Remembering Grandma

The last time I saw Grandma Shirley was 20 years ago. I was a teenager when she passed away--old enough to remember how her fine silver hair framed her elegant features, the bright pink smile she painted on with a tube of lipstick after meals, and how she called me Darling, but too young to have nothing more than fragmented memories of our time together.

The family cookbook that Ryan and I received as a wedding gift has helped to piece some of those memories back together. Ryan and I often find ourselves paging through it to look more at the pictures than the recipes. We start to reminisce about the relatives whom the other has never met, and never will, and before long, some forgotten memory comes out that hasn't been thought of in years.

One thing I recalled about Grandma Shirley, for example, was her glamour. You can tell by the pictures in the book: Grandma in front of the Eiffel Tower, Grandma in red-sequined evening wear, oh, and there's Grandma sitting in between her totally unstylish granddaughters (that's Angie in her band-aid-mending-broken-heart sweatshirt, which I'm sorry to say became a hand-me-down, and me in some snazzy unicorn overalls and wearing barrettes with ribbons cascading in my hair).

I've also thought more about her in the context of food. Frankly, there are no recipes from Grandma Shirley in the book, which makes sense because I remember more about the catered parties she threw than meals she cooked.

I should say here that my mom has told me that Grandma Shirley was a great cook, and I even saw evidence of this when I found her dog-eared copy of The Settlement Cookbook, a popular collection of recipes for Jewish immigrants, last year as we cleaned out their apartment after my grandpa passed away.

In fact, I remember one tasty snack that she made in her white-tiled sun-filled kitchen, hamburger sliders. She'd pop two of them in the toaster oven at a time as I waited, so antsy for the toaster to ding that as soon as it did, I opened the oven door and with a squirt of ketchup on top, shoveled the salty open-faced patties in my mouth, ready for two more.

While I am so lucky to have my other grandma still with me, the ageless Grandma Pearl, Ryan only has his memories to go on. When we had a crazy blizzard this winter (yes, THE blizzard in Chicago that gave me an excused absence from work and created absolute chaos on Lake Shore Drive), he wanted to make a favorite recipe from his childhood. A recipe from his Grandma Inez, who lived in rural Michigan and, rather unconventionally, owned a bar in town but still had time to bake.

As the wind howled and the thundersnow thundered, Ryan and I hunkered down in the kitchen and channeled Grandma Inez and her cookies (prefaced in the cookbook as "a sure fire way to melt Ryan's heart").

Heretofore known as Grandma Cookies, these pillowy, chewy mounds of oatmeal raisin were there at the beginning of Ryan's visits to her home, and gone by the time he left. And when Grandma Inez visited Ryan's family, Grandma Cookies came with her, only to disappear (usually in Ryan's belly), by the time she went home.

We made about 5 dozen cookies that night and probably ate close to three quarters of them, only saving the remaining ones to fortify ourselves for some serious shoveling the next day. And while we had to tinker with the recipe a bit, mainly to keep them in the oven much longer than the recipe called for, I saw a deeply satisfied look on Ryan's face.

But after we had eaten probably half the batch, he suddenly grew quiet and said something heartbreaking. He said that with every cookie he ate, the taste of his grandma's cookies faded more and more.

That is a risk we take when we make the recipes of those who are no longer with us. Can they ever truly taste the same as they did at Grandma's? I don't think so. I know that I could never recreate those hamburger sliders. I don't even remember exactly what they tasted like, just that they were so good and only Grandma could make them that way.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to make our family recipes because they couldn't possibly taste the same. Just the opposite in fact. If the trade off is that making an old family recipe helps us to remember those who are no longer with us, I'm willing to take that risk.

