Before her death in 2022, Phyllis Quinn wrote a blog for SRP called “Ask Chef Phyllis.”
Her blog was about food, yes, but it was also about everything food means to us—family, love, friendship, traveling. Phyllis lived a rich, full, remarkable life. She was a fantastic writer and an exceptional chef. All of these things make Ask Chef Phyllis a wonderful blog to read, and all of us here at SRP think this is a good time of the year to remember her.
The blog started out as a sort of food Q&A. Readers, eager to extract an old recipe from a faded memory, would come to Phyllis. Here is a question sent to Phyllis from Annalisa I., from Chicago:
Many years ago, at a Christmas party, the hostess served a dish called Shrimp Dijon. It was delicious. I live in Chicago, and this dish is a favorite served in many restaurants, but none are as good as the first time I tried it. Not only that, but the restaurant versions had no Dijon mustard that I tasted. They might as well have called it Shrimp Scampi. What’s the difference? Can you tell me what’s missing from this famous dish?
After some surfing, Phyllis solved the mystery. On her blog she shared this mouthwatering recipe for a dish called Shrimp de Jonghe.
Here is another question sent by Mary Cunningham from Whitman, MA:
At one time in my mother’s youth (she came from Brittany), every family made this bread for Christmas, and she said that every patisserie in Paris carried some version of it. I have an old recipe, but I tried it twice and failed twice. The inside was raw, the edges were burned, and I couldn’t get it out of the pan. I wondered if you could find a good recipe for me?
Phyllis got straight to work. In an old edition of Cook’s Country “Lost Bread” collection, she found and slightly adapted a 1910 recipe called “Pain de’Epices” (spice bread). There’s honey and whole milk, marmalade and cardamon, star anise, cinnamon, ginger. It looks fantastic. If I had a loaf of this bread cooling on my counter, I would not say no if my husband were to bring me a thick slice of it, toasted and slathered in fancy salted butter.
Over time, Ask Chef Phyllis became more personal. Phyllis began to write more about her own recipes and her own memories. She began to write her own stories, and they were good. After all, you know you’re about to read a good story when it begins with lines like these:
I married an Irishman whose mother was from County Kerry and whose father was from Thurles, Tipperary. So begins “The Best Colcannon Recipe,” in which Phyllis dispels some myths about Irish cooking and offers up a recipe for colcannon (a hearty potato-cabbage concoction), which “passed to me from my County Kerry-born mother-in-law, is the best I’ve ever tasted.”
“It’s winter up in the Rocky Mountain highlands where I make my home.” So begins “My Adventure on South Padre Island,” in which Phyllis, with a fractured ankle, chooses to recover on the beaches of a South Padre Island (ahem, with “an old friend who had recently become a widower”). Back at home in the Rocky Mountains, she whips up a scrumptious Texan corn casserole to serve at Thanksgiving.
In my mother’s kitchen, we would put the water on the stove to cook the corn—or what my mother called “summer’s golden child”—before it was even picked. So begins “Food from the Bountiful Garden: Corn on the Cob,” in which Phyllis writes about family and gardening—and making perfect corn on the cob.
And then there’s this little masterpiece:
I’m a New Yorker through and through…Back in my younger days, I’d walk to work in high heels, from the east side of Manhattan to the west side, sometimes stopping to admire St. Patrick’s Cathedral or Rockefeller Plaza as I made my way through the city. I’ve even been known to grab a hot dog from a street vender for lunch and not drop mustard on my white cashmere sweater. This is from a post called “Christmas Chestnuts,” in which Phyllis talks about the Italian tradition of roasting chestnuts while effortlessly bringing the New York City of her youth to vibrant life.
Phyllis lost recipes and lost loves. She wrote about being alone late in life and the importance of making room for friendships. She wrote about food and life. So I encourage you to spend some time with Ask Chef Phyllis. Scroll around. Maybe you’ll find the post where Phyllis eats a Cubano sandwich for the first time, while on her honeymoon. Or the one where she bests her friend Connie in a grilled cheese throwdown. Or the one where Phyllis, traveling in Italy, ends up on a stranger’s yacht at midnight. What a life!
