Food, Family, and Memory

Cuisine Redux

I had just come back from marketing around 10:30 in the morning having gone to the Farmer’s Market for the arugula and Heirlooms, then just across the parking lot to the cheese store for some nicely gritty Gruyere. I had answered my emails and phone calls earlier. Dinner for eight wasn’t until seven. The house was clean. I had a whole day for food—alone.

It was a Friday in Southern California and all the windows and doors were open, even in March. The dog lay on the deck in the sun. I turned on NPR. I put away the glistening shrimp, the sausage, the peppers, the mussels. I was looking for the two paella recipes I often combined to make the best of both when I found my mother’s saved recipes in a blue plastic loose leaf binder. The little notebook was buried on a crowded shelf in my kitchen eclipsed by my own slick hard cover and paperback cookbooks; Bobby Flay, Marcella Hazan, Julia Child, Chez Panisse and a host of others, plus my cobbled together collection of favorites in my own food stained notebook.

Eating Flowers

from-our-garden Alessandra, a neighbor of ours in Umbria, is a wonderful cook.

That’s a redundant statement, as virtually everyone in Umbria cooks well. Wait, let me qualify that — virtually every woman in Umbria is a wonderful cook. Boys were urged by their mothers to do other things — careers and such — whereas the girls fashioned ravioli with their nimble fingers before they learned to walk.

Anyway, Alessandra once served us an appetizer of various flora — zucchini flowers, sage and basil leaves — that were dipped in the lightest, most elegant batter I have ever tasted and then flash fried. They were appetizing indeed. When I pressed her for the batter recipe, she said, “It’s simple to remember — everything is one.”

As I struggled to comprehend this Zen concept, she scribbled the recipe on a napkin, which I still have.

It's a Small World After All

I sing to my grandsons, one via the wonders of video "Skype-ing," and the other up close and very personal. I perform the usual stuff mostly: "The Wheels on the Bus," "Old MacDonald,""Itsey-bitsey Spider", and "The Alphabet Song," with everyone's favorite line: "L-M-N-O-P."

One day, however, I found myself, singing a made-up ditty in Spanish to my Jewish-Mexican-American, two and a half year-old, West Coast grandson with a tune that seemed vaguely familiar but that I could not, at first, place: "Yo tengo hambre ahora, Yo tengo hambre ahora, Yo tengo ha-ambre ahora, Yo tengo hambre, hambre, hambre ahoraaa." That, by the way, translates to: "I'm hungry now" which he usually is.

I searched my brain for the origins of the tune and discovered its source in the long buried confines of my youthful synagogue attending memories. It was the music to: "Heiveinu Sholom Aleichem." "Peace be with you" is how that translates, more or less. This is a nice sentiment that may explain its continued presence in my neuronal liturgical coffers despite my having long ago strayed from the fold.

Burying the Hatchet

kris-alan-and-me-in-70s-or-early-80s-245x300 I cannot trace the exact moment, but somehow we started off on the wrong foot. And like a big wave, our discontent swelled over time, neither of us knowing the origin of it. We had both dug our heels in the sand.

When my sister-in-law, Kris, turned the big 4-0, my brother threw her a party. A really big one. Kris had always been a fan of Rita Coolidge, so naturally, Alan booked Rita for a private concert to honor his wife. He went all out.

As the big day approached, my one-day-to-be-husband urged, “You should really get along with Kris.” I agreed. I thought it was time to bury the hatchet.

So I did.

I went to a hardware store and bought a hatchet. I also purchased a beautiful gift bag that I filled with sand. Actually, cat litter. Where else can you get sand? And I buried that hatchet.

Remembering Zoe Alice

schnecken Whether you like FaceBook or not, it has its' merits. People and relatives are easier to find.

Last week a woman left me a message and a friend request. I hesitated. I had no idea from her picture who this person was and why she was ‘friending’ me. Curious, I opened up her profile. This dark haired, beautiful woman was my second cousin.

After the surprise of finding a new family member, I explored her profile to find out about her, as I hadn’t seen her in 50 years. She still lived in Florida, the last place that I had visited with her and her family but this time she was all grown up.

Brenda is her name, just like mine. Odd that we share the same name and she is older by barely a month. We messaged back and forth that evening and I liked her. Then she announced that she was coming to Maine 3 days later to see the foliage with her husband. I invited them to dinner and to stay at my house. She declined but agreed to visit us at our store. The common thread we shared was my aunt Alice, my mother’s aunt and her grandmother.

I felt compelled to tell her some obscure piece of information so she had no doubt that I was truly the correct Brenda. I don’t know why. I said if she stayed overnight I would make pineapple schnecken, for breakfast just like aunt Alice always made for me. She knew I was ‘the’ Brenda that she was looking for. I knew exactly how to make the schnecken because I had saved the recipe in a special place for 50 years in my heart.

Food, Family and Memory