerate leftovers, which must be very gently rewarmed in order not to separate. This is the classic sauce to serve with cooked green vegetables such as asparagus or broccoli and an absolute must for Eggs Benedict. Panettone 1 package yeast (or 2 1/2 teaspoons if you have bulk dried yeast) 3 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 5 tablespoons sugar 3 tablespoons nonfat dry milk 5 tablespoons softened butter or margarine 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon almond extract 1 cup very warm water 1/2 cup raisins, soaked in rum or water and well drained 3 tablespoons dried or candied fruit of your choice 2 tablespoons pine nuts Use ingredients at room temperature. Place all ingredients (except raisins, fruit and pine nuts) into the bread machine pan in the order listed. Select white bread setting; place darkness control at 11:00 o'clock and push "Start." Add raisins, fruit and nuts 88 minutes into the cycle. This is a bread machine recipe. I let the machine do the hard work of mixing and then bake it in the oven for 40 minutes at 375 degrees. Using a panettone paper gives the bread an authentic and professional appearance. I have been told by Italians that this recipe is genuinely Italian. It's traditional at Christmas, but good anytime with afternoon tea or coffee. Bill Browder's Waldorf Salad 2 or 3 firm green apples, such as Granny Smith 1 red apple (for color) 3 or 4 stalks of celery, chopped 1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped nuts (I use pistachios) 1/2 cup raisins (plumped) Salt and white pepper to taste Optional fruits Dressing: 2/3 cup of mayonnaise (or 1/3 cup mayonnaise and 1/3 cup sour cream) to which is added one of the following: About 1 rounded tablespoon finely chopped watermelon rind preserves 1/8 teaspoon ground mace (especially if other fruits are added; you may also need a few drops of honey here.) 1/8 teaspoon ground fenugreek (if figs, papaya or mangos are added) If using mace or fenugreek, do the dressing ahead to let flavor steep Plump raisins in warm water, apple or orange juice or other liquid for 15 minutes (or microwave in liquid until hot). Dry on a paper towel. Cut the apples and celery in fairly large bites for better texture. A few drops of lemon juice help apple slices retain whiteness until dressing is added. Combine all ingredients and refrigerate until ready for use. You can add chopped leftover chicken or turkey to turn the salad into a main course. |
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