I would often wonder why these people were thinking of recipes when they were starving. "During the Holocaust, people in the concentration camps would tuck recipes into the barracks where they stayed. "What I find so fascinating about cookbooks is that they're stories that can be passed on," she says. Odenwalder is a full-on cookbook connoisseur, with over 500 in her collection. My husband prays that I don't a movie about chickens," she jokes. "I saw a movie about cows, and I felt so bad after that, I stopped eating. She's tried her hand at everything, from Jewish, Cajun and Vietnamese to Mexican and Middle Eastern cuisines.ĭespite her upbringing, Odenwalder no longer eats beef, though she does eat chicken, pork and seafood. While she didn't have any formal culinary training, Odenwalder honed her skills by working in restaurants, doing catering and re-creating food that she encountered while eating out and traveling. Other than her love for the mountains and the fact that her hair was less frizzy in the drier climate, Odenwalder says she saw Colorado as a state where "people just really want to be here" and a place where she could "meet people from all over." PBS Once Odenwalder finished college, she decided to make Colorado her permanent home. Even if you disagree, whether it's politics or religion or family, most people can agree on what's good." Like Odenwalder says, "The best way to bring people together is through food. "I realized that if you just have a couple good things to cook, everyone will want to have a party at your house."īut her food didn't just make her house the ideal party scene it was a way to foster a welcoming community. I decided that I liked entertaining," Odenwalder says. "I pretty much started cooking in college. She headed west during her teenage years and attended Colorado State University. Her grandfather moved his entire family there from Lithuania in 1938, just one year before World War II began.Īlthough her family is Jewish, Odenwalder notes that living in Kankakee meant "there was no access to keeping kosher." She also suspects that because they were immigrants, her family "wanted to fit in and become American." As a result, Jewish food was reserved for the Jewish holidays that they celebrated, and the majority of Odenwalder's diet consisted of meat because her grandfather owned a grocery store and worked as a butcher. Odenwalder grew up in Kankakee, a small town in Illinois. She believes that food - and, more specifically, the recipes behind it - is a way of connecting the past, the present and the future. For Abbe Odenwalder, a blogger and upcoming contestant on season two of PBS's The Great American Recipe, food is more than simply something to keep your stomach full.
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