Read an Excerpt
The Secret Ingredient
or How to Cook a Perfect 3-Minute Egg in Twenty Minutes
By Shelley LeRoux
Trafford Publishing
Copyright © 2012 Shelley LeRoux
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4269-8235-4
Chapter One
Potage St Germain
2 cups chicken broth 1 carrot 1 cup heavy cream 1 1/2 lbs of green peas 3 slices of bread 1 medium onion 1 sprig of mint 3 tablespoons butter A pinch of salt or pepper to taste several leaves of iceberg lettuce
Cook peas in broth with thin sliced onions, thin sliced carrot, sprig of mint and the lettuce. Cook until the vegetables are all soft. Process in a waring blender until smooth. Pour the soup into a double boiler and heat well mixing in the heavy cream and butter. If too thick add more chicken broth and add salt and / or pepper to taste. Cut up the bread into small 1 inch squares and heat till light tan in pan with bit of butter, then add on top of soup.
* * *
In seventh grade our family was invited to Philo T. Farnsworth's to view their 7" TV set, the only program shown in that early day on TV was a baseball game. I saw that first TV but wasn't interested in baseball. However, the Farnsworths were delightful and gracious people.
I vividly remember having fun playing Monopoly with the first handmade Monopoly game at Joy McKubbin's home. Her family was close friends of Mr. Darrow, the inventor. He had real silver charms but unreal paper money!
The next phase of my life was my obsession with airplanes. I owned half an airplane with Ralph Wheelock Pomeroy Allen 3rd. We belonged to a flying club at Art Turner's. Roy—or—Pete as he was sometimes called, said jokingly that my half was where the gas tank was! Art Turner's club was a co-op, so we paid .05 cents a gallon for fuel. One time we flew up to Fred Waring's Shawnee on the Delaware. After a concert we walked back to our plane and spotted a bank barn. As we peeked in, voices said, "Come in and have a drink". Roy said "No, thank you, 1 have to have my friend home before dark." They guffawed, "who is she, Cinderella?' You see, our licenses were only valid in daylight.
We had an idyllic honeymoon in Sea Island, Georgia. Our first morning there was an early and very noisy one because Jacques had dumped a large amount of rice from our wedding reception, rather from our our send-off, outside our room and the crows were having a feast!
We met a generous and very friendly couple, the Kirtleys, who later invited us to visit them in Florida. Thelma Kirtley was the second largest citrus grower in Florida and probably the largest peanut grower. The Snivelys were the largest citrus growers in Florida. Thelma drove us through her citrus groves in her air-conditioned Cadillac. In those days not many cars had air-conditioning.
One night following a sumptuous dinner party at Orleans, Thelma's estate, Jacques decided that we should take one of Thelma's boats on Lake Eloise to watch the Southern Cross and the Southern Lights. What a spectacular display. We had not wanted to disturb our hostess which was, in retrospect, rather thoughtless because Thelma was concerned and sent the Coast Guard out to check on us.
We were soon back to our real world in Pennsylvania. I learned to cook to please Jacques, especially since the Belgians are known as the best cooks in the world. Many years later we met Susanna Foo, one of the ten best cuisines in the United States. She was the only one person I ever met who had heard of a "Walloon". A Walloon is a French Belgian as opposed to a Flemish Belgian. The Flemish are more like the Dutch. Susanna said, "Oh yes!" The Belgians are known as the best cooks!"
I am now going to skip ahead to when Aunt" Em Roosevelt arranged for me to meet several eligible young men, one of whom was Jacques LeRoux! I had never wanted to marry and leave home or my beloved father, but this was love at first sight. Mother would not announce my engagement for five months because I already had been engaged (for one day). That engagement was arranged by Charley's mother, my mother, and Charley. I was happy to have a party, but had no intention of marrying Charley. By the way, Aunt Em Roosevelt called herself "Mrs. Cupid" thereafter.
Shelley's Proverbs: "Mother is the necessity of invention!" Jacques LeRoux would not take "No" for an answer. I was on my way to Shaker Heights to be engaged to a very nice man, but Jacques arranged for me to be driven out there with one of the salesmen for LeRoux and Company. He definitely did not want me to accept anyone else. Jacques said', "I feel like John Alden!"
I remember VJ night when we all were celebrating the end of the war with Japan! My date, a captain in the US Air Force, invited me to go to that cute little night club on Lincoln Drive. We got a date for my friend, Ann Biddle and the four of us had dinner and dancing under the stars. Ann and I went to the ladies' room and were sitting at a long dressing table and we had not noticed that our waitress had followed us in. She leaned over Ann's shoulder and said, "Dearie, what's that scent you're wearing?" Ann said, "It's Taboo". "Oh", said the waitress, "It doesn't smell like that on me!"
We thought that was the funniest thing we ever heard, but my father explained that different people have different chemistry and so perfumes do not react the same for each person.
Some of our most popular perfumes are made in northern New Jersey, shipped in barrels to France, and then put in beautiful bottles with "Made in France" on their bottoms, meaning the bottles are made in France! Then they are shipped right back to the good old US of A, to be sold to our customers.
