My Mother’s Turkey Schnitzel
In Response to Dancing Elephants Prompt 32 of 52
This is not a photo of my mother’s turkey schnitzel: this is a photo of chicken schnitzel with potato purée and sautéed greens, which my husband ordered from a local restaurant for one of our Covid-time date nights at home. It’s an outstanding restaurant, and I know that he enjoyed the meal.
But how could any schnitzel compete with my mother’s turkey schnitzel (particularly when served with a side of her Lyonnaise potatoes and green bean casserole)?
My mother is German-American and schnitzel is a heritage dish, but she has her own take on it (as mothers do). I won’t tell you her secrets, I’ll just tell you I love it. This was one of my favorite meals growing up and it has stood the test of time.
During my semester abroad in college, our program gave participants a “travel week” during which we were encouraged to explore some other destination that was now relatively more accessible to us than it had been from the U.S. I chose to visit Germany. Specifically, I chose to spend the week with my mother’s quilting penpal in Bavaria, a woman whom my mother had never actually met, but whom she “knew” from a history of letter writing.
This gave me the opportunity to try more authentic Wiener schnitzel (which is made with veal, rather than chicken or turkey). To be honest, the idea of eating veal is a bit unpleasant to me and I’ve never had it outside of this one instance. Safe to say my mother’s turkey schnitzel is still my favorite schnitzel of all time.
Also during my time in Germany, I was fortunate to attend something called Africa Festival, where I tried Ethiopian food and learned that I love injera. This made me curious to check out Carmen Micsa, MA in English, podcaster’s story about cooking Kenyan food, which looks delicious!
Knowing Akemi Sagawa’s artful eye as an expert flower arranger, I was excited to see what sort of food photos she would present — she did not disappoint! By her own words, “As you see, my cooking is 30 % taste and 70% presentation.”
Thanks to Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles for making me pause to flip through food photos and dream of so many delicious things.