Definitely a food doer, here. My mom taught me to cook, but I only started cooking for real after I left the nest.  Your DD cookbook was & still is a favorite of mine.  Many of the meals in our standard rotation came from it & continue to come from this site of yours.  The one thing it did teach me, though, was that a recipe is a template & I could tweak it as I saw fit.

We love love love to hear how people tweak our recipes. The wisdom of the crowd?!

I, too, am a food doer. I like to read recipes in magazines but I almost never watch the Food Channel….is that a sacrilege for someone who writes about food??

Should I be watching more?

When my sisters & I were 11, 10, 6 & 5, my parents adopted our newborn baby brother. My mom’s plate went from FULL to OVERFLOWING, so we girls started helping to cook dinner. The “olders” were paired with a “younger” and one team was responsible for fixing dinner & the other cleaned up (with mom close by). I’ve been cooking now for almost 50 years and am definitely a doer. I owned a restaurant/catering business for a few years. Love to give recipes my special twist & share with friends. Co-workers are thrilled with I feel like baking.

Martha, send us one of your favorite recipes and any story that goes with it…sounds like you’ve been a doer, but do you ever watch?

I think I learned to really cook watching the Saturday morning cooking shows on PBS - Frugal Gourmet, Julia Child, Jacques Pepin & others. Now my tv is often tuned to Food Network - so yes, I’m also a watcher.

When I decided to quit my “real job” in purchasing and open a restaurant in 1986, I collected menus & did research while on business trips. I’d recently bought “The Silver Palate Cookbook” and loved this Lemon Chicken recipe. I managed a trip to NYC and visited the tiny Silver Palate store for inspiration. I naively had called the store the week before to see if Sheila Lukins or Julee Rosso could meet with me, to share some tips on owning a gourmet store. Would you believe Julee actually returned my call, but I was already on my way to NYC. This was shortly before they sold the store & concentrated on their condiments line and more cookbooks.

This recipe remains my favorite chicken recipe & something I often make for friends just home from the hospital with a new baby or for picnics, because it is just as good cold as right from the oven. It is also uses the tarragon that grows beside my front steps. I’ve made changes to the original recipe through the years. Once when I didn’t have enough lemons, I crushed some Lemon Drop candies & sprinkled them on top. Interesting, but didn’t repeat it. Most of the time I omit the chicken stock & use all lemon juice. 

LEMON CHICKEN
 
Grated rind & juice of 2 lemons, divided  
6   bone-in, skinless chicken breasts  
1/2 cup   flour  
1/2 tsp   salt  
1/2 tsp   paprika  
2 Tbs   oil  
3 Tbs   brown sugar  
1   lemon, thinly sliced (optional) 
1/2 cup   chicken stock (or juice of one more lemon) 
1-2 tsp   tarragon  

 
1. Preheat oven to 350°. Sprinkle the juice of 1 lemon over the chicken breasts. Mix the flour, salt and paprika in plastic bag. Shake the chicken in the flour mixture.
2. Heat the oil in a frying pan over high heat and fry the chicken to lightly brown. Transfer to a foil-lined baking dish - VERY important to reduce clean-up. Top chicken with lemon slices (if using) and sprinkle lemon zest and tarragon over. Put in oven and bake 20 minutes.
3. In small bowl, combine chicken stock and remaining lemon juice - add brown sugar, stirring until sugar dissolves. After 20 minutes of baking, top chicken with mixture. Bake for an additional 30-40 minutes or until done. Baste with pan juices halfway through cooking time.

Adapted from “The Silver Palate Cookbook” 
Yield: Serves 4-6