I miss my father....he died in 1997, and I've been thinking of him all night

[TK421]

and yesterday-he was a great cook-he could have had his own TV show if he wanted. He made the best meatballs, and none of us have any Italian blood....but for the Italian inlaws we had, they absolutely raved about them. He also made something called beef burgundy...simple, it was sirloin beef cubes over egg noodles and the sauce was the beef stock mixed with some burgundy wine ( I couldn't tell you how much, but my sister in Florida still asks me about this dish 18 years later ).Another thing he was famous for...he made this( some people called it ) German potato salad. After frying the bacon for it, he would pour the grease over the potatoes and mix it in with the other wet ingredients...again, everyone who has had it wants to know where the fuck the recipe is, but it was all in my Dads head...the measurements for the ingredients I've been doing some thinking about stuff...things I want to try cooking, and I don't think I can pull off this stuff now..

Should I make an attempt at the meatballs?

[Shell Beau]

1. Sorry about your dad, but yes, try to make his good food live on.

It may take you a bit to get it down pat, but you gotta try.

[TK421]

6. thanks Shell....I'll give it a shot

:)

[Amerigo Vespucci]

2. The late Chet Atkins' song about his dad:

"I Still Can't Say Goodbye"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10XYKkFBSGE

The clip begins with an interview, the song kicks in @ the 3:30 mark.

My dad passed away in 1996.

Make the meatballs. Always make the meatballs.

[TK421]

7. thanks for the clip-bookmarked

[Gormy Cuss]

3. Try and try until you're happy with the result.

Think of it as a conversation with your father.

Most Italian meatballs are a mixture of at least two of the following: ground beef, ground pork, ground veal. If you don't know how he made his, experiment with various amounts of each.

His beef burgundy sounds like a variation of boeuf bourgignon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeuf_bourgignon

German potato salad, the key is to get the right mix of vinegar on the warm potatoes before they start to cool. Minced yellow onion cooked in the bacon grease is good in it too.

[Lindsey]

4. Sorry you're missing your dad. I was incredibly close to my

grandmother who passed in 1987 and I still miss her and still think of her every single day. I guess we can consider ourselves lucky that we had people in our lives that we loved so much. I think you should definitely make the meatballs.....

[TK421]

9. I tried to tell others how he made those meatballs....they didn't have success

with them, because they said they kept falling apart in the sauce. My dad would lightly brown them and slow-cook them for hours in tomato sauce.

I'm not sure about the mixtures you mentioned, but I'm pretty sure he used ground sirloin. I could be wrong

[Gormy Cuss]

10. He probably used something to bind them together

Bread crumbs, grated cheese, or egg are the usual suspects. He may have made them only with ground sirloin -- nothing wrong with that, but Italians tend to use pork or veal too. If he didn't, no sense adding them. ;)

[Swede]

5. My late dad's birthday is in April.

He passed in 2002. I miss him,too.

[TK421]

8. his birthday would have been April 16th...can't believe it's been this long

[redwitch]

14. My dad's birthday was April 13th. He died in 1998.

I miss him.


Make the meatballs is what I say.

[MajorChode]

11. My dad died in 1996 and I still think about him every day

My dad made simple recipes that were still pretty tasty. It's a great way to remember them by cooking the food they used to cook. My dad also made homemade root beer that tasted like all hell, but I drank it anyway because we both made it together.

Even without a recipe you should be able to duplicate it with a bit of trial and error. You probably won't be able to match it exactly, but you can get close. You'd be surprised how long taste memories stay with you.

[Blue_Tires]

12. I lost my father last year

he was a huge golf and Tiger Woods fan...I was thinking to myself the other day that if he only had a chance to watch ONE sporting event in the afterlife, this would be it...

[Demoiselle]

13. Of course you should try making the meatballs...and anything else as well.

Cooking for those you love, especially following the example of those you love...well, that's just about as good as it gets, dontcha think?