The recipe that won the first prize at the Complement Your Barbecue recipe competition.
This garlic, ginger and molasses teriyaki is an example of fusion cooking. It won the first prize at the Complement Your Barbecue recipe competition. Meet, Hillary, the marinade expert, at the stove.
Hillary is a retired teacher turned caterer from California, creating menus and recipes for friends and family, including all special events. Her food gifts are very much in demand and she acts as culinary consultant for her group of friends. In fact, it was Pam, her sister in law, who entered this recipe on Hillary’s behalf.
Q: Tell us about your background: Where and when did you learn to cook?
A: I am an empty nester, mother of two grown up boys. I live with my husband, Tod, a dog and multitude songbirds. Learning to cook? I think I was only nine or ten years old. I always had a taste for sweet things, especially my grandmother cookies. Since we only visited for short periods I asked her to teach me how to make them so I could enjoy my favorite things any time I wanted.
Q: Which one is your favorite food?
A: Still Grandma’s cookies and brownies. Apart from that, I love sushi. I like Japanese and Korean dishes very much and I like being adventurous when I recreate the recipes and combine the flavors in new ways.
Q: Who does the cooking at home? Do you cook for one or two, or a family?
A: I do the cooking at home and out. I often help with
Q: Which dish is the one you cook best?
A: Chocolate chip cookies. Practice makes perfect and I have baked many of those.
Q: Which ones are your favorite recipes/dishes at home? Eating out?
A: At home, I like experimenting with flavors, mixing my favorite Japanese and Asian recipes with local ingredients. I prepare things like bean sprout tacos, or curried shrimp with pasta and daikon salad. It is not usual that I feel tired and I do not want to cook, but it happens and then we go out, I eat and enjoy everything, then, just grateful I did not have to cook it.
Q: Please, share with us a typical menu you serve when you entertain friends.
A: Apart from the traditional holiday dinners with family, when I may do roast turkey with gravy and add my oriental touch with something like cranberry chutney and a lychee fruit salad, it is more usual that friends ask for my help for entertaining. I try to make it healthy and easy. I either choose a menu around a central dish –usually a roast- and assorted salads or a buffet.