Food, Family, and Memory

Sappy Memories

Perhaps it's my New England roots, but many of my favorite recipes, both savory and sweet, include maple syrup as a key ingredient. Of course, I always have it on hand to adorn things like my Crispy French Toast, Banana Pancakes, and Fluffy Buttermilk Waffles or to drizzle over my steel cut oatmeal, but I keep a major reserve to use as a "secret ingredient" in many of my other recipes. And this is the time of year that I begin to replenish my personal supply of 100% pure maple syrup.

There is no sweeter harbinger of spring than the sugary sap that flows from maple trees around the middle of March in Northern New England. In late winter and early spring, the roots of the maple trees are loaded with a clear, sweet liquid and it is the ideal combination of freezing nights and warm days that induces sap flow. The change in temperature from above to below freezing causes water uptake from the soil, and temperatures above freezing cause a stem pressure to develop, which allows the sap to flow out of tap holes made in the tree trunks. We had several maple trees at our house, and my brother and I, after a few hours of playing in the snow, would rejuvenate ourselves by sneaking handfuls of the sugary water-like sap from the gray lidded tin buckets that my Dad put out each year to collect the sap.

It was not uncommon to take a "Sunday drive" with my parents and head off to one of the many local "sugar houses" to watch the actual maple syrup production. You could spot them in the distance with the plumes of steam and smoke and, as you got closer, you could actually begin to smell the maple aroma in the air.

Beach Memories

I keep connecting with an early childhood memory about summer days at the beach.

To get to the beach we'd drive a long time in our hot car and coming home, I was always sunburned, with gritty sand in my swimsuit. The travel part wasn't what I liked, but the picnic lunch my mom packed sure was. Fried chicken, potato salad, biscuits with butter and honey, watermelon slices, and egg salad.

My dad rarely came with us so usually my mom had a friend along for company while my sister and I splashed in the water, determined to annoy one another as much as possible. After awhile we'd get tired.

Then it was time to eat. We'd load up paper plates and settle down on the sand watching the older kids body surf. We didn't talk much but we'd share the moment enjoying our mom's food.

Le Bowling, Steak Frites et Vin in St. Jean

drivingSpain First off, I need to explain going bowling in France was never on my wish list, top or bottom.

My sister and I were invited to a friend’s home in a tiny mountainous town in the Southwest of France. We planned to land in Barcelona to have a little road trip and go exploring before our visit. We planned on two days meandering from Barcelona to St Jean, France. We also wanted to stop in Arenys de Mar, a little town in Spain on the ocean. It’s famous for Paella and we had spent an entire summer there eating it many years ago.

Our flight arrived early. We rent a car and a GPS and we were off! The GPS assured us we would arrive in time for lunch in Arenys de Mar. The weather was sunny and beautiful as our little car clicked off the kilometers. The signs for Arenys de Mar appeared and we both smiled. 30 kilometers…15…and finally 2. Then the unthinkable happened. We hit a bump-a big bump just as my sister was changing the setting on the GPS. It went into Romanian, I think, and there was no getting it back into English. A melt down ensued - how would we ever find our friend’s house in the mountains, hours from here? Suddenly, we were no longer mellow and carefree or hungry for our paella lunch in a town we had so many precious memories of.

I assured my sister somebody will help us - be patient. As we descended into Arenys de Mar the GPS was chattering in a language all it’s own. I noticed a Renault car dealership so I pulled in on two wheels stopping feet from the mechanic’s knees. Let’s just say, he was surprised to see us.

The Melomakarona My Mother Used to Make

As my daughters will attest, I am not a cook.

Indeed, the only thing I have ever cooked is brown rice and boiled eggs (you notice I said boiled and not scrambled or poached or anything remotely requiring any cooking skills) so it was a testament to my attempts to be fearless, that the first time I cooked anything more complicated than brown rice or a boiled egg, was on national television on Martha Stewart’s show...

Gadaymee

It took me half my life to realize that when Guadalupe Contreras says “Gadaymee”, she means to say, “Goddamn it”. I thought for years that she had been referring to my sister, whose name is Amy, with a level of stifled frustration that I found hard to account for. I told a Spanish-speaking friend about this misunderstanding a while back, and he in turn informed me that my Spanish pronunciation of “I’m scared” (tengo miedo) sounds a lot like “I have shit” (tengo mierda). I relayed this conversation to Lupe. She claimed to disagree.

There are some things whose very greatness lies in the fact that they can’t be translated, or imitated at all, without some diminishment of their essence. This is often the case with poetry in translation, but I believe the phenomenon extends to other things, like bed-head, or fans of the Boston Red Sox. We read translations anyway, of course, secure that what we find in them will still be more than enough, that the meaning of a word, a palabra, can transcend language. Recipes can be like this for those who collect them, more than a list of ingredients, or a formula for the cook. Cooking from a recipe, or merely writing it down, is itself an act of translation, and so the closer that recipe comes to the source, the better. I feel this way about Albondigas soup, which is why my sister and I decided to take a lesson in preparing it from the true master, a woman who takes her own sources seriously, kneading raw beef like bread dough, and starting her meat stock with a pile of scary, dull white bones: Guadalupe Contreras.

Food, Family and Memory