OUR MOTHER DIDN’T cook. To be more specific, our mother was something of a spectacle in the kitchen, cooking a few things, always as dramatically a possible. The simple stuff eluded her: a chop, a steak, a baked potato. Instead, we got such offerings as Beef Wellington and once, memorably, reindeer meatballs.
And so I have no collection of her recipes. Instead I’ve collected the recipe boxes of women I have loved who have gone on to what I hope is the great big (clean) kitchen in the sky. Unique bequests, these files reveal a culinary laying on of hands that reaches back generations, though reading through their stained index cards, I not only see who fed what to whom, and which of these dishes I’ve delivered to my own family’s table, but also what I’d like to pass along. There is no word in English for the uniquely delightful emotion cooked up by plucking a recipe from my preacher-wife-mother-in-law’s modest South Dakota kitchen and digitally hotpadding it (with a tweak and a cinch) to another person’s table. Keeping this food on our tables is a form of tribute.
While most of my contemporaries-in-the-kitchen relay their recipes online, some few continue to write out their recipes by hand and deliver them to me on the proverbial index card. Any way is fine by me, as long as we keep the food coming and—for me, at least—that I have the provisions in the house, or at least don’t have to travel by tramp steamer to get them. Despite that second proviso, I do read the recipes of The New York Times religiously, and am delighted to be on the receiving end of pretty much any kitchen utensil, (at which moment my husband will invariably quip, “How is it that you do not already own that?”).
My most recent kitchen update is a slow cooker. My sister, Margaret, gave it to me, and while it is mostly used for cooking for the dog, at odd moments it is available for the rest of us. And it was during one of these that I adapted a recipe passed along to me by a woman I love, converted for the slow cooker, using only what I already had on hand. I call it Busy Sisters Curry Lentil Soup. It’s adapted to the Crock-Pot from a recipe in the 1975 cookbook Vegeterian Feast by Martha Rose Schulman.
Busy Sisters’ Curry Lentil Soup (for 4-quart slow cooker)
4 Tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, chopped
4 garlic cloves minced or put through press
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoons turmeric
4 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
4 cups dried lentils, rinsed
2 teaspoons salt, preferably sea salt
3 quarts water, vegetable stock or chicken stock or some combo of those
In frying pan, sautee onions, garlic and spices until onions are tender
Transfer to slow cooker
Add lentils and water
Put on high for one hour, then lower to simmer for however many hours you have
Remove half the lentils and blenderize
Return to soup
9-10 large servings
Myrna says
My son’s girlfriend lives with us and I just made a recipe box for her birthday. We have made it our goal to keep recipe’s written on index cards alive. We also include the name and date the recipe was exchanged. She has gone on to write(snail mail) her Grannny, Mom, and Aunts asking for a few of their own recipe’s. Each of her letters include index cards. She has since received about 7 or 8 recipe’s. It has been a lovely way to build our relationship and to blend our family histories. Handwriting is also an interesting piece of the pie!
Lynne Wighton says
LOL. Index cards be damned. Cooking and I have a running battle. My mom never let me in the kitchen. Apparently I made too much of a mess. Her philosophy is if you can read you can cook. and when is it done? when you can smell it. aaaargh! I learned that a garlic clove is NOT the entire garlic bulb from a long ago roommate. I learned that oREGano is pronounced oreGANo in England (from that same roommate), and that cost me 2 extra miles of walking to the store to buy it. I can read, but I’ll take the friendly person coaching me in the kitchen any day. My mom is an excellent cook. However, deciphering her cooking, like understanding her inner thoughts, remains a mystery for me to slowly unravel as long as we both shall live.
mo says
well, this spoke volumes to me and brought a tear to my eye. mind you, i don’t cook. not that i can’t cook, i simply don’t cook. i collect cookbooks with the thought in mind that magically, while i sleep, the ability to cook will arise from the cookbooks and transport itself into my mind, so that one day i’ll wake up and be a cook. ha!
a number of years ago, when my mother was moved from independent living to assisted living, my brother and i went through all her things trying to winnow out the “extra” and keep only the necessities which would fit into her smaller space. shortly after that, she became ill and was moved to the hospital wing. so again, we had to clean out even further. but uppermost in my mind from the first move was the fact that i hadn’t found her recipe box. i hadn’t realized it until after the fact, and became almost frantic about finding it. when we flew to florida for the final cleaning out, i looked in the back of her lingerie drawer and there it was! a simple wooden box, filled with much-loved recipes in her handwriting. i collapsed in tears, i was so relieved i had found it. it is now sitting near me, on the bookshelf, as a daily memory of my mother and of all the years we spent in Milwaukee. having it brings me great comfort, and periodically i’ll open that box and go through the recipe cards, my mom’s handwriting filling me with warm memories.
thanks for the memory jolt ;)
Brandi says
My mother did cook, but sadly I do not. My oldest is now 16 and I am hoping it isn’t too late for her :) I’ve been trying to start cooking for the first time in my life, in hopes to pass on recipes (and cooking skills) on to her.
marion says
Hi, Myrna: Oh, how I love this. You are keeping the tradition alive, sister. How great. And she is keeping that laying on of hands alive by asking those women in her life for their input. Really, this is lovely, lovely indeed.
Many thanks for letting us know.
Please come back soon for more.
Lynne: This is simply gorgeous. Look at all the memoir there amid the sentences. Whenever my students argue that they need more space to tell a tale, I’m going to send them to this comment to study. Your last line wraps up life so magnificently. Really a gem. Thanks so much for letting us read this. And do come back soon for more.
Mo, I cried with you. I, too have searched amid the things left behind for the recipe box, and then cradled to my heart the precious find. From where I sit as I write this, I can spy 5 recipe boxes from beloved women who have gone before me. I keep them near me. So glad you do, as well. Sometimes, when my husband is blue, I’ll simply read one of his mother’s wacky recipes to him. Always makes him laugh. Try it. It’s the perfect cure-all. Thanks again, and do come back soon.
Hi, Brandi: Like freckles and red hair, sometimes these things skip a generation Do let us know how that goes for you. We’d love to hear.
lynne wighton says
Thanks Marion, that is very flattering. and I’m sure the oregano line can be cut without losing anything. Wasn’t thinking of this as “memoir” but then again, whenever we write or speak of our past I guess this is the territory we enter, just as our past frames our point of view whether we know it or not. Reading your Realia book musta had more of an effect on me than I thought!
As for those of you who are able to honor the past with handwritten recipies, kudos. Anything that reminds us of warm fuzzies is always a blessing!
Shirley says
If you want to keep that slow cooker serving up human food, you might try Fix It and Forget It, a by-product of one of my culinary traditions, the Mennonite potluck. I have no financial affiliation with these books, but I do know one of the authors:
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=fix+it+and+forget+cookbook&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=5137411829&ref=pd_sl_1chsovbu83_b
marion says
Hi again, Lynne. So glad my little book had an impact. And yes, the warm fuzzies are fine things, indeed.
Hi, Shirley. Oh, those Mennonite potlucks. How fabulous. Thanks for the book tip. I am grateful to have it. Please come back soon.