When Jacques first took me to meet his parents, they were serving Hare. The French do enjoy rabbit (or Hare). Monsieur LeRoux took one bite and, while still holding his knife and fork, said, 'Berthe, I wanted a Saskatchewan Hare. This is an Alberta Hare". I thought to myself, should I marry this man's son? What a picky person. Would his son be the same?
Mr. LeRoux was an internationally recognized flavor expert, who could discern the difference between the two hares through taste.
A Saskatchewan Hare feeds (in the wild) on juniper berries, and the Alberta Hare does not. Thus the former has more flavorful meat! I called our good friend Paul Meyer of the Morris Arboretum to help me understand the difference in taste!
Reportedly, the Belgians are the finest chefs in the world, and so, never having cooked more than steak and potatoes, I learned some Belgian recipes. My first was Tripe a Ia Mode de Caen. The very famous Philadelphia pepper pot soup is a version of that recipe, except for the addition of pepper.
The first time I prepare a new recipe, I follow it exactly, after that, I generally do my own interpretation.
Mr. LeRoux, Jacques' father, enjoyed eating cream puffs in Switzerland with King Fuad, who also had a taste for good food! Besides LeRoux cordials, Mr. LeRoux owned several companies, one of which made Minerva cars. Minervas were practically hand-made mostly for royalty and other important officials Hitler had one!
Shelleys Proverb: Today is yesterday's tomorrow!
We had been married for three years when Jacques' father died. At that time I was asked by a magazine to do an article on Belgian cooking. I decided to feature what I considered the Belgian national dish: Waterzoie de Volaille.
All the ingredients are white, oral most white. I went to Supio's at the Reading Terminal Market to obtain white parsley root because I knew of no other purveyor who carried it. The recipe Follows:
Shelley's Proverbs: Today is tomorrow's yesterday!
Waterzoie de Volaille
2.5 - 3 lbs of chicken, breast or parts 1 cup of chopped celery 1 diced medium onion 1/4 cup brandy 1 packet of gelatin 4 egg yolks 2 or 3 cup white wine white pepper, salt to taste 1 chopped parsley root 1 white leek, chopped
Cover the chicken with 1/2 white wine and 1/2 water, or chicken broth, add 1/4 cup brandy. Simmer gently until tender, beat 4 egg yolks with 1 cup cream. Once mixed, remove the chicken from broth, add the egg mixture to the hot broth slowly, while stirring, to avoid curdling. If it does curdle, it will still taste good.
Now the dish was ready and placed into a lovely white tureen with a delicate floral border. The photographer had arrived and I provided a tall step ladder. The photographer then climbed up with his enormous camera (before digital cameras) and took aim! He announced that he could not see anything and that we would have to sprinkle parsley or some other herb on the dish. We placed some parsley strategically adding just enough color!
We were so lucky that Mrs. Leech asked if we would like to rent her garage apartment we said, "Yes we'd love to". Our first small dinner party was almost a fiasco. It turned out one of our guests was allergic to almost every dish I served and so thereafter I always did and still do ask the guests if they have any food allergies or dislikes. One wife I inquired and she responded "George doesn't like fish, but he has a way of pushing it around on his plate"! Usually when I invite a couple and their children, it is perfectly safe to serve some sort of ground meat.
Another of my favorite dishes, which usually everyone loves, is Oriental Meatballs; of course you may have your own method. Here is mine:
Oriental Meatballs
1 lb ground meat 3 slices of sweet onion diced fine 2 slices white bread 2 eggs
Mix these and form meatballs approximately 1/2 or 1 inch balls and cook in butter. Sauce ingredients:
1/4 cup brown sugar 1/2 tsp ground ginger 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 can pineapple chunks 1/4 cup vinegar 1 tablespoon corn starch 1 cup pineapple juice
You may add stewed tomatoes or diced green or red peppers if desired for color and taste.
Thinking of oriental, did you know that in China, they use 45 billion pairs of chopsticks a year!, that's 90 billion chopsticks!
One day our son Jimmy was crewing for a friend at the Boothbay Harbor
Yacht Club sailboat race. We sailed our cruiser "Old Fibersides" over after an hour or so and there was poor Jimmy hanging upside down on the boom. We waved and he stuck out his tongue since both his hands were on the boom. Jacques said, 'That does it! We'll get Jimmy his own boat—a Turn—About!"
Jacques found an ad for one in the Boothbay Register newspaper and so the next day he left before nine in the morning to go over to the boatyard. I and the three children went over at noon with a marvelous lunch. The lunch was:
Crab salad Watermelon Home made bread Grape tomatoes Devilled eggs Cantaloupe Carrot sticks and Lettuce Iced tea
Crab Salad
String celery, 4 sticks, and dice small, add chopped crabmeat and chopped lettuce, then add Miracle Whip or Mayonnaise and you'll have a great fairly easy meal! Instead of crab you can chop up shrimp for a shrimp salad!
But—: Jacques on the hottest day ever, greeted us with "Blankety—blank boat. Look! It's all dry rotted—won't even hold a nail!" And he had been working on it for over three hours! We didn't notice that Jacquie had walked away. She came back saying "Dad! that's the wrong boat. The one you bought is in perfect condition down in the boat house!"
