Monica Kass Rogers is a mom, writer, photographer, and home cook, who also explores abstract photography as a member of Perspective Fine Art Photography Gallery in Evanston, IL. She started her food blog, Lost Recipes Found, first as a column for the Chicago Tribune, one of the many publications she has written for over the past 20 years. “At one point I was writing stories and columns for six different sections of the Chicago Tribune, addressing sustainability, women’s issues, gardening, business, architecture and food, plus writing for Crain’s Chicago Business, and many lifestyle magazines,” she says. “My research into the provenance of recipes for a Chicago Tribune column was so compelling that it became my blog, lostrecipesfound.com. In turn, the process of researching, preparing, propping, food-styling and photographing the recipes for each story launched my professional photography business.”
“For you, the food memory trigger might be sight, or taste, or sound, or some sensual mixture of all of it,” says Rogers. “The point is, we all have recipes we’ve loved and lost over the course of our lives. How serendipitous to rediscover and enjoy them again. At my Lost Recipes Found food blog, readers discover those recipes, some history when I can find it, visuals, and hopefully, some connection to the food memories that matter the most to you. Some of these recipes are my own. Some are adapted from old and vintage cookbooks. Others are chef creations based on vintage recipes that people love. Before publishing to the site, I test, prepare, and photograph each dish using natural light. I have dozens of recipes, photos and stories that I’ve collected over the years, and will be posting them as often as I can,” she adds.
“My mother,” Rogers says, “grew up eating the fresh fruit from a large, spreading fig tree that grew next to her childhood home in southern Texas. She spoke wistfully of that tree, the scent and the flavor of its fruit, the cool of its shade and passed her fondness for figs right down to me.”
“Rogers adds that reading cookbook author Belinda Hulin’s ode to the fig tree that grew 30 feet high and more than 30 feet wide in her own mother’s Louisiana backyard, struck a chord. Hulin’s story, featured in her 2010-released Roux Memories, is a beautiful tale of growth, loss and rebirth.”
Hulin writes, “My mother planted the tree more than thirty years ago…without fertilizing or pruning, dependent on rain for watering, it grew. And grew. And grew.” And as she grew, the fig tree gave back. “Sometimes,” Hulin adds, “like after my father died, or when my first marriage crumbled, I’d wander into the backyard just to visit the fig tree, eat from its branches, and stare into its mystical depths.”
Rogers says, “I adore fresh figs — the shape and flavor of the fruit, and all of the delicious things you can make with it. Here are two favorites. The preserves make the perfect filling for homemade fig bars or goes well over yogurt or pudding. And this fig cake is so moist as to be almost pudding like. I’ve also reworked the recipe as a layer cake, with caramel frosting.”
