Posted by Annapolis Capital, MD on June 09, 2008 at 19:26:06:
Liz Barclay: A passion for food and education
For Liz Barclay of Annapolis, cooking isn't about toiling over a hot stove all day. Instead, she makes cooking a time for creativity and relaxation.
By ASHLEY FETTEROLF, HometownAnnapolis
Published June 09, 2008
It's not enough to say that Liz Barclay is a “foodie.” An amateur chef, cooking competitor, and meal provider for her family, her love of cooking shines when she speaks of her favorite pastime.
Growing up in a busy household with two sisters, Liz started cooking for her family at eight years old, fixing meals that she would now call "quick and dirty": mashed potatoes, canned peas, and pork chops. Her tastes have refined since her days of whipping up fast meals for her mother and sisters.
Liz moved to Annapolis thirty years ago and immediately began entering cooking competitions. Her first contest? An oyster cook-off at Sandy Point. The outcome? She beat out her competitors with a recipe for Waveland Oysters: oysters on a half shell with cucumbers, cheese, bacon, and almonds, cooked in a GE toaster oven. The prize? "I won that little GE oven because I was cooking in the oven to create this masterpiece."
Her cooking skills are not limited to shellfish alone; Liz has competed in chicken cook-offs, a Pillsbury pastry bake-off, a Busch's Beans competition, among many others.
All of her victories have been secured with her original recipes. Her recipe for Jamaican black bean chili with pumpkin and spices won her a hefty $5,000 prize It was the best prize, she says, because it paid for a trip to Hawaii with her husband.
Even when she doesn't win the big prize, Liz relishes the opportunity to travel to new locales like San Francisco and Phoenix, and to meet fellow chefs like the late Julia Child.
"That reward is taking the trip and meeting the people, and going somewhere exciting," Mrs. Barclay said.
She is also happy in her own kitchen cooking dinner for her husband. Now that her two sons, ages 25 and 23, are out of the house, Liz sets the rules for cooking, whether it's a night of leisurely wine sipping while waiting for her vegetables to cook in the crock-pot, or grilling something spicy in the summer.
Gone are the days of chicken nuggets and quesadillas, fruit roll-ups and oatmeal cream cookies. Liz is proud that her sons' tastes have become more refined over the years.
"They love the good stuff. When they come home, it's 'Oh, Mom, please make that basmati rice with the Thai salmon curry...' Now they have higher expectations of me, of themselves, and when they go out," she said.
As for Liz and her husband, their home cooking is all about health and freshness.
"I love to cook the whole spectrum of foods," Liz says, "But we are very health conscious. And I'm also a ‘localvore;’ I really love purchasing what's local and what's seasonal."
A self-proclaimed “farmer's market junkie,” Liz has many friends at the market at Riva Road and Harry S Truman Parkway, which helps when she needs tips on where to find the best strawberries or sprouts.
As happy as she is in her own kitchen, Liz still likes to go out for some authentic ethnic food. Living in Annapolis, however, sometimes means that she has to go way out for Afghani, Ethiopian, Moroccan, or African cuisine.
"I have to go to Baltimore or Washington for some of these foods," she says. "Annapolis restaurants are appealing to tourists. But we love Joss' Sushi, Les Folies and O'Leary's. I think they tend to be innovative."
An innovator herself, Liz finds inspiration for new recipes from reading such publications as Vegetarian Times and Bon Appétit.
A meticulous sort of chef, Liz keeps her recipes in categorized file folders so that she can keep track of substitutions she made and the dates she used each particular recipe to avoid making the same dish twice.
Her orderly kitchen is entirely her own, free from the hands of her husband, who enjoys eating more than cooking. But this doesn't bother Liz.
"He never cooks for me and he's not the slightest bit interested... I am such a Kitchen-Nazi, I wouldn't let him in anyway!"
More than a local foodie, amateur chef, farmer's market junkie, innovator, and Kitchen-Nazi, Liz Barclay is most importantly an educator. A smile lights up her face when she proclaims, "my passion is in education. My passion is in educating young children and that's what I do for the bulk of my day."
She's been working at the Indian Creek School for 23 years as Admissions Director and Assistant Head of the Lower School. She will soon be moving to a new job as Head of the National Child Research Center in Washington, D.C.