Grandma's Cooking Secret

As a self-appointed foodie, I often watch Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives for cooking inspiration. Guy Fieri’s success at seeking out eateries with reputations for amazing fare motivates me to look for excellent dining on road trips.  Because of my research, I have a list of favorite restaurants. However, none of these culinary institutions matches the quality or flavor of my all-time preferred place to eat, Grandma Lottie’s kitchen.

I suspect every one of my readers has a family member who manufactures unforgettable meals out of a bit of nothing. That person in our family was an apron-clad Mrs. Santa look-alike who could turn the simplest ingredients into  feasts for kings.  I can’t think of anyone whose salivary glands didn’t kick in overdrive just thinking about a meal at Lottie’s table.

She’s been gone for more than a decade, so I’ve had time to consider what made her food so memorable. Her ingredients were common staples: eggs, flour, butter, dried beans, inexpensive cuts of beef, chicken, ham hocks, milk or cream, and sugar.  She would have been uncomfortable in a big city deli-grocery with aisles displaying fish, adobo, or wasabi sauces.  A trip past a meat department show-casing octopus, squid, or raw sushi ingredients would have left her shuddering.

After seeing a Face Book post requesting Grandma’s hot roll recipe, I think I’ve identified what made her cooking noteworthy.  She made everything from scratch.  She cracked the eggs and added the flour that turned into noodles and dumplings she added to her chicken or beef broth. Her combination of meat, broth, and noodles ladled over a heaping mound of hand-peeled, hand-mashed potatoes was the true ambrosia of the gods. She created everything filling the huge bowls setting in the middle of her table.  Nothing came from a jar, can, sack, or box.

I recall standing beside her  as she kneaded her famous bread dough that turned into airy dinner rolls, comforting bread slices that were palettes for homemade jellies, or legendary cinnamon rolls.  I’d ask for her recipe, and she’d say, “Oh, I use a little of this and a bit of that and mix it til it sounds like I’m patting a baby’s bottom.” 

It took me 1000s of mistakes before I understood I didn’t have to use exact measurements when cooking.  I, too, could mix a little of this and a lot of that to create breads, noodles, dumplings, and pies that reminded me of Grandma’s.  All that practice was an opportunity to feel like a girl again, watching Lottie transform Gold Medal flour and eggs into golden strips of rich dough or whisking eggs, milk, sugar, and cocoa together to turn an empty pie crust into a chocolate meringue wonder. 

Grandma couldn’t afford fancy ingredients or kitchen gadgets.  She made do with inexpensive recipe components and trusted that her sense of taste and touch would turn those into something special to feed family and friends.  Those of us lucky enough to sit at her table will confirm she succeeded time after time at proving she was a wizard in the kitchen.

The lesson for those who knew her was that it isn’t sophisticated ingredients that make a meal tasty. It’s time spent making dishes by hand that creates family legends.  Every moment I stir, roll, cut, and otherwise produce meals connects me to a woman who blessed so many with her gift of turning the common into the uncommon. The pay-off for preparing homemade food is life-long memories.

No Place for Sissies

We once invited a French exchange student to share our lives for six weeks one summer. Her first question after she deposited her luggage in the bedroom was, “Do you have tornadoes here?”

I paused a moment and answered thoughtfully, “Not many, and we always have plenty of warning.”  I reminded her she was very brave to fly from Paris through several U.S. airports.  If she could do that by herself, she shouldn’t worry about Kansas twisters.

The next day we walked around the section surrounding our house to introduce her to our country neighborhood.  She promptly spotted orange construction fencing around a pile of rubble in the east pasture.  That triggered a heavily accented, “What happened there?

“Oh, a tornado blew through last spring and took out our well house.  That’s all that remains,” I responded. “Look at that cottonwood lying  in the field.  It used to be right here by the road.”

Her brown eyes drilled into my green peepers as she demanded, “Did you know it was coming?”

We stopped walking while I considered her question.  “What? The tornado? Well . . . not really.  The weatherman missed on that one.”  It was a good thing Tucker, a golden retriever/greyhound cross walking beside us , couldn’t report.  He’d been caught in the storm, and when we found him afterward, his long yellow fur was entangled with leaves and grass.  We never knew exactly where he was when the winds hit.  What we did know was that he didn’t want to be outside in storms after that.

“But . . . I thought you said you had plenty of warning.” Imagine her strong French accent mixed with agitation as she confronted me.

I thought that was the end of our storm talks until we were driving down Old Forty toward Hays one morning.  Alexandra immediately zeroed in on the twisted windmill on the south side of the road and the ¼ mile of mutilated tree row on the north side of the highway. “So what happened there?”

“Oh that. That was a tornado a few years back.  It’s been a while.  Nothing to worry about.”

I’m pretty sure I heard something rude mumbled in a foreign language, but I ignored it and reminded her we don’t have many tornadoes around here. 

Another day during her visit, we headed toward Ogallah on Old Forty.  I’ve driven that road a thousand times and never thought about the farmstead surrounded by torn and damaged elms.  Our exchange student didn’t miss a beat before turning to me and asking in her quaint manner, “Another tornado that doesn’t happen very often around here?”   

“Right,” I smiled tightly,” realizing I didn’t want to drive her home on the Interstate that passed a farm twice damaged by tornadoes over the last decade.  I also didn’t want to take her south of Ellis where she could view the foundation of a farmstead where a tornado sucked the house off while a family sheltered in the basement.

Our exchange student flew back to France without experiencing a single weather front that forced us to cower and pray in the basement.  Looking back, I’m certain she experienced  nothing more  disconcerting than a few hot July days; however, she made me reconsider life on the western Kansas prairie.  It’s not a place for sissies.