The most fun boat we had was "Old Fibersides" on which we had many picnics. There were a number of places to picnic on different islands we had fun. Most of time we went to Outer Heron Island or Damariscove Island, two or three miles from Boothbay Harbor. A picnic lunch would be crab salad, melon, devilled eggs and extra celery. Celery washed in the cold salty Atlantic Ocean was a wonderful treat! Sometimes we would fish from our boat and with luck catch something edible, (not a lobster pot). I would cook the fish in our little galley and everything just tasted better under these conditions. We always had plenty of ice and soft drinks and wine. If we swam in the ocean, off our boat, Jacquie enjoyed having hot tea ready for us, mostly me, as well as cheese and crackers.
Damariscove Island had no trees on it as it had been used to raise sheep in the 1800's and early 1900's, but there were growing lots of rose bushes and wild peas. The peas were good raw, but cooking them ruined them. Outer Heron was completely forested with mostly pine trees and was a place many people let their pet rabbits go free. There was plenty of food and no predators. When the Yacht Club had an overnight camping trip to the island, they reported that in the evening, as they sat around the campfire, they could see dozens and dozens of eyes glowing from all the curious rabbits!
One adventure we had on our boat, Old Fibersides was when we were heading home after a picnic on Outer Heron Island. I saw a nice piece of driftwood floating in the water and decided after passing it, that I wanted to get it if I could. We turned around and just as we got to it, a heavy fog was rolling in. We finally hauled the wood onto the boat, and it was fairly heavy. We had no compass but could hear faint wave sounds, so headed in that direction. Several times we saw reefs under us but just deep enough to allow us to ride over them safely. Then it got calm and we heard no more waves, we thought we were lost but kept going in the same direction. After several hours, we suddenly saw the bottom under us then ran aground! Fortunately we grounded on a beach, Pemaquid Beach, 15 miles from where we had to go to get home. We got home by following the shore line in sight, fortunately the fog got a bit thinner. We were so lucky we did not go out to sea and possibly run out of fuel! It's a big ocean!
Everybody raves about my devilled eggs. I am always asked, especially when I offer to bring something to an event, "Oh and could you bring some devilled eggs"? At one garden club meeting, my dear friend Betty Miller of Chestnut Hill and I each tried someone else's devilled eggs and we both agreed to dispose of them discreetly. Soon after the very affable woman who made those other devilled eggs told us that many others had remarked about our delicious eggs. She asked "How do you do them?" I answered, "Oh, I don't know." She then questioned, "You do add a little vinegar, don't you?" I replied, "Oh, no". She then said," Some mustard?" "Oh, no" I replied. Then she asked, "Do you add curry?" "Oh not that either," I replied. She had one more question to ask me, "What do you add?" My response was, "It's what I leave out that makes them so good. Just fresh eggs and Miracle Whip! Sometimes I decorate them with some pieces of chive and pimento or sliced olives.
Jacques and I were visiting our daughter, Susan Butler in Earlysville, outside Charlottesville, Virginia, one spring. Susan put baby William in a swing on the porch but the flies were so numerous and bothersome, that we all went inside the house. They had even hung fly paper but the flies did not go near it! Susan put William in his crib in another wing of the house for his nap and four of the family went shopping while I baby-sat! While they were gone I went down to the barn with a cup and a flyswatter and swatted dozens and dozens of flies and put them in the cup. I went back to the porch of the house and stuck the flies one by one on the flypaper.
When the four members of the family returned and saw the fly paper now covered with flies they couldn't believe it. I just said, "The trouble was before that the flies wanted to land on all of us, so when there were no people around, they then landed on the fly paper!"
Back again in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. I always buy Christmas presents early, by August. Sometimes I can't find them all. However, one year! decided to give my son-in-law, Smedley Darlington Butler 3rd, four hundred dollars. I went to my banker and said I wanted to order four hundred dollars in pennies. Much to my surprise, they arrived in an armored truck! Brinks, I believe! That can never be done again, I am told.
How vividly I remember when Jean Pierre Hallet, who won the Eagle Award was the featured speaker at the Academy of Natural Sciences. He was a Walloon (French Belgian) and so we invited him to dinner. He accepted with great pleasure and so we prepared the Belgian National Dish, Waterzoie De Volaille. He said he loved it! He was a fascinating guest, and we learned so much from him, particularly about the Pygmies. Jean Pierre had been captured by the Pygmies and it seemed very much like being Gulliver in the story book 'Gulliver's Travels". Jean Pierre then, in his attempt to feed the Pygmies fish, threw a stick of dynamite into a lake. Unfortunately the dynamite stick exploded prematurely and blew off Jean Pierre's right hand and part of his arm. It also left him partially deaf.
The Pygmies were frightened and did not know what to do. Jean Pierre applied a tourniquet and drove himself one hundred miles to a hospital. What a courageous man!
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Secret Ingredient by Shelley LeRoux Copyright © 2012 by Shelley LeRoux. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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