Fun Things You Can Sometimes Learn While Traveling

How many times have you come home from a trip with recipes? Not often, I would imagine. I know I certainly haven't. However, in the fall of 2019 when I was working as a volunteer at the Chateau deGudanes in France one of the guests was Penny Webster from New Zealand. She and her husband are two of the most delightful people that I have ever met. To spend time with Penny in the kitchen, a room that she makes her own as soon as she enters it, is to spend time enjoying tea, talking about family and the things that we like, especially food. When I was visiting the Chateau the summer before, Penny's cookbook "Dining with Vikings" was hot off the press and she had sent a copy of it to the Chateau's owner. I love cook books, but Penny's is not only a good read with pages and pages of good recipes and anecdotes about her family, it is also just plain charming because of the cute art work found throughout. When I looked through it in 2018, I never dreamed I would ever meet the author. So imagine my surprise a year later to learn that my new acquaintance was the author of that book. I spent an entire afternoon leafing through "Dining with Vikings" again, and took pictures of some of the recipes that I knew I wanted to be sure and try. I am ashamed to say that it has taken me over a year to do so. Recently when I was trying to clean up my photo library, I decided I needed to print these pictures of recipes and put them with my recipe files so I would not keep forgetting about them. Last night I dined with Penny Webster again, vicariously, by finally trying out her recipe for Pork Chops in Orange Sauce. It was definitely as good as it looks. And it was an especially wonderful way to remember happy times in the kitchen with such a wonderful person.