My mother’s mother was a night nurse. She ran the Emergency Department in a Cleveland hospital for a the bulk of her career, and was a true powerhouse of a woman. As a consequence of this, she slept through the days of my mother’s formative years, endearing my mama with financial security and access to healthcare (and a strong work ethic), and leaving her to nurture herself.
I have a deep sadness in me about this sometimes, even though I don’t think my mother does. She’s always been rather matter-of-fact about the circumstances of her upbringing, which might mean she was just fine with it, or that matter-of-fact is a front-runner for her emotions of choice.
Each afternoon, as my grandmother was near the end of her sleep, she would dictate a recipe to my mother to prepare for the family. An excellent follower of instructions, my mother would prepare as directed. They would then sit down and enjoy the meal with my grandfather (and in later years, my uncle, who is eight years younger) as a family before grandma went to work, and mom dove into her homework.
As I grew up, my mother repeated these recipes as the chemist she is at heart - with precision and accuracy, and absolutely zero substitutions or innovations. They were Mid-century Midwestern marvels - the very hallmark of economic stability - like Swiss steak with reconstituted mashed potatoes and green beans, or beef chili with corn bread muffins and fruit cocktail (with expertly divided cherries or partial cherries rationed out evenly to all at the table), pork chops with apple slices and potato wedges, and a certain turkey casserole which included a can of creamed mystery, frozen mixed vegetables, and Minute rice.
I am exceptionally aware of the privilege I experienced as a child - to have wholesome, nutritionally-diverse, home-cooked meals created with love (and some unnecessary hold-over-from-the-Great-Depression-rationing). In addition to the recipes of her childhood, my mother learned to cook the Lithuanian dishes my father’s grandmother had made, which are all rearrangements of pork, potatoes, and cabbage, seasoned with allspice and caraway seeds. While I’m certain she prepared them exactly, there is a reason you have likely never encountered a Lithuanian restaurant - generally unappealing to the American palate, and possibly, the human palate.
Here is a recipe for kugelis, the national dish of Lithuania.
Note that the kugelis of my childhood was 92% potato, 5% onion, and the remainder was a whiff of butter and bacon - all of the recipes I found online include significantly more fat of all sorts.
My mother is an Enneagram 1 and a chemist, and was taught to cook by an exhausted, sleeping woman who had somehow nourished her siblings through the depression by sheer will and a defined relationship with the min specs of survival. Thou shall not waste. She’s a rule follower, and a rule maker, and managed to feed her family at a remarkably young age.
My mother is not what you might call improvisational in the kitchen.
When I left for college, I believed that I was a pretty good cook, but in fact, I was decent baker who couldn’t make a meal that wasn’t served between bread. I was quite competent at following a recipe, and knew how many teaspoons makes a Tablespoon (it’s three). I had baked thousands of chocolate chip cookies in my life, but always from the same one or two recipes, in the same order of incorporation.
But in my third semester of college, during a team building exercise for budding resident advisors, we were given bags of unlabeled ingredients and told to bake chocolate chip cookies. We were supposed to trouble shoot and work together and somehow make something familiar, which I suppose is fine and appropriate, but I wish we had been invited to tackle something a bit more meaningful or enduring.
During that activity, I saw something that changed the course of my life.
The person charged with the actual combining of the ingredients did it wrong.
Way wrong.
Big wrong.
They cracked the eggs right into the flour, and then mixed in the butter and some sugar, some salt, some mystery powder, and some chocolate.
I figured we were doomed - none of the technique was procedurally correct, to say nothing of ratios and orders! We would be wasting, the cardinal sin of my ancestry.
But.
The cookies were fine.
They tasted like chocolate chip cookies. We ate them all, and from this, I learned two lessons:
1. There is more than one right way to do everything.
2. Even mediocre (aka wrong) chocolate chip cookies are still edible.
In later years, mostly due to my laziness, I learned to improvise recipes. Sometimes we had the ‘wrong’ milk, or no milk at all, and rather than running to the store, I would melt vanilla ice cream or whip up some horchata in the Vitamix and make do, in privileged homage to the resourcefulness of my grandmother. Do not waste. Make do.
Sometimes, this has yielded inedible garbage, but more often it’s fine.
Sometimes, it’s great.
I read often about generational legacy - that it takes one generation to make a financial fortune, one to maintain it, and one to destroy it, and I wonder where my relationship to recipes correlates. I almost never make anything with meat, nor have I ever attempted kugelis - neither my mother’s stripped down, fat-rationed version, nor anything legit.
Perhaps it takes one generation to survive, one to perfect, and one to innovate.
Regardless, I’ve come to learn I’m not the great cook I once thought I was, but that I have a few things to offer, and that I can keep my family fed. The sorts of things I tend towards are those that make use of bits and scraps, and that stretch to feed more mouths, should they arrive at my table. My privilege is never lost on me.
I do not waste.
—-
Here are some recipes that have come from the happy accidents of improvisation, mixed with the legacy of work ethic and loneliness, perfectionism and grit.
World’s Best Balsamic Vinaigrette
I know some of you have been to Poor Richard’s in Colorado Springs, which is has the balsamic tied for best. Theirs has tahini, and possibly some different ratios of things, but is Most Excellent, and sold by the bottle.
5 T Balsamic vinegar (must be thicker, sweeter, darker than the cheap cheap stuff, but the specific isn’t critical. Also you can substitute up to 2 of the T with GOOD apple cider vinegar - do this before using garbage balsamic. The resulting dressing should be in the color family of a cup of coffee with cream, not a latte)
1/2 c olive oil
3 + cloves fresh garlic
1.5 t Inglehoffer German Mustard - accept no substitutes - this is the magic of this recipe
1/2 t each dried basil, oregano, thyme
honey, salt, and pepper to taste
(1t to 1T honey depending on the sweetness of the balsamic, probably 1/2 t salt, 1/4 t pepper)
1-2 t water to achieve desired consistency
Vitamix it. It will be most pungent right after you make it, so if you feel like you need it to be less pungent and can’t make it early, let the garlic cloves sit in the vinegar for as long as you can before you mix it all up
Aloo Gobi
I learned this from a former colleague of my mother, who was born and raised in India. We had a little misunderstanding, in that she believed my husband was Indian, not that he was introduced to real Indian food while being a dietetic Army dude at Ibn Sinh hospital in Baghdad with loads of Indian friends… but she taught me anyway. What I love about this recipe is that it uses mostly dried spices, so you can mix them up in advance (as you’re making one batch, put another bundle of spices in a jar for next time) which makes this very fast and easy.
In truth, I have no clue what her original recipe was. She had a beautiful tray of spices and did pinches as she rattled off her zippy recipe, and I did my best to capture. Of course you could use 2 whole green cardamom and 1 black cardamom and cinnamon sticks and then fish them out before serving, or do what I do and simply bring unprepared whole spices to the table and tell folks to ‘look out!’ for these. If you ever bite down on a black cardamom pod, you will never forget it, nor will you taste anything else for three weeks.
Ingredients:
2 c uncooked basmati rice
1 head cauliflower, chopped (or 1lb frozen)
3 large potatoes, cubed
1 bunch chard or kale, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1" piece of ginger, minced (equal amounts ginger and garlic)
1 32 oz can chopped tomatoes OR fresh chopped tomatoes
1-2 cans coconut milk (or homemade!)
1-2 cup(s) or 1 16 oz can of beans, rinsed (garbanzos or white beans) OR 1-2 cups fresh or frozen green peas
2 T olive oil or coconut oil or ghee
1 t cumin seeds
*1 T salt
1 T turmeric
2 T coriander
1 t cinnamon
1 t ground cardamom
1 t cayenne (more or less, to taste)
Instructions:
1. Prepare rice according to directions.
2. Saute onion, garlic, ginger, and cumin seeds in enough oil to coat the bottom of a dutch oven pan over medium heat.
3. Combine all remaining spices and salt into a bowl and open cans of tomatoes/coconut milk.
4. When onion starts to become translucent but before it begins to brown, quickly stir in the spice mixture and stir constantly for about 30-60 seconds until overpoweringly fragrant. This is critical! Add the tomatoes and coconut milk to cool the pan.
5. Add cauliflower and potatoes, and allow to simmer covered-ish for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked through
6. Add beans or peas and greens and cook another 5 minutes or until the greens are wilted but still bright green.
7. Serve over rice
*A note on the salt, from when I originally wrote this - start with 1t and increase as needed. Canned tomatoes are convenient but also salty. If you’re using fresh, you can do 1T otherwise it’s a salt lick :)
I have substituted pumpkin and butternut squash for the tomato when I had a friend visiting who couldn’t have tomatoes, and of course, I invite you to swap out any and all of the other veggies
PS: Never cook a cruciferous veggie in the pressure cooker. They are an angry lot and exude bitterness if rushed. I can relate.
Grandma’s Pizza Crust
This is a depression-era recipe, and should not be confused with anything from Italy. It requires Crisco - I’m sorry.
Ingredients
1 c warm water (110F or so)
1 T sugar
1 package (2 1/4 t) yeast
1/2 t salt
2 c flour
1/4 c oil (I use olive, she likely used canola)
Crisco for the pan
Instructions
1. Combine the water, sugar, and yeast and let sit, covered with a towel, for 15 minutes.
2. Stir the salt into the yeast & water mixture, and pour into the flour.
3. Add oil and stir.
4. Allow to rise, covered, in a warm place for 45 minutes to an hour, and preheat the oven as hot as you can.
5. Grease a cookie sheet and your fingers with Crisco.
6. Stretch the dough onto the cookie sheet with as little additional futzing as possible, so that you do not anger the glutens.
7. Add sauce and toppings of your choice.
8. Bake 12-15 minutes on the lowest rack of the hottest oven you can muster.
The secret to finding the correct water temperature for the yeast is to stick your finger into it. If it is *slightly* hotter than a bathtub you would feel comfortable jumping into, that’s it.