Story by Thelma Poole
I have the privilege of being the mother of Shelli Poole, the heart of MySaline.com. I don’t cook a whole lot, so when my daughter gave me a cookbook for Mother’s Day I was happy to be remembered, but wasn’t necessarily thrilled. I didn’t realize what a gem she had found and bestowed on me.
She did me another favor. She sent me to interview the lovely lady who wrote the book, “Leave it to Liz.” She has a blog now since closing her eatery in downtown Benton: www.justleaveittoliz.net. You can order a cookbook of her favorite recipes on this site – with free shipping! They are also available at Smith Caldwell and Twigs in Benton. While she bakes and uses breads in feeding others, she chooses to eat a Keto diet. As we age, metabolism takes a nose dive. Keto helps with this weighty problem. She shares some of those recipes on her blog.
Chef Liz Bray is the type of person who you are instantly drawn to. She was formerly a kindergarten teacher. I bet her tiny charges loved her. She has a mild but enthusiastic manner. She is a Christian lady who now “just does volunteer work” with her food. This allows her to give the time deserved to her family and still feel like she is making a difference in the world.
When I arrived for our private lunch in her home, the table in her kitchen was set and some of the many items that I would encounter were already set by my plate. I’m not really big on vinaigrettes, so I tested the one set for the spinach salad which had all sorts of fruits, nuts and cheese in it. I found it not too heavy on the vinegar which is often the case so I slathered it on. Yum. The salad was large enough that I didn’t finish it even though I kept going back to it after finishing other soups, “sandwiches” and desserts. I never considered making a grilled cheese sandwich out of pimento cheese and then dunking it into the best tomato soup I ever spooned into my mouth. It was so flavorful and more like marinara sauce but a little thinner. I really don’t usually care for tomato soup. I will be making Liz’s recipe for me and my husband. He loves tomato soup and I am a convert. Some of the items she sent home with me were grilled pimento cheese sandwiches, baked pepperoni wrapped in bread dough, ravioli soup and tomato soup. Oh yes, there was a slice of “pie” (sugar-free) which could pass for Reese’s peanut butter cups. While I consumed quite a bit of food for lunch, I did not feel stuffed. I also found that I didn’t have rebound appetite causing me to nibble in the afternoon.
As Liz talked to me about her life’s choices involving food, I had the feeling that she has done what she did with food in order to share the secrets she had gleaned through experimentation in her life. She was barely in her teens when her mom started working and let her have the responsibility of preparing the evening meal. Her mother was wise enough to give her free range in the kitchen. She also did the grocery shopping allowing her opportunity for choosing ingredients. Allergies and sugar restrictions caused her to take a different approach to cooking. This led her to work as a personal chef for a long time. She loved offering clients the type of food they needed to make their lives healthier. In her cookbook intro which covers several pages she explains all the phases of her life and why she made the decisions. This includes why she decided to step away from her café in Benton after 3 years. She professes that she is not a writer, but I enjoyed reading it. To me, that is a writer. By the way, her photographer in this beautifully illustrated cookbook is Nancy Pruitt, the wife of Benton pastor Doug Pruitt.
She thinks electric pressure cookers are the greatest thing ever invented for cooking. In her cookbook, there is even a cheesecake that you make in a pressure cooker. It has detailed instructions telling you how to accomplish this feat. One of her long list of accomplishments was giving a seminar to a large number of personal chefs on the merits of pressure cooking. Her favorite brand is the 6 quart Fagor. It is really easy to clean with a thin non-stick metal pot that slips out. The lid was also easy to clean. I have a stovetop pressure cooker, but I may have to explore the Fagor.
Liz does use her oven for her cakes. She sent a whole strawberry cake home with me. My extended family will be treated to this at Sunday lunch. She said her former personal chef clients requested it most often. I wasn’t going to eat the cake immediately so she triple wrapped it for me with oversized glad wrap. She instructed me not to refrigerate it but to freeze it until ready to serve. Refrigeration dries your cakes out. She colored the icing orange and put a jack o’lantern face on it with dark piping.
I really hated that I had to leave after 2 hours, but we both had other things calling in our lives. I hope to keep in touch with Liz. She is someone you want in your life as a friend.
Click the image below to go to the Leave It To Liz website and get your cookbook!
