Cook of the Week: Huntley baker happiest in the kitchen
Patricia Droschak has sweet dreams. One, in particular, involved images of a cookie dough-stuffed cheese cake.
“I thought ‘where in the world did this come from?'” the Huntley woman said. “Some people dream about sex. I dream about food.”
Since that dream Patricia has tinkered her way through several revisions of that dreamy concoction, as well as a number of other creative flavor combos including peanut butter cup drizzle, lemon cream, cherry and cannoli. She brags that she can whip up five cheesecakes in an hour and has earned the nickname, “The Mrs. Field's of Cheesecakes” from friend, Mariann Evans.
Patricia has another dream, one that comes to her during the day: to open a bakery and add new flavors like sweet potato and banana and chocolate to her repertoire.
“(Mariann) was the one that continually gave me support and told me that I should pursue my dream because the product that I created was amazing,” she said.
Cheesecake isn't her only passion. She's just as wild about the savory side of cooking and enjoys crafting unique meals at home.
Recalling her high school cooking instructor, Sister Ignatius, from some 40 years ago, Patricia takes to heart the lesson of making good food for your family. For Patricia, it's never a chore.
“I could be absolutely exhausted, and I would come home and start cooking dinner from scratch and I'd be revived and all my exhaustion from the day would be gone because that is such a passion,” she said.
Being of Italian descent, Patricia said creating food made from scratch is in her blood. One of her favorites is her meatballs that use a mix of ground beef, veal and pork that makes them softer and cook over low heat in her homemade sauce.
She rarely follows a recipe and prefers to create as she goes along. At our urging, she grabbed pen and paper when she recently made her sausage Florentine serpentini and artichoke chicken linguine. She shares those recipes here today.
“I rarely will measure anything, which makes it hard when people want recipes,” she said. “All I can tell them is that I can tell you what I put in it but you will have to judge how much.”
Patricia said she loves using her creative side to make food — whether Easter lamb cakes she's baked for more than 30 years or 52 pounds of turkey for a holiday feast — for family and friends to enjoy. In the kitchen is where Patricia loves to be.
“When I cook, I see how much joy it brings to them. It gives me pleasure to cook and know it makes other people happy,” she said.