“Real Recipe
For Friendship“
March 29, 2010
©Donna Pierce

The paper boy in our old neighborhood said she looked like a witch. She was barely five feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds. She had few visitors and rarely ventured outside the house, so she didn’t trouble herself with wearing dentures. When her gray hair grew into wisps that blew into her eyes, she cut it with utility shears.

She spent weekdays simultaneously working crossword puzzles and flipping her TV remote control between talk shows and the home shopping network. Her scowl was divided equally between every adult, child, dog or cat who ventured too closely to the front door.

As I stood on her doorstep holding a foil-wrapped plate, I wondered if ringing her doorbell had been the right decision. When she opened the door, I babbled a few words and offered her the plate. Her icy blue eyes scrutinized me for almost a full minute before she accepted it and quietly closed the door.

The next day my son came in from play with the cleaned plate and a note that read, “It was pleasant dining on fresh beans this time of year.”

That’s how our friendship began — with a dinner that included my husband’s favorite sliced roast beef, mashed potatoes and green beans topped with sauteed mushrooms. Our plate exchange proved to be an ideal arrangement because I loved to cook big meals and had only a husband and son to feed. She didn’t much care for cooking but she had an adventuresome palate.

Soon, she began inviting me into her living room for chats. And as we got to know each other better, I learned of her childhood spent in a St. Joseph orphanage where she and the others were called “the poor orphans” by both teachers and students at the public school and where her happiest memories were of the orphanage cook who always hugged her and offered her almond-flavored butter cookies when she snuck down the back stairs before bedtime.

Once she showed me pictures of herself as a beautiful young woman with chestnut hair and a dazzling smile seated next to a dashing escort — taken at a Kansas City nightclub. And there was a photograph, about which she would later recount a sad story filled with regrets.  It pictured her smiling, surrounded by four, well-dressed children.

BJ prized a scrapbook filled with clippings she kept during the years she had worked as a secretary for a state supreme court justice. I remember her beaming over the collection of snapshots taken during that time showing her dressed in smart business suits accessorized with coordinating high heels and handbags.

Over the course of four years, our conversations covered every imaginable topic. It was as if we had known each other for years. We found ourselves sharing our dreams, fears, hopes and disappointments. Most of all I remember her grave voice saying, “Don’t be afraid to take risks, kid. You don’t want to wind up an old lady with regrets.”

Our talks continued during her illness and during the last four months of her life, which she spent in a nursing home before her death two years ago next week.

I think of her every time I use the black-handled bread knife she was so excited to give me for my birthday — ordered from the Home Shopping Network. I think of her every time I’m nervous about looking foolish or taking a risk.

Most of all, I think of her each I’m tempted to judge a person based on their outside packaging or demeanor. If I had, I might have missed a dear friendship.

As I recall long ago conversations, Margery Williams’ book “The

Velveteen Rabbit” and the answer the Skin Horse gave the toy rabbit when asked how to become real comes to mind.

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Click here for the recipe I adapted based on the almond butter cookies BJ remembered from her childhood in the orphanage.

“The Dish That

Keeps on Giving“

March 22, 2010

©Donna Pierce

Several birthdays ago, I glanced up from my desk, to watch in shocked disbelief as a handwritten recipe slipped out of my printer/copier/fax machine without a cover page. I recognized my maternal grandmother’s elegant penmanship immediately from a few clues, including her habit of highlighting instructions and important tips with graceful exclamation marks.

“Mama Williams” was everyone’s go-to resource for recipes, not just traditional grandmotherly ones. My grandmother could dine at any table (including the most famous restaurants) and recreate the recipe in her home kitchen, always with an improvement.

She experimented with international flavors learned from her travels. She loved sharing her findings with anyone who even remotely expressed an interest in cooking, keeping up a regular exchange with relatives, her children’s friends, strangers, people she met when she traveled and her grandchildren.

Until her death, I was her most devoted student, and my hands were shaking when I picked up the paper that rolled out of my fax several years ago. During her lifetime she and I had exchanged hundreds of recipes. But this fax was highly unusual. Granny had died more than a decade before fax machines became a popular way to transmit printed messages over telephone lines.

Still, there was no mistaking her elegant script and uplifting style of coaching a new cook in the faxed recipe. She reminded me about the importance of fresh ingredients, adding “Don’t forget, recipes are only meant to be guidelines. Adjust ingredients according to best available ingredients and personal taste, to make any recipe your own. “Qui ne risque rien, n’a rien (He who risks nothing, gains nothing) she had copied from a French recipe collection.

In the kitchen, my grandmother refused to play by the rules. She was creative, innovative, determined and fascinated by modern inventions.

Nothing stood in her way when it came to sharing recipes. I opened the antique recipe box in my kitchen filled with my grandmother’s letters and recipes, reminded how, after all these years, I still think about her everyday in the kitchen.

The telephone call from a cousin offered disappointing news. “Did you get the recipe?” she asked. She had faxed her 20-year-old copy of my grandmother’s recipe, sent without a cover sheet. “Everyone Continued agrees as far as cooking is concerned, you’re following Mama Williams’ footsteps,” she said, adding.,“You’re the family recipe go-to person.”

I turned on the oven, pulled out a recipe letter and rummaged through the drawer for my favorite measuring spoons.

Mystery solved. My grandmother was not faxing recipes. Still, I appreciated the few moments when evidence appeared otherwise. Did I mention that this happened on my birthday?

That year, I spent the afternoon baking. No fax…no problem. My love of cooking had become my grandmother’s lifetime birthday gift to me.

This year as I’m planning to spend the day in the kitchen with some of my grandmother’s recipes. I’m even more aware of the gifts she gave me through her love for cooking and recipes …including a food writing career and this web site.

If the person who taught you to love recipes and cooking is still alive, this would be a good time to write a note, pick up the phone …or maybe you could send a fax.

dp@soul2keep

“Rich, Rich, Rich
In Asparagus”
March 8, 2010

By Donna Pierce

I don’t keep a census count of robins returning to the neighborhood park. You won’t
find me searching for signs of spring in a flower bed or checking off calendar dates.
As far as I’m concerned, winter officially ends and spring begins in the produce section of the supermarket when asparagus
shipments multiply and the price for slender (and thicker) stalks sharply decline to offer once-a-year bargains.
For approximately eight weeks, while I’m feeling asparagus-wealthy, tender stalks make their way to my table daily. At the beginning of the season I steam or roast them to enjoy as a side dish, doused with fresh lemon juice or sprinkled with feta cheese.
Once I’ve eaten my way through the initial thrill, I progress to sauces, tarts,
stir-fry dishes, frittatas and even old-fashioned tea sandwiches made up of roasted spears pressed in to buttered rolls.
No recipe from my collection is exempt, and except for desserts, I’ve never run across a recipe that couldn’t be made more delicious to my taste with an asparagus
tip or two.
Asparagus spears are native to Europe. The name comes from the Greek asparagos,
meaning “to swell”.

The plant is a shoot vegetable, classified with artichokes, hearts of palm, endive and celery.
Select tightly budded young green spears of the same dimension — pencil thin or fat.
Cook like sizes together so they will steam or roast
evenly.

Spears snap off at a natural breaking point. Trim
thicker stalks with a vegetable peeler or sharp knife by holding the stalk
with the buds pointing downward and peeling toward the tender tip.
Steam asparagus in a vegetable steamer or boil uncovered in a heavy skillet of
simmering water. They will cook to an al dente stage in six to eight minutes.
Roast asparagus in a 400 degree oven on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Cook, turning occasionally, until tender and tips begin to bronze.

Secret to Happiness

March 2, 1010

By Donna Pierce

This week, when my friend raved about springtime blooms around her
California home, she wasn’t bragging…just stating the facts.

But for a moment, forgetting my mom’s advice, I felt a tug of envy.

My mom’s advice came to mind right after wasting several cell phone minutes bemoaning the fact that I never fully appreciated the lemon and avocado trees that once flourished in my California backyard. “ I took them for granted,

leaving more on the ground that I ever used in lemon bars, meringue pies or guacamole,” I said. “ If only I had considered I wouldn’t have that backyard forever.”

You see, I live in a place where we don’t entertain

groundhogs’ February predictions.

A month later, when the calendar flips… when others look forward to tulips and daffodils, we know we’re still knee-deep in winter. March still translates to winter for me here, as it has for the seven years since I moved away from a more gentle climate.

“If only…is such a sorry phrase,” my mother used to say before she repeated what she described as the foolproof secret to a happy life. At this point, my siblings and I all remember her lowering her voice to a whisper as a way of emphasizing her most important motherly advice.

“Life is full of wonderful chapters and seasons when you live in the present,” my mother would say, leaning in closely as if she were imparting deep secrets of the universe, which it turns out she was.

Think about it. How many times

have we wished away moments we now look back on as precious?

Lemons ripening in a backyard…
Earnest from our children when we thought ourselves desperate for a moment of quiet time alone…
Walking in silence with an old friend who offers the gift of unconditional acceptance…

MORE…Continued from Home Page:

A parent leaning in to offer unsolicited advice we would come to treasure the rest of our lives…

The secret to happiness?

The seasons of our lives include much more than gentle California breezes or harsh Chicago winds. Children grow up; friends more away. One day life gives you lemons, next thing you know you’re sorting through a produce bin and paying by the pound.

The secret to happiness?

“Choose what you have,”  my mom whispered dramatically, explaining how life offers wonderful lessons when we pay attention to our personal journey by living in the moment and valuing the things at hand.

So, this week you won’t find me wishing away my season of bare trees and light snow.

Instead, I’m following Mom’s advice, appreciating six more weeks of dumplings in my favorite slow cooker chicken.

___________________________________________

dp@soul2keep.com

“Food plays a major role in our culture…”