Food, Family and Memory

This is a story about Beef Stroganoff. But before your mind wanders to sour cream and Russian Tzars, picture the small kitchen in which it was created. Probably 9 by 9, with a rudimentary stove, a wooden counter which doubled as a chopping board, a hatch leading into a dining room, a single sink with a window facing onto the mountain, with the silver birch trees, where the blueberries and wild strawberries grew in the summer. The larder, where on special occasions gravlaks was made (weighed down with wooden boards and round lead sinkers), was reached via a trap door in the wooden floor, the entrance covered by a red and white rag rug.

Because this story takes place a long time ago, when I was just a small child, the details of the preparation of the stroganoff are hazy. In those days such things did not interest me, and although no doubt many conversations were had by the grown-ups in the family about which butcher had the best meat as it was a special occasion -- and just on that day money didn't seem to matter quite as much -- I think I may have been sitting on the roof of the wooden outhouse, picking black morello cherries and stuffing them into my mouth at the time.

I did know that when the meat did arrive -- via my grandfather's dark red Lancia with its sweet-smelling leather seats -- there was a great welcoming party consisting of my grandmother, my mother, my aunt, maybe even my father in his rolled up jeans and a fish bucket, having coincidentally just stepped off the boat after a morning of catching cod and mackerel in the days when cod were as bountiful as the little crabs under the jetty. My grandfather was in his city clothes, his doctor clothes. The dark grey wool trousers, the pale blue shirt, the elaborately polished brown loafers he wore in Oslo. He carried the special stroganoff beef in front of him, laying it on his two hands like a tray, wrapped in white butcher paper and tied with twine. He had a smile on his face.

We had friends to dinner the other night, a nice little party with flowers and wine and Josie upstairs.  These days I like making it nice but not stiff, special without fuss – but just a few years back it was all fuss all the time – to a newly minted chef girl, married girl, grown-up girl, hosting meant acrobatic recipes, exotic combinations, an absurdly high drive to please.

Our first true guests were from my husband’s office, a funny and casual couple who were treated to undercooked, over-garlicked lamb and several under-mixed, over-ginned martinis.  The evening would feature a clogged sink, dishwater buckets, our crotch-poking Dalmatian and one seriously wailing fire alarm.  The last thing they saw was Greg broom-whacking the smoke detector and me at the sink, right hand down the drain and left hand in the air.  Bye, great having you! Everyone meets these horrors, but why?  When you turn 25 they should hand you a pamphlet called Hosting! Relax and Don’t Try Anything New. Let’s face it, the clues were there – the oven temp was off, I’d never mixed martinis, I tied that lamb loose as a blind butcher.  I could have seared steaks or made cheese fondue or even flipped omelets.  I could have used a standby.

A lot of people say they don’t do standbys, they prefer something new, something dazzling, an unknown mushroom or an expensive hunk of cheese.  Okay, dazzlers:  I don’t care if you’re Julia Child, there are people coming at seven.  That mushroom could taste like dung and the cheese might hit the floor, so do what you know.  Do what you do well, be comfortable and your guests will be comfortable, do a standby.

Peter John is my favorite cousin. He has a knack for saying, in a hilarious manner, what everyone else is thinking. At a family dinner he once joked that in the event of World War III, after the nuclear fall out, he would somehow manage to make it to my dad’s house, because it would be the only place left in Rhode Island that wouldn't run out of food.

It's true. My dad has a large basement whose food contents could rival that of any Super Stop n’ Shop or Costco. I am not sure if this is an Italian thing, or a 1950's bomb shelter thing, or because he grew up in a large family where money was not plentiful but manual labor was. I could write several posts about his canning tomatoes, pickling peppers, and stuffing sausages his whole life. I suspect there is a part of him hard-wired to always have ample amounts of food stored. Trust me, he does.

Okay, I admit that I have read Patricia Wells' Food Lover’s Guide to France so many times that the pages are no longer glued to its spine. My copy smells old because it is old. It isn’t all that accurate anymore but there is still some relevant information, just less. This book is the reason I have had so many treasured memories of France.

The most memorable one in the whole book for me was finding the walnut oil man - Patricia Wells wrote that he had a water wheel that aided in the extraction, used no electricity, the farm was difficult to find and beware of the dogs. All true, but so much more...

I was the navigator, not the driver that day. I was responsible for finding all the tiny little roads on our paper map to the mill. Half the roads weren’t on the map and any signage was obscured by overgrown trees. It was very rural and our afternoon was turning into either a treasure hunt or wild goose chase. I could feel we were near. When my boyfriend asked if I found the road on the map, I nodded. Not true, we were lost.

You can guess what the driver said as we drove threw the same intersection for the fourth time. “How can we be lost if you are reading the map? You know how to read a map?” “Yayyyy”, I replied - you could cut the tension with a butter knife. One more try, then I would agree to give up the goose chase. Suddenly, I saw it - the faded yellow sign covered with ivy and grown up trees like Patricia had described, only more overgrown.