Watts Cooking??! We are! The Watts family; for real, that’s our name. Really! Anyway, why did we get started, how did we get started? It was; it is all about LOVE. Yep, Mama Bear fell in love with Papa Bear, somehow he got snagged and off they went. Wait! I digress for just a moment. In reality mama didn’t start out liking to cook. She/I refused to spend any time with anyone in the kitchen. Heck! Who had time for that? I was partying. My mother was a “good” southern cook, basic but good. The best sweet potato pie this side of Georgia! My father was a chef of sorts; worked in a few restaurants in his time. Thanksgiving and Christmas always set the stage on which they performed, umm yum. (Turkey, traditional stale bread stuffing, giblet gravy, candied yams and with marshmallows, greens and turnips, can’t do without fresh baked rolls, and there’s more, everything from scratch.) Oops, sorry, a memory. Unfortunately, as a young person, that didn’t matter much to me…..then. So, back to the future….. Now in love and starting a family I decided, based upon the age old cliché…, “the way to his heart is through his stomach.” Who said that? Note: I wasn’t always so sure about his heart in the beginning. It’s ok, we’re waaay beyond that. Lol. AND, since HIS mother considered herself a gourmet cook, I thought, girl, you had better get crackin. Elementary history, done.
Ok, so. These transitions are rough. For the future, rather than me struggle with trying to find witty and new words to transition, I’m gonna just simply put transitioning. Hope that’s ok with everyone, and hope there is an everyone.
Transition: lololololol. The family: Mama Bear, Atiya, baking is my passion, even though it has been said that I make a mean and reasonably authentic Karachi Gosht*; Papa Bear or Poppies as he is better known, Yahya, who is multi-multi (he does a bunch of stuff, including from scratch pizza (dough and all), loves making bread, and we think of him as our personal empirical doctor {you’ll see}); then we have Hayyat, our fine cuisine person, if she tastes it, she can pretty much figure it out and cooks African delights like she was born there; next is Hashima, she says simply, it’s southern foods for me (you probably won’t be able to get her Carrot Cake recipe but she might send you some); Imran, the Barbeque guy and all around sauceman, who also puts a hurtin on a wok; and Zubayr, Mr. Drink who might also whip up a couple of courses with not much trouble; who’s next? Uh Ms. Asma Bibi, not sure if she wants to be pegged as our Middle Eastern, Asian sweetie, but why not, she was privileged enough to get some up close practice overseas – she can change it later if she chooses; last but not the least is Maryam, who we fondly call Mayza, she’s our invention queen…she’s not afraid to make up her own recipe. That’s us! However, I would be remiss in not mentioning a son who may show up later Abdus Sabur, he cooks but may not blog; and our precious son Abdul Matin who passed some time ago, had he remained he would be the owner of “Fat Boys Barbeque.” We said of him, that he was the only one we knew who could make eggs taste like meat.
Here’s how we hope this is gonna go….. We’re gonna have some fun talking about food, share some recipes, hopefully the “doctor” won’t take over with all of his health tips and life saving remedies. We’re gonna post some pictures which we hope will leave you salivating …..and….. We hope you won’t mind candid shots. They will prove that, yes, we actually did make that in the kitchen where we live.
*Karachi Gosht is an Indo/Pak meat curry. More about that later.
