Food, Mr Bill and the Philly of my youth

I have lived in Philly all of my life. I have also traveled to some great places. I wanted to create a blog so that I could share my experiences growing up here, traveling and eating.

I come from a time and neighborhood that families were a community and also cooked food from scratch. I have vivid and great memories growing up there  

I am Puerto Rican, but grew up humbly in a North Philly neighborhood with no other Hispanics. The time was the late 60s and early 70s. The children used to play outside, play marbles and stick ball ( I was never any good at either). My friends were Irish -Turkish and African American. When we were thirsty we would go to my surrogate grandfather, Mr Bill who sold sodas to the kids and corn liquor to the adults, so my father knew him well.

Mr Bill used to take me to the North Philly and Germantown  rib-shacks  where I would eat a wood-smoked barbequed rib sandwiches on white bread (Who knew about bad carbs back then?). He would also take me fishing in the Jerseys waters on the summer weekends.  I would often hang out at his house during the hot summers of my childhood just listening to this weather-faced, white haired, African American man who reminded me of Red Fox as Fred Sanford then, but now I  would compare him to the older man in Henry Ossawa Tanner's painting of the "banjo lesson", the man that i considered grandfather deserved more dignity in the remembering.   He would sit down waiting for customers in his work pants and suspenders and old winged tipped leather sole shoes and tell stories on the summer porch while he sold sodas and prepped his tackle box. Other times I would play with friends on the block.

We used to be on the block,  so much that the grow-ups used to complain that why don't we use the park that was just across the street.  We never had a real answer and most if the time we just stayed on the block.  My mom was a good cook. She cooked the typical puerto rican dinners: rice and beans, rice and corned beef, Chuletas ( pork chops), stewed beef,  cubed steak and onions. My dad however was the special dinner cook .

My dad was worked hard during the week at a local car repair shop as a body and fender man and a big drinker on the weekends . He was old school Puerto Rican . He worked hard, drank hard. He would always cook the holiday food. He made the  Thanksgiving turkey, the arroz con gandules( rice and pigeon peas) the Roast pork and the Pasteles (the Puerto rican version of a tamale, made with green banana other root vegetable and stuffed with  picadillo(seasoned minced pork) wrapped in banana leaves and boiled every Christmas.

I enjoyed all of this wonderful food still liked to go over my neighbors houses to eat dinner.  I would have pot roast at my childhood friend Mary Ann's house. I would have Soul food, chicken, collards and rice and gravy at Donald's moms house . She had a deep southern drawl that was hard to understand but I always could make it out when she said, " Ricky! You won sompon eat?" My fiend Donovan's grandmother gave me her recipe for sour milk biscuits, yeah I used lard.

I later worked in restaurants and still love to cook.  I use cooking for entertaining and sharing with loved ones. I learned cooking techniques from celebrated chefs and friends grandmothers.

Gems can come from anywhere, but only if you are looking.  

This is a good starting point on my blog.  More to come.