Freezing Up a Memory

A friend’s Facebook post of her daughters holding a big bowl of fresh snow and smiling expectantly reminded me wintry weather isn’t only about driving carefully, shoveling drives, and making snowmen.  It’s also about adding milk, sugar, and vanilla to jillions of miniscule crystals to create something that glides across taste buds and slides into memory.

Who forgets the first time their mom or dad  watched huge flakes fall, saying, “Hope there will be enough to make snow ice cream.”   If deep drifts formed, that parent headed to the cupboard containing  mixing bowls and extracted the big one.  After that, a voice commanded, “Put on your hats, coats, gloves, and boots.  It’s time.”

Once outside, a picky grown-up identified  piles of clean snow and demonstrated how to collect a vessel full of pure goodness to carry into the warm kitchen.  Just gathering scoops of white intensified the shared experience as a result of silly jokes about putting uncontaminated snow in the bowl.  That always triggered laughter in families with pets as they raced their dogs to the deep drifts.

After giggling family members filled their container with heavenly gleanings, they hurried inside, wriggling swiftly out of coats and mittens.  Instead of begging to stand outside with tongues extended to catch still falling flakes, children begged to add ingredients that turned frigid molecules into a magical dessert. 

For each gallon of snow,  the chef poured close to two cups of milk into a little pitcher and stirred in a big tablespoon of vanilla extract.  They placed that on the counter while mixing a cup of sugar into the bowl containing those freshly gathered six-sided crystals.  Soon after, they added the blend a bit at a time while gently swirling a spoon through the concoction. Some families added flavorings such as chocolate or pureed fruit during this part of the procedure.  When the recipe reached a satisfactory consistency, they quit pouring and set the jug back on the counter.

By then, noses and fingers had warmed considerably.  Vanilla or other scents teased their way upward until it was time to dip servings into individual dishes and dig into this soon-to-be-a-memory delight.  When the clink of spoons hitting bottom changed to silence, the sensation of that cold, sweetness reminded everyone of eating cotton candy.  It was on the tongue one moment, and the next it vanished, leaving behind only a pleasant reminder.

Part of snow ice cream’s appeal is its total randomness.  Folks can’t predict when there will be enough snow until it has fallen.  Then they have to be in the right place at the right time with the right people and right ingredients to create a delicacy that prompts little ones to sing, “Yummy, yummy, yummy.”

 It isn’t just icy flavors cruising over hyped-up taste buds that produce this memorable experience.  It’s the combination of perfect snowfall, family time, frosty noses, added to insanely short-lived sugary impressions that turn this delectable goody into a lifelong reminiscence.  Test the power of this recollection by asking older relatives about their first batch of snow ice cream and watch their faces light up.

Janus Says Look Back to Look Forward

Like many folks, my nature is drawn to new beginnings.  That explains my love of sunrises, newborns of any species, and January 1.  It also explains why Janus, the Roman god of new beginnings--with his two faces--one looking back and one forward, appeals to me.  Since I first studied mythology, this odd looking fellow has intrigued me.  As 2012 winds to an end, that promise of a new start is more powerful than usual. Our move to a new home with a big garden spot suggests unlimited summer delights.

I’m not the only person in America who starts planning next summer’s garden the day after Christmas.  Before the lady who delivers my mail recovers from stuffing boxes with Christmas cards and last minute packages, seed companies inundate the postal service with scores of catalogues promising giant pumpkins and award winning tomatoes. Over the next few weeks, USPS employees with aching elbows and thumb joints will distribute millions of documents promising amazing summer harvests.

As much as I enjoy receiving Christmas letters, I love getting garden catalogues even more.  I haven’t checked with my mom, but I bet I now spend more time pouring through Burpee’s colorful ads than I did looking at the Monkey Ward catalogue as a little girl. Imagining what might grow from those bright seed packets is so much more exciting than looking at the picture of a finished product on a glossy page.

 You are probably wondering how ol’ two-mugged Janus plugs into my green thumb musings. Remember, he looks back and forward.  He reminds people like me to face reality when we really like to dwell in the land of hope and what might be.   That is the nature of a gardener after all.

Thinking of this two-faced god reminds me to recall last summer and my hopes for my tomato and pepper plants as I first tucked them into plowed earth. Even before tilling, I’d stashed dozens of mason jars, planning on serious salsa making.   To help the bees and wind fertilize  blossoms, I visited my garden each morning with paint brush in hand.  My efforts worked fine until extreme July temperatures halted production until nighttime temperatures cooled in mid-August. 

That’s the looking back face. Now for the forward looking Janus.  I’m scouring pages to find drought resistant seeds.  Heat Wave II tomatoes promise flavorful orbs even in sizzling temperatures.  Even more promising, black-eyed peas, spineless okra, cantaloupe, pole beans, jalapeño and poblano peppers, Sugar Baby watermelons, eggplant, and New Zealand spinach also thrive during hot, dry conditions.

Even though we have better soil at our new home, we must take additional measures to guarantee a good harvest. One early season action includes adding compost to our garden. This will nourish plants and help retain moisture.  Even if we escape record-breaking temps, adding broken-down plant material will maximize the plot’s potential. More strategies to survive drought conditions include adding a deep mulch layer and using soaker hoses once a week to water deeply. 

With Christmas a recent memory and January’s namesake Janus reminding me to learn something from last summer’s gardening experience,  I’m scoping out every seed catalogue I get my hands on and dreaming about working up a sweat picking baskets of produce.