ALL PICTURES AND TEXT ON THIS SITE ARE COPYRIGHTED BY DON AND SARA SCHULTZ

The cord of the iron would rhythmically move up and down from the board above. An occasional shirt sleeve would brush my face, hot and steamy. I would be lost in my task of building castles out of a set of homemade colored wooden blocks on the kitchen floor. The room would be filled with the strange mix of smells: yeast, baking bread, freshly laundered clothing and a bubbling stew on the stove. The voice of my mother, the ultimate multi tasker humming her favorite hymn, would blend with that of Rev. Fulton J. Sheen’s stern voice on the The Catholic Hour on the kitchen radio, only interrupted by the clunking of dishes, the opening and closing of the oven door and an occasional thrashing of a vacuum cleaner in a distant living room, a room with large white enamel bowls at each heating register, each containing a huge ball of rising bread dough and covered with a dish towel. This is my earliest childhood memory.

Oh, how my mother loved to cook. Her breads, baked goods and stews were to die for. Her jellies, jams and corn relishes were the talk of the town. Mother’s culinary skills did not end there. Home made pickles, relishes and my all time favorite, tiny red beets in a deep ruby sauce of vinegar, sugar, cloves and cinnamon, always one stick per jar, were all part of her kitchen genius. I was usually in charge of putting the spices in each jar of the long steaming rows. The combinations were complicated for a six year old.

And finally, let’s not forget the desserts and pastries. Cakes, cookies, candy and kolaches, a miniature pie with homemade poppy seed, pineapple, apricot, cottage cheese or prune filling which betrayed mom’s German-Czech upbringing. There were so many dessert delights whose secrets were found only in the recesses of my mother’s mind. But it was when mom would slide her famous Shaum Tortes into the oven that all castle building would stop. She would say, “Donnie, you have to be real quiet or my tortes will fall (something I never could understand; fall where?) But you can lick the spoons”. Shaum Tortes are a confectionary concoction that would delight any child anywhere. White, creamy, sweet and velvety, this combination of egg whites, sugar and vanilla sticks to the spoon and transfers to the tongue with an ease that can be mastered by anyone young or old.

Keep in mind that my mother accomplished most of these kitchen creations without ever looking at a recipe. Years of experience tempered every dish. No need to look up what went in the bowl, how long to stir or when to remove from the stove. I am convinced she played with the procedures often, just to see how the dish would turn out differently. Constantly experimenting, constantly trying new combinations, mother was a master chef.

I was often sent to the garden, the store, the fruit cellar in the basement, (yes, we had a fruit cellar) or the refrigerator/freezer,(we had four of them down there too) in search of a secret ingredient. These frosty chambers of recycled margarine containers, Tupperware and plastic bags would tumble out their contents into your face so readily that you soon learned to open the door slowly and carefully. “Donnie, it’s the hickory nuts, in the little red thing, on the top shelf next to the rhubarb in the one with the broken handle.” How did this woman remember all that stuff? I was intimately involved in the kitchen from the very beginning and not just the washing of the dishes. She had a way of always making me think I was doing the cooking. I learned my way around a kitchen by deception. I thought I had the chef’s hat on, not her. Is it any wonder that I enjoy cooking?

In every successful marriage there is a “division of labor” and in ours the divisions were based on loves. I love to cook and Sara loves to clean. I ended up in the kitchen and Sara in the laundry room. In the beginning this arrangement was occasionally reinforced with an offer to wash the clothes from me and Sara with an offer to cook. This temporary change in roles would usually result in billows of suds pouring out of the washer and covering the basement floor, and the distinctive smell of “Tuna Bumpkins” flooding the kitchen. Sara had a memorable recipe where one took the cheapest tuna available, mixed it with coarsely chopped celery and mayonnaise and pickle relish. Then a huge scoop was place in a hamburger bun and wrapped in tinfoil. Each bumpkin was then put in a crock-pot to ferment over medium heat for hours. The resulting “delicacy” was assured to keep her out of the kitchen for at least another year, and the condition of the clothes from the washer kept me out of the laundry room for even longer. Nothing like pink underwear for everyone.

For what ever culinary skills Sara lacked in the kitchen, she more than made up for it by her relentless pursuit of dirt in any of its forms or hiding places. Whether it be dust, soil, grease or grime; on the dog, carpet, sink, floor, counter tops or clothes, especially clothes, Sara will find it and it will be eliminated. How many people do you know that use a 4.5 horsepower shop vac with an upholstery wand to clean the carpet inch by inch? And Sara can describe with uncanny accuracy the workings of Laundromats from the tip of Newfoundland to shores of Key West, Florida. She can tell you how much a dryer load will cost in Fairbanks, AK and how to convert dollar bills into pesos coins for the machines in Cabo San Lucas on the tip of the Baja of Mexico. And when she returns with all the clothes, clean, fresh and warm, all is well.

