Welcome to Fabulous Friday where I feature a beloved cook, be they friend, family member or stranger.

With the launch of www.ramblingtart.com I simply had to feature the woman who taught me how to cook: my Mums. I love this picture of her, so happy surrounded by her kids and hubby.

I have so many amazing food memories with Mums – chocolate porridge, Vietnamese noodle soup, and Hungry Man Casserole – but I think my favorite is Sunday dinner.

Mums is the queen of idyllic Sunday dinners, rising early in the morning to slather up chickens with olive oil, stuff them with whole heads of garlic or chunks of lemon and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.

She would never dream of roasting the birds without first browning them beautifully, letting the high heat melt away the fat and turn the skin crisp and salty.

While the chickens roast a while on their own, she busies herself washing and chopping veggies – fingerling potatoes, turnips, parsnips, sweet potatoes, great chunks of onion and more garlic. Tossing them together in a big metal bowl, she glugs olive oil over the lot, adds salt, pepper and fresh rosemary from her garden, then nestles them in around the roasting chickens, pops them in the oven and dashes off to church.

This week Mums coated the veggies with heavy whipping cream instead of olive oil and the results were divine! Even the potatoes were moist and tender, their skins a lovely golden brown from the cream.

All of us kids love visiting Mums and Dad on Sundays, my brothers oh-ho-ho-ing appreciatively as they come in out of the cold to a house filled with the scent of roasted chicken.

After hanging up coats and scarves we natter away while setting the table with Mums’ cobalt blue dishes, carrying platters of steaming food from the stove, settling in to our usual chairs and bowing our heads for prayer. A quick one, lest a skin form on the gravy. 🙂

We linger longest over Sunday dinners, everyone getting seconds, the occasional hand snaking out for just one more potato, one last slice of chicken as we visit.

Afterward we adjourn to the living room for British murder mysteries and hot cups of Earl Grey tea with cream and maple syrup.

Thanks for making Sundays so beautiful, Mums. I love you!

My beautiful Mums