Food, Family and Memory

I adore lamb shanks - even as a child. When I eat them gray clouds depart, the rain stops and on occasion I hear music. I love them that much. In a perfect world they are small, less than a pound but better closer to three quarters of a pound. They ideally come from the front leg and are called fore shanks, not the pseudo/imposter shank cut off the rear leg.

They need to be browned in a small amount of olive oil and braised slowly in stock or water to release their rustic flavor and to make them melt into tenderness. My mother always braised them in garlic, oregano, onions and chopped whole tomatoes. It was the scent of our home growing up. She’d slowly braise them on the stove for at least an hour and then placed the shanks onto raw rice and ladled the remaining liquid on top and baked them covered in the oven. When you could smell the rice, it was done but it still needed to rest for 15 more long minutes.

Our mother used ‘Greek rice.’ Lord only knows what that was. My guess is that it was long grain Basmati rice from India. No one ate much rice in Maine in those days. Our mother and my sister and I went on food shopping trips once a month to Boston. She’d order up a taxi from the doorman at the Parker House Hotel to take us to the less-safe area of Boston and have the taxi wait while we filled our shopping cart with small brown bags of ‘Greek rice’, tins of finely ground Arabic coffee for our father, pounds of feta cut from a wooden barrel, big plastic bags of Kalamata and Alfonzo olives, whole milk yogurt with a creamy top, a few long boxes of phyllo dough, dried oregano and large non-boxed heads of garlic, a tin of Greek olive oil, tiny capers and still warm spinach pies.

Working my way through college as a waiter in the Catskill Mountains I learned that the best Jewish cooks were Chinese. A chef who can make a swell wonton has no problem with kreplach.  Chicken soup? Roast duck? Pepper steak?  Stuffed cabbage? Delicious.  The guests always wanted to know what the secret ingredient was. Why was this brisket so good? Even better than Grandma’s. Why? It was easy. MSG.

There are moments during the holiday season where recipes are true soul food.  Instead of feeling  sadness about the ones we have lost and are no longer seated at the table sharing the day with us, we can feel happiness by knowing how loved we were by recreating their favorite recipes that they would make for us.

This Russian Caviar Pie is a secret Medavoy recipe that is only made for Easter, Thanksgiving, Birthdays and Christmas. The caviar that tops it can run the range from red salmon caviar to Beluga.  Osetra has the best taste but even the black unknown variety for ten bucks has done in a pinch.  

My mother, terminal with liposarcoma, feeding tube in her, unable to eat, still made her traditional Russian Easter for us one month before she passed away. The Caviar Pie was the center of it.  You slice it, you serve it with a shot of vodka or champagne and life is good.  It was her way of saying "I love you" - nothing will change if you keep these traditions up.  Remember me.  I will be watching over you and your son and husband.

"Everything that matters is under this roof right now"  I had just become a mother, my son was two months old, and she was teaching me what was important.  God, How i miss her.  And when I slice up the pie, I can see her, feel her, and have  so much joy that she is still at our table. And as I am sure she knew, it's my son's favorite recipe at holiday time.

Wednesday was a special day in my house when I was a child. My father was a pharmacist, my mother stayed home to take care of us. To help make ends meet, he worked a second job on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons at a local drug store in addition to his usual 9-5 gig at the local hospital. Thirty years ago being a pharmacist didn’t bring in the big bucks it does today and with four kids, he had his hands full. He was never home until long after dinner on Wednesdays and we were always excited for his return, partly because he brought with him our weekly chocolate treat – plain M&Ms.

This was in the days when they came in only five colors: Dark Brown, Tan, Orange, Yellow and Green. Red was one of the original colors, but had been outlawed in 1976 (due to a toxic dye scare) and wouldn’t return until 1987, quickly followed by every other color under the rainbow. 

Candy was rare in our household and we were thrilled to get it. My Dad only ever bought two bags, so my siblings and I were required to share, but that never diminished the joy. My younger sister and I would each grab a plastic blue teacup, pour the candy onto the countertop and divide them exactly in half, by color.  Then we would scoop the luscious morsels into our cups and retreat to opposite corners of the living room to savor them in happy silence.