I love to cook with equal zeal. I have over the years had my cooking “moods.” I have tried to conquer the grill and wok, Vietnamese and German dishes, bread making and home made pickles, sushi and sausage, chili and beef jerky just to name a few. As we travel across the country, I am constantly on the outlook for local cuisine. I have discovered Rauppie Pie (a Nova Scotia Arcadian potato pie) and Jakes Dinner, (a Newfoundland version of corn beef and cabbage), coconut shrimp (in Key West, Florida) and salmon cooked on a cedar plank (in Vancouver, BC). In New Orleans I discovered boudin (a spicy rice sausage that can be purchased even in hardware stores) and turducan (a local specialty of all things, a de-boned chicken stuffed in a de-boned duck that is stuffed in a de-boned turkey all roasted in a delightful blend of Cajun spices). Finally on the Baja of Mexico we enjoyed the mighty fish taco, with its multitude of sauces and condiments, a delightful meal I have made often in the RV. Not all my adventures have had bon appetite result, but I have always been willing to admit my disasters. I love to take on a new dish.

So was it any wonder that we jumped at the chance to visit the Napa campus of the internationally renowned Greystone Culinary Institute of America. We made reservations to eat in early afternoon and signed up for a cooking demonstration by one of the head chefs at CIA. Nestled in the western side of the Napa valley at St Helena, this cooking school has found its home in the three story 101 year old stone castle, the former Christian Brothers winery. As one enters the huge wood doors of the lobby, one is struck by the high ceilings, scent of wines long since drunk and a modern teaching classroom complete with huge stainless steel kitchen, demonstration table, close circuit TV and tiered seating for at least 50 students.

The campus includes 15,000 sq. feet of teaching kitchens, a five star restaurant, patio dining, wine cellar, store, student housing, a citrus and herb garden and administrative offices all overlooking the beautiful vineyards of Napa. The store is stocked with every conceivable utensil and gadget known to the kitchen, spices, dishes, chef clothing and a recipe book section that would rival many libraries. Sara bought a few Christmas presents and I drooled over a stainless steel cooking set until the price tag of $475 for three pots stopped the drool in mid drip. A kitchen knife started at $85 and a chef hat with the famous CIA logo for $55. I ended up with a cloth patch with the same logo for $2.50 for the bulletin board of the RV.

We hurried to our dinner reservations and were offered our choice of indoor or outdoor seating. What a choice! Under a colorful patio umbrella and that famous fall Napa Valley sun, we were offered a five course menu (same as that offered in the evening) with several side dishes. With choices like Forni Brown Pimiento De Padrone, Catalan Bistro Salad, Potato Watercress Soup, Spinach Tagliatelle and Quinoa Stuffed Indian Eggplant and a wine list that could reach the floor, this was going to take some time. Our cooking demonstration in 90 minutes was a salad and one o’clock in the afternoon is a little early for wine. We declined both and decided to order an appetizer described on the menu as Today’s Temptations, “an array of small bites prepared by our chef, to be shared by all at the table. $9.95 per person” Well, no wine or salad, let’s go for it.

Sara opted for Spiced-Rubbed Young Chicken (Living Waters Farms tomatoes, grilled corn and pimiento de Padrone) and I for the Grilled Lamb Loin (Bloomsdale spinach with currants and pinenuts, toasted ciabatta, gorgonzola dole fondue, gremolata frites). Sara was pretty sure she would get chicken and I knew one thing for sure, there would be lamb, spinach, currants and pinenuts.The portions were small but oh so very, very rich. We rarely even eat out, let alone enjoy food like this. What a treat. We dined slowly, savored every bite and knew this probably would not happen again for a long time. Our dining was interrupted by a call for our cooking demonstration. We declined dessert and hurried to the other side of the campus.

The demonstration chef was Andy Wild and he was wonderful. We were seated in a multi tiered classroom facing a central kitchen demonstration table. Andy took us through the preparation of an October garden salad topped with crushed pita bread and a "from stratch" dressing containing garlic, olive oil and various spices. The demonstration was translated into Korean for a group of tourist visiting the Institute. The recipe included a weed called purslane and crushed red sumac crowns often seen on the roadsides of Wisconsin. We learned so much more than how to make the salad. Knife sharpening techniques, nutritional facts, a discourse on heirloom tomatoes, slicing tricks, chopping board trends, garlic crushing protocols, pre recipe preparation and different methods of presentation were all part of the demonstration. As we sampled the salad, I played “Stump the Chef” by asking Andy if he knew what an “ulu” was. Without hesitation, he illustrated his culinary background by correctly describing it as an Eskimo kitchen knife. Sara whispered to me as we left the demonstration, “You would love to do something like that, wouldn’t you!” and she was right. Andy was a wonderful spokesman for the school.

The Greystone Culinary Institute of America’s home campus is in Hyde Park, NY with a campus in San Antonio, TX as well as Napa. A four year degree includes all aspects of food preparation and restaurant management and can cost over $70,000. Two year programs in bakery and pastry arts, regional cuisines, and specialty cooking are also very popular. With over 78,000 graduates scattered all over the world and at some of the most prestigious restaurants, CIA is a premier place to visit and learn.

As we left the grounds of the school, I could not help but think that even these geniuses of the cooking genre could still have learned a thing or two from my dear mother. As mom would say, “Oh Donnie, you are stirring that way too slow. Like this, Donnie, like this!!!!”