White Pepper

This is such a weird story. Some of you probably think all of my stories are weird. 🙂

My mom was not an adventurous cook. She was a teacher and, of course, that was way before the internet and Google. The teachers would sometimes share recipes. My grandma’s friends would share recipes at church so occasionally we had a new recipe to try but we kinda had the same things over and over and over!

It was after Vince and I were married and living in Kentucky and my mom sent me this recipe: Sticky Chicken

I made it and I loved it and apparently I loved it so much that I was making it way too often for Chad and Vince. They never told me til much later that they were sick of Sticky Chicken. Not too long ago, Chad told me he had made Sticky Chicken and I said “I loved that recipe!” He started laughing and said “I know! You made it twice a week for 10 years!” No, I did not but what’s not to like. Season it the day before, stick it in the fridge. The next day bake it at 250 degrees for 5 hours. That was five hours of sewing, or knitting (or, cross stitching now). Also, once I got a solar oven, it was perfect for cooking in the solar oven. Also, there was always chicken left over and it made the best chicken salad!

Since my mom was not an adventurous cook, her spice cabinet and salt and black pepper! I had never tried white pepper until I made Sticky Chicken and it didn’t take me but once to realize I did NOT like white pepper. After the first time using it, I just left it out of my spice mix. I was making this so often that I started mixing up the spice mix in large quantities and kept it in a quart jar.

I don’t even like the smell of white pepper and a few times, we’ve been to a restaurant where the food had white pepper and the minute the plate is placed in front of me, I smell it and . . ugh! Bad choice for me.

Back in December, 2023, I was chatting with someone – probably on Facebook or maybe in the comments here, and I mentioned my intense dislike for white pepper. Whomever I was chatting with said “You’ve never had GOOD white pepper!” Maybe that’s true so in January, I got some from Azure Standard. I had not even opened it until about 10 days ago. I think I was thinking . . white pepper is white pepper . . but over the weekend, I grilled hamburgers. Vince isn’t a pepper lover and I’m a huge fan of black pepper, which is what I had intended to sprinkle on my burger but then I remembered the white pepper so I opened it and tried it.

Oh, my goodness . . I’m so in love with that white pepper. Now I can’t wait to make Sticky Chicken and use it in that spice mix. Sunday we’re having Sticky Chicken and Monday we’re having chicken salad and I can’t wait!