Thursday, December 29, 2011

The Sweetest Gift of All

My family is very good to me all year round, and this Christmas was no exception.
I received from them the loveliest gifts.

Some are genuinely warm and just too funny:

Some make me feel decisively pretty and feminine:




Some make me feel beautiful INSIDE as well as out:



And some are quite practical indeed:



And very, very useful:



Some may add inches to my hips, but are still positively sweet:



But the truly sweetest gift of all 
is the news we had been waiting 
two weeks to learn:


A new little baby granddaughter due to arrive
this Spring!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Molasses Drops & Coffee Cakes: Grandmothers' Treasures

I loved their home. Everything smelled older, worn but safe; the food aroma had baked itself into the furniture.  ~Susan Strasberg


I have in my possession a treasure. Its name is simply, Mamie's Cookbook. It belonged to my maternal grandmother.  Her parents christened her Alice Evelyn, but she was called Evelyn. Her grandchildren affectionately called her Mamie, the name my oldest brother - her first grandchild - gave her when he was a baby learning to talk. For the longest time, I thought it was her given name.


One quiet afternoon before Christmas, as Katie and I sipped tea, we carefully pored over each fragile page of Mamie's cookbook. I'm not sure where my grandmother acquired it. Across the top of each careworn page is inscribed: "D. of V. Cook Book". I asked my mother what "D. of V." meant, but she did not know. The book is covered in brown paper, frayed and torn in places and held together by twine threaded through the binding. The original deep blue paper cover is gone - only small, brittle fragments remain and continue to chip away. The pages, dotted with evidence of spills and splotches of sauces or batter, contain printed recipes from contributors whose identities are marked only by their initials. Mamie added her own favorite recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines or from packages of flour or baking soda boxes. The scotch tape securing them in place is golden-brown with age. Many pages are filled with recipes inscribed in pencil by my grandmother's own beautiful hand. Often there is a name of a friend or relative attached to a recipe along with a date - my great grandmother's recipe for spice cake is there ... add 1 tsp all kinds of spice. Most of the