When I started baking more a few years ago my mother mentioned my grandma's cook book. Then recently she gave me the cook book to bake from. I have used it a few times for cookie options, but recently my mother asked me to find a recipe in it; German Chocolate Cake.
I looked, Patrick looked, no luck. I called my mother this morning on my way to work to tell her it could not be found. She told me she remembered it being on a chocolate wrapper, green and red. I recalled the wrapper in the book. Sure enough when I got home it was there the wrapper, the recipe, the memories. When my mother talked about this piece of paper it was like she was transported back in time. My mother in the course of natural aging has at times been forgetful about little details (mama, admit it), but to hear her talk about this piece of paper and her watching my grandma bake was like being there in my grandma's kitchen, so real the smell of chocolate cake filled my car.
It reminded me too that I had noticed a few words in the beginning of the book, "Take 2 or more children". Why would a recipe call for children? Thoughts swirled in my head- after all my grandma is from Nebraska and these recipes had a few interesting items anyway so curiosity began turning the wheels in my head.
This special recipe is in the pages of her cookbook that are not really pages, they are the inside book cover. Here is what it says:
Lover's Wedding Cake
1/2 lb. sweet temper, 1/2 lb. good looks, 1/2 lb. of self forgetfulness, 1/2 lb. blindness to faults, 1/2 lb. pondered wits, 1/2 lb. dry humor, 12 lb buttered youth, 2 tablespoons gentle arguments, 1/2 pint rippling laughter, 1/2 glass of common sense, 4 lbs flour of love.
Put flour of love, good looks, and sweet temper into a well furnished house. Mix together the blindness to faults, self forgetfulness, dry humor, and gentle arguments and add to love. Pour in rippling laughter and common sense. Work until well mixed, then bake gently in the warm over of the heart forever. (H.M.S.)
Take 2 or more children wash well in warm water and tuck into bed early. Leave for 10 or 12 hours with windows open wide. Dress them lightly and set at cherished place at the breakfast table. To each child add juice of 1 orange, one soft boiled egg mixed with 2 T cream and salt to taste, several slices of whole wheat toast and a glass of milk. Remove to the yard add some garden seeds, toys, and a sand pile and mix thoroughly. Leave in the sun until brown.
My cup runneth over.
It is moments like this which help me to feel close to someone so long gone from me. I only remember small glimpses of moments with my grandma. I remember her growing a garden in our front yard, just out the front door. I remember green beans, snap peas. I remember her sitting at the dinning table with the beans in her aporn, snapping off the ends and placing them into a caldron. My brother and I would run around the kitchen laughing and my grandmother would tell us to go outside or to help. By helping we would steal the beans and eat them. I can remember the taste of those beans to this day, fresh, crisp, and like no beans I remember since. Eventually my grandmother would send us out of the house to play.
I was very young when my grandma lived with us, under the age of 5. My grandmother passed away when I was about 8. I am sure like all people she had her good and bad sides, and good and bad days, but for me she was my grandmother and I only remember her with fondness in my heart.
We should always remember where we get strength from.
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