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When I was a teenager, I began to wonder what was beyond the regular dinner rotation. I checked out cookbooks from around the world at the library and prowled the aisles of the town's only health-food store.

One day, my mother reluctantly agreed to let me make moussaka as a way to use up eggplant that my father had planted in the backyard garden. She had quickly discovered that she couldn't do the three typical things she did with vegetables -- frying, stewing or chopping up and freezing -- with eggplant. She deemed them useless slabs of grease sponges and berated my father for planting them. So it didn't matter if I tried to do something with them.

I don't remember how the moussaka tasted, but I do remember having so much fun in the kitchen, traveling to another place away from plastic dishes and macaroni.

My mother helped with the coq au vin I selected to cook for a class study of France, and referred to it for decades after as "drunk chicken."

Both the moussaka and the coq au vin were one-time dishes, never to appear again: Too much trouble, too odd, too much like my grandmother's fussiness.

But I kept at it, bringing in Chinese teas and crunchy whole-wheat breads until the kitchen became a place to say, "I'm different; I'm not you."

Eventually, though, everyone has to accept the portion of themselves that reflects the past, or warp completely out of shape. For me, that means allowing a middle ground and that, sometimes, taking that shortest distance between two points is OK. Independence doesn't mean throwing everything away.

I put together, almost automatically, the chicken and rice my mother made and it's a comfort on a cold night. Her 49-year-old cast-iron frying pan gives corn bread a wonderfully crunchy crust. Rather than saying, "I'm not," it's time to say, "I am."

Chicken and Rice

entree

This is Debbie Moose's variation on her mother's chicken and rice dish. The recipe is an approximation, depending on how much chicken you want to cook.

2 tablespoons butter

1 cut-up chicken (or 6 bone-in thighs and 4 bone-in breasts)

About 2 cups white rice

1 can (14 ounce) chicken broth plus extra water

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Paprika

Heat oven to 375 degrees. In a large baking dish (or you may have to use two) melt the butter. You can do this by putting the butter in the pan(s) and putting them in the preheating oven. When the butter is melted, place the chicken pieces in the pans, turning to coat with butter. Don't overcrowd the pieces. Pour rice carefully around the pieces; try not to let any rice get left on top of the pieces or it won't cook. Pour chicken broth over the chicken and rice and add more water until rice is covered. Sprinkle on salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder, then garnish with paprika to your taste. Cover with a lid or aluminum foil and bake for about 1 hour or until chicken is done (juices run clear when pricked with a knife). Check a couple of times during baking and add more water as it cooks out; don't let rice dry out. Uncover for the last 15 minutes or so to let brown.

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