Grandma Cookies

2 cups raisins

2 cups sugar

1 cup shortening

4 eggs

4 cups oatmeal

4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup water

Put the raisins in a pan and cover with one cup of boiling water (or slightly more). Let raisins sit in the water until the remaining ingredients are ready. Separately, cream together the sugar and the shortening. Then add in the eggs, oatmeal, flour, baking soda, salt, and vanilla. Stir together and then add the raisins and water. Drop a tablespoon of the batter on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 until the cookies are lightly brown and almost firm when pressed in the center (about 6-9 minutes; then rotate the sheet for another 6-9 minutes for even browning).

Makes 5 dozen and a happy husband!

The Way to a Man's Heart

There were many upsides to delaying our honeymoon to Belize until the week between Christmas and New Years. For one, and this was big, my office was closed so I only had to take two vacation days for a 12-day trip. And while I don't much mind the snow and cold weather, it was nice to head south for a bit before the long Chicago winter settled into our bones.

But the best part was simply having the energy to enjoy the trip. If we had gone right after the wedding, I would have been too exhausted to do anything, and we like to be active when we travel.

For instance, one of my favorite things to do in Belize was to sip coffee and eat a soul-satisfying breakfast of fresh papaya and granola with yogurt and gaze at the toucans, like the one pictured above, flying by as the sun rose gently above the mountains. It was tiring, I tell you.

We also drank many Belikin beers. Lifting a Belikin is hard work. The glass bottles are about twice as heavy as American beer bottles, so we had to give ourselves a break sometimes by ordering margaritas. And napping on hammocks. Sometimes we did both at once.

But while we made sure to relax, there was too much to experience in Belize to sit around for long. Aside from bird watching (which really does take a surprising amount of mental energy) and Belikin lifting, we snorkeled in the world's second largest barrier reef, canoed past orange iguanas, hiked in a jaguar preserve, learned how to spot wildlife in the dark, biked the rocky dirt road through a Garifuna village, and explored Mayan ruins on foot and in caves.

We also received the warm hospitality and kindness of the Belizean people. Seriously, we met this one man at a bus stop who gave us his phone number and email address and told us to contact him if we needed anything.

Those were all the upsides. The downside, though, was that we missed Christmas with Ryan's family, and their annual gift exchange and dinner. Although I don't celebrate the holiday, we participate in each other's traditions. So it was a big deal to miss Christmas, and we had to make up for it.

After the trip, we hosted Christmas dinner at our place for Ryan's parents and his aunt and uncle. The occasion presented a nice opportunity to mix our traditions. We made brisket, a recipe that shows up at many a Jewish holiday meal, and used my sister's mother-in-law's recipe from the family cookbook that we received as a wedding gift.

My ancestors, who came from Eastern Europe in the late 1800s, probably served brisket at their own special occasions. When winter came, around the time of Hanukkah, families often slaughtered their cows rather than bear the cost of feeding them until spring. The brisket, which comes from the lower chest of a cow, was also a cheaper cut of meat.

This is all according to The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food by Gil Marks, which inspired me to dig up my Grandma Shirley's well worn copy of The Settlement Cook Book that I found on the shelves of my grandfather's kitchen after he passed away last year. The book was first published in 1901 with recipes for Jewish immigrants who settled in the United States. I laughed out loud when I saw the cover which, in a sign of the times, proclaims that these recipes are "The Way to a Man's Heart."

The book includes three different brisket recipes with beans, cabbage, and sauerkraut, which advise: "Place [brisket] in large kettle of cold water" and "Boil until tender." This made more sense when my Grandma Pearl reminded me, "Oh honey, we didn't have ovens back then." The broth might have some brown sugar, molasses, or mustard added to it for sweetness, or vinegar for some sour flavor.

The use of ovens ushered in a new era for brisket, which could now be slow cooked for hours in a sauce to tenderize the tough connective tissue in this cut of meat. Old World flavors were replaced by an Americanized sauce of "foods" like ketchup, chile sauce, and onion soup mix.

I know, it sounds disgusting. But it's not. The brisket was well received by Ryan's family, and by then we were calling it a chrisket (a Christmas brisket), and defining a new tradition of our own.

As for whether brisket is the way to a man's heart, stayed tuned for the next recipe we made out of the family cookbook, which is for sure the way to MY man's heart.

Happy Valentines Day, all.

Grandma Joanie's Brisket

1 brisket

1 cup orange juice

1 cup ketchup

1 cup applesauce

1 packet onion soup mix

Stir oj, ketchup, applesauce, and onion soup mix together and pour over brisket. Add chopped potatoes, carrots, onions--any root vegetable will work. Cover with foil. Bake at 350 for at least 4 hours. Cool, remove remaining fat, and slice against the grain.

We made the brisket the night before and refrigerated until about two hours before serving, when we sliced it (against the grain--this is critical!) and heated it up in the oven at about 200. An hour would have been enough time to heat up our brisket; it was a tad dried out but still had plenty of flavor.

Mais oui! Blogging the Family Cookbook

The summer before my senior year in high school, I had the privilege of living with a French family for three weeks. It was a wonderful experience, and I learned so much that I was dreaming en Francais by time we said our goodbyes. Their home was in Saint Andre des Eaux, a quaint rural town outside Saint Nazaire, a west coast city with a harbor that opened up to the Atlantic Ocean.

The town was straight from my French book, complete with une boulangerie, un boucherie, and other assorted speciality shops. Every night after dinner, I would take advantage of the late sunset and walk a mile along cow pasture-lined country roads with Indigo Girls "Closer to Fine" blasting through the headphones of my Sony walkman (RIP, Sony walkman!) to La Briere, a giant marsh with interconnecting narrow waterways that people would paddle around by boat to look at the native flora and fauna.

I hit it off with my French sister, and my French parents couldn't have been nicer. Dad often wanted to practice his English while Mom didn't speak a word of it. But I considered myself incredibly lucky because every night she would ask me what I wanted for dinner in contrast to some of my American friends, who regaled me with horror stories of the meals that they were forced to eat.

I ate chicken. Every. Single. Night. Of course now I kick myself for blowing such a unique opportunity to try authentic French cooking and learn more about local food. But I was still a very picky eater at the time and clearly did not try to break out of my comfort zone.

There was one recipe that she made that I couldn't get enough of--potage. This thick vegetable soup included pureed potatoes, carrots, onions, leeks, and some other flavorful ingredients that for the life of me, I was never able to replicate. Although I left France with her handwritten recipe tucked in my bag, and my (real) mom and I tried to make it many times, potage never, ever tasted the same again. As the years passed, the ink on that paper literally faded away, and no record exists any more of that recipe.

My mom reminded me of potage the other night when I asked her why she included "Mom's Potato, Fennel, and Leek Soup" in the family recipe book that my sister compiled as a gift for my wedding. Mom had a string of reasons ... that it was getting on to winter and she wanted to include a soup ... that she decided to submit a recipe for every course ... that she had just clipped this recipe from the newspaper ... and then as an afterthought, that it reminded her of potage.

Potage!

While I hadn't thought about potage in years and our disappointing failure in trying to recreate the recipe, I do love to make soup now. In fact our most used wedding gift so far is a 12-quart soup pot, which is great to use (but a giant PITA to clean).

So it works that I had unwittingly chosen this as the first recipe to make from the family cookbook when I decided to blog my way through it. While this recipe is no potage, it's easy to make and turns out a nice hearty soup on a cold winter's night.

Mom's Potato, Fennel and Leek Soup

2 leeks, light green and white parts only, thinly sliced

2 T unsalted butter

1 T olive oil

1 carrot, peeled and chopped

1/2 bulb fresh fennel, trimmed and chopped (about 3/4 cup)

3 baking potatoes, about 1 1/2 pounds, peeled and cut into chunks

1/2 t dried thyme

2 T chopped parsley

1 bay leaf

4 1/2 cups chicken broth

salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

In a soup kettle, cook the leeks slowly in the butter and oil for 5 minutes. Add the carrot and fennel; cook 5 more minutes. Stir in the potato chunks, thyme, parsley and bay leaf. Add the broth, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 25-30 minutes, or until the potatoes are completely tender. Discard the bay leaf. Crush about a third of the veggies with a potato masher (we skipped this step and opted for chunky veggies). Season with salt and pepper. Serve piping hot.

Serves 5

Special Gifts

It's a funny thing, but Ryan and I struggled to put together a gift registry for our wedding. We felt torn between "we're older and we already have everything we need" to "well, we could replace a few things" to "let's go a little non-traditional and get some fun stuff."

We also had different ideas of what we wanted, and there was some discomfort with registering at one of those places, you know the ones, that have simplified the gift giving process to credit card information and a single click.

Where is the humanity in that?

We ended up for the most part with a list that reflected both of our tastes and desires -- a somewhat eclectic but meaningful set of items that ranged from essential and quirky kitchenwares to our favorite Illinois wine to a respected charity to the most random thing Ryan has ever found online (and that's saying a lot) -- but we still didn't quite provide enough items for our guests to buy for us. We also listed some gifts on a site that is not one-click-and-you're-done, but may require a little more legwork depending on what it is.

This led to some phone calls, "There isn't much left on your registry, what should I tell so-and-so to get you" and "Maybe you should put more on there."

Cue even more angst and guilt about planning this wedding.

The push-pull of planning a wedding that doesn't entirely conform to the traditional American wedding (or the Wedding Industrial Complex (WIC) as one of the few sane wedding bloggers out there calls it) was one of the biggest challenges for me.

There is, on one hand, a strong desire for the wedding to reflect us. After all, "it's all about you" and "it's your day" is drummed into every bride's head from the second she gets engaged if not earlier. But if you don't do things "the way it's supposed to be done", then you've got some 'splaining to do!

I understand the idea that wedding gifts are supposed to help a bride and groom create a home, that our invited guests love us and want to give us gifts that we want, and that we risk getting the dreaded "off list" items that we don't want. I also realize how ungrateful I probably sound right now. I mean, who complains about getting presents? Especially when people want to give them to you. But I wanted to feel authentic about our gifts, about every aspect of our wedding, and the act of registering ran somewhat counter to that.

But when the months of preparations finally culminated into the wedding weekend, I got the gifts I was looking for -- to have our family and friends with us to witness our marriage and, in many cases, to meet each other, making the world around us become that much more tightly woven and interconnected.

Our wedding was full of so many special gifts, some intangible, others creative, personal, and surprising. These were some of my favorites.

-- Serving chilled instead of hot apple cider before our outdoor ceremony because of the 80 degree weather. In early October, it was warm enough for our guests to be comfortable in the outdoor spaces at our venue, which positively gleamed with autumn colors.

-- The gentle breeze that lifted up the top of our huppah. This had stymied us the night before, when we were up until 1:30am figuring out how to attach the tulle covering to our handmade wooden kayak paddles without the material dipping low in the middle.

-- If we could get frequent flier miles for the distance that many friends and family flew to witness us exchange vows in person, we could have flown anywhere for free.

-- Watching the seating chart come to life. My sister and I joked about how I wanted to sit in the corner, as far away from the center of attention as possible. But I really wanted to watch the room during dinner, to see our guests get to know each other over a delicious meal inspired by the fall harvest (and damn, it was good!).

-- Seeing the line for pie snake around the entire room with hardly any leftovers at the end of the night.

-- Leaving with empty centerpieces, which had been filled with hundreds of apples picked by me, my mom, my sister, and my mother-in-law earlier in the week. We had provided bags for each guest to take some home.

-- Receiving a trove of recipes from family and friends, bound into a hardcover book with photos that sparked memories of hilarious moments, family outings, and long-gone-but-not-forgotten loved ones (thanks to my crafty and persistent sister). This book is the perfect way to illustrate two families joining together, now connected through Ryan and me.

Since this is a blog that focuses on food and home cooking, we are going to blog our way through that book. What better way to get to know each other's worlds than through recipes and the stories behind them.

That is priceless.