The Family Larder

"If God had intended us to follow recipes, He wouldn't have given us Grandmothers."-Linda Henley



My Great-Grandmother, Ethel to you, Nanny to me, died a few weeks before my tenth birthday. She was much-loved by all, to say nothing of her cooking. Three generations of us sat at her table, enjoying her dishes, taking for granted that the recipes, if not the lady herself, would always be there for us. We were wrong. A handful of prized recipes died with her. Some have been partially recovered though never fully duplicated; others are simply gone.

We love to cook, the lot of us. Our pleasure, collective and individual, in good food could fill several volumes.We savor it, we talk about it, we anticipate it: it is one of the ingredients in the glue that binds us together as a family.

Yet ask each of us which dish of Ethel's we miss the most and you'll have a variety of answers, answers which are likely to change like the weather. I have not tasted real banana pudding in nearly 26-years. Perhaps one day I will make it myself, playing around in the kitchen until I find the exact combination which reminds me,the most, of hers.

In order to prevent such future disasters, my mom and I complied a family cookbook about nine years ago. It was difficult, complicated and a pain. For several months, my Grandmother conducted what we called LEONA'S TEST KITCHEN. In other words, we cajoled and begged and ordered the woman to measure things while she prepared dishes which had long been habit. I am sure that she whined for a moment or two but, no matter: we now all have access to the same well-loved recipes, with the same little-to-no chance of making anything half as well as she does. With all of our ability and passion, my Grandmother remains the head chef and pie maker for a reason.

Somehow, no matter how accomplished you become in the kitchen, food always tastes better when it comes from the family food archivist:Grandma!!