1. Alan Brilliant, who taught me how to make real Lebanese hummus and who was responsible for what ultimately became a fixation on reubens. Alan used to have an organic vegetable garden...I remember spending time in there when I was in high school, sitting at the picnic table and eating thin slivers of freshly picked organic banana pepper off the end of Alan's pocket knife. Alan and Ken Knight also taught me the beauty of taking time with food: when they "chaperoned" (HA! HA!) our high school spring break trip, I meditated with them over granny smith apples on the North Carolina shore. There's no finer way to appreciate an apple than to hold it, test its weight, smell it, hold it against your cheek, lick it tentatively, and then slowly take a huge first bite. Slow food indeed.
2. My Bubbe, who always kept a carton of sour cream in the fridge and a stash of Pepperidge Farm cookies in the freezer. I remember Bubbe as a decent cook, but what strikes me as her culinary influence on my own cooking style was her ability to spot a wonderful premade item and bring it home and enjoy it with the same blissful decadence one might devote to a homemade treat. Bubbe liked good food, she just didn't always like to prepare it if she wanted it at home. She, too, was a gardener, and I remember snacking on parsley pulled from among the marigolds that she'd planted in the narrow beds ringing her home in Greensboro. If I see parsley plants, I think of Bubbe.
3. Mom's mother, who grew fat eggplants and sinfully red tomatoes, and Mom's father, who always liked to get up early and fix me an egg breakfast when I came to visit. Grandma's relish trays and sweet potato casserole are indispensable for me to have a real Thanksgiving, and I remember with great fondness her huge platters of chopped liver from my nonvegetarian days. Grandpa always knew how to fix my scrambled eggs just so, and somehow even an ordinary Lender's onion bagel tasted special when he toasted it for me in the early morning while the neighborhood was still silent.
4. My mother, who never treated my interest in all things kitchen as a nuisance, and who somehow always knew as soon as I was old enough to manage a knife or a hot stove. I don't think I ever had a serious kitchen accident, despite my early fascination with cooking. Mom was also sure enough of my own capabilities that she let me improvise and even occasionally turn out whole meals for our family as I entered my teen years. I also fondly remember her occasional challah-baking days, when she'd hand me some dough to make my own little rolls with...thereby allowing me to learn how dough should feel, and a chance to participate in what I now regard almost as a holy process.
5. McLean, who baked bread in the teensy kitchenette on the third floor of East Hall at ASU when we were freshmen. If it weren't for McLean, I might never have learned to think outside the box and work with my limitations when it comes to cooking food. If she could bake bread in our dorm, then I could probably do anything in the dorm. After that revelation, I turned out latkes, hummus made from dried chickpeas, my own breads, and more...all with minimal difficulty and many freshmen poking their head in and hinting for tastes when I finished. I later went on to enjoy working with limitations (cooking over an outdoor fire! cooking with the minimal dishes in a rental condo! cooking without a decent knife!), and I once even pulled a 5-course vegetarian Passover meal for 8 out of my galley kitchen in Dupont Circle.
6. My friends Erin D. and Jen, with whom I can have lengthy conversations about food without feeling like I'm an obsessive loser. I really get off on some of the chats we have. These two ladies both read the Post's food section weekly, know about the good restaurants in town, and read cookbooks cover to cover just like I do. I get great ideas, as well as a sense of sisterhood out of talking with them.
7. All the dozens of people for whom I have cooked inspire my food geekdom. It is the warmth with which they receive food, the facial expression as they taste it, and the affection they give me after the meal that truly feed my food geek soul.