Stirring the Pot

As a kid, Abbey Grzymala knew exactly what to do if she didn’t like the meal her mother cooked. “I’d make my own food,” she says. And through the years, the Goldens Bridge resident continued to expand her personal menu – adding fresh herbs and spices, experimenting with different proteins and eventually, trusting her gut.

Grzymala, a recent John Jay High School/BOCES culinary arts graduate who is headed to Johnson & Wales University’s Providence campus this fall, already knows what to do when inspiration strikes.

“I go straight into the kitchen,” she says. “I’ll turn to my mom and say, ‘I’ve got an idea. I am going to the store. I’m making dinner, and I’ll be back in 20 minutes.’”

The thing she makes most often? Tacos.

“Everybody loves tacos,” she says. “I’m now the taco person in my house because when I was about 15, I got so tired of waiting for my mom to finish making dinner, and I drew the line on waiting for her to be done with a dinner that only takes ten minutes.”

Her mom, Grzymala says, would get distracted.

“She would start, but then the phone would ring, and she’d stop to talk to her friend for 20 minutes,” Grzymala continues. “She would shoo me away, but at some point, I finally said, ‘Just let me make the tacos, Mom.’”

It runs in the family

Grzymala credits her mom with inspiring her passion for cooking, and not only because her mom sometimes made meals that forced Grzymala to make her own.

“I’ve been cooking with my mom ever since I can remember,” she says. “I started making my own breakfast around 12 years old, and I was 14 or 15 when I started cooking dinner.”

As her skills improved, she began to develop her own style. For example, Grzymala has a pretty clear vision once she begins, but her mom is always adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And, while daughter doesn’t mind sharing kitchen space, mom marks her territory.

“You’ll get a slap on the wrist – don’t touch that,” Grzymala explains.

So, it’s no surprise that a bit of competition has arisen, and Grzymala implies that her mother doesn’t always take the high road when their strategies conflict.

“She’ll say, ‘other people are going to eat this,’” Grzymala recounts, in a judgmental imitation. “‘Somebody is going to notice that you didn’t put berries on the pie.’ And then she’ll add them herself.”

Of course, Grzymala doesn’t pull any punches. “Nobody’s going to notice,” she responds in annoyed frustration.

“She’s always trying to tell me that I’m missing something when I just want to make it my own way,” she says. “She likes to make everything visually appealing as soon as it comes out of the oven, but I prefer mine to look visually appealing once it’s plated.”

Of course, Grzymala and her mom aren’t the only family members who prepare meals in their home – cooking duties sometimes fall to at least one of the men.

“If my dad is cooking, it’s salt, pepper and a little bit of garlic,” she says sarcastically.

In other words, her dad just knows the basics. Still, she and her older brother are happy that their dad at least tries.  As for her mom, she deadpans, “Not so much.”

And her brother, well, he recently began pouring honey on his steak and burgers because “he’s convinced it’s a good source of raw protein.” He’s not typically tasked with dinner duties.

But despite their playful and often comedic contention, there is an agreement among the women.

“We always try to make something different,” Grzymala explains. “We never make the same meal exactly the same way twice.”

Jumping into the fire

Grzymala’s family is her main proving ground, and the young chef doesn’t mind too much if the menu doesn’t suit her. Her mom is a pescatarian, so Grzymala delivers, despite having no affinity for consuming sea animals.

So how does she know if the food is good without sampling?

“I get on my knees and pray,” she jokes.

And when it’s not, her brother is usually first to dish out the brutal honesty.

“He’ll ask, ‘Where’s the second dinner,’” she says.

Then before Grzymala can get a word in, her mom will attempt a kinder approach, which usually falls flat.

“She’ll say, ‘You know, I really don’t think this is a make-again dish.’”

Fortunately, her dad always has her back.

“He will always say it’s good, no matter what,” she says.

Undeterred, Grzymala continues to experiment. She says her cooking style is usually a variation of a theme.   

“I’ll use a recipe as a base, but I’ll change the ingredients,” she explains. “Plus, we have 2,000 to 3,000 spices in the house, and we also grow a few herbs and spices ourselves.”

So, there’s a lot of mixing and matching, along with a pinch of this and a dash of that. And it’s all based on a singular method – getting a good whiff.

She puts the spices into a bowl, sniffs, and if the scent is right, she goes forward. Of course, the process is not an exact science, and if it doesn’t smell good, she has to make a choice.

“It depends on how bad it smells,” she says. “If it’s really that bad, I’ll throw it out. But if I think I can fix it, then I’ll just add something else. Making my own mistakes, that’s how I grow.”

Once she’s perfected a recipe, it’s added to the recipe book, with the mistakes noted so the culinary miscue doesn’t get a do-over.

A recent addition was octopus tacos. The impetus came from a friend’s octopus recipe, and then it was her normal process.

“I threw in some shredded vegetables,” she explains. “Then I added tortilla chips and spicy mayonnaise. And I topped it off with hot salsa and guacamole.”

Of course, the toughest critic had her say.

“My mom called all her friends,” she says proudly.

Talking shop

Gryzmala prefers shopping fresh at Trader Joe’s,  DeCicco & Sons, Wegmans and the Pleasantville farmers market. But when it comes to letting others do the work, she heads to Purdy’s Farmer & the Fish.

“They do farm-to-table service and grow a lot of their own food,” she explains. “The atmosphere is amazing, and their food always tastes incredibly fresh.”

But she can be a pretty tough customer. Aside from often feeling that “I could make this better,” Grzymala has a discerning eye on the service.

“I see someone clearing a plate from the wrong side, or if they’re setting up the forks wrong, I look at my mom and say, ‘This is not the place to eat,’” she admits. “But I’m very discreet.”

Dishing the dirt

Every chef has their guilty pleasure. Some head to McDonald’s after an exhausting shift, while others prefer pizza or Tac

co Bell. For Grzymala, it’s ramen noodles in a package, which she only makes on occasion. And when she does, she adds her own special touch.

She boils the noodles and drains most of the water. Then, she adds about half the seasoning packet, salt, pepper, a little hot sauce and tops it with some mayonnaise.

And she’ll stand her ground if anyone dares to criticize.

“I just make it better, so there’s that,” she says.

But there are things she won’t cook. Pork chops, for example, are a hard no.

“I just hate pork chops,” she says. “I feel like there’s never a good pork chop. I’ve tried pork chops at restaurants, other people’s houses, my house – there’s never a good recipe for pork chops. It always gets so dry and gross. And there’s that bone right in the middle – it’s such a noxious thing to eat and make.”

And even if she’s short on time, she also has standards. When asked if she’d succumb to making hot dogs at a moment’s notice, she didn’t respond. The mere suggestion overtook Grzymala like someone punched her in the gut.

Lending a helping hand

Grzymala says she’s not looking for celebrity, and she doesn’t try to measure up to all the high-profile cooks online or with their own cable shows. Instead, she wants to be herself.

“I try not to compare myself to others,” she says. “I know my way of cooking is different than theirs, and I wouldn’t want them to compare to me either.”

One of her strengths, she says, is grocery shopping.

“My favorite thing is going to the grocery store with my friends and pointing out what I would use instead of what they’re putting in their cart,” she says.

And while that could be annoying for some, she says her friends do appreciate it.

“In fact, I was at a friend’s house the other day, and her mom said, ‘Since Abbey’s here, do you think you guys can go to the grocery store for me?’ I said, ‘Ab-so-lutely!’”

Yet she knows she has much to learn. When she toured Johnson & Whales, she was “so shocked” by the variety of kitchen tools from around the world, and she’s looking forward to learning how to use them.

While she’s not sure what the future holds, she thinks she wants to teach people how to modify their recipes so they can cook healthier food.

“I think food can be better than what it is today, and I want to help make that change.”

This article was published in the July/August 2023 print edition of Katonah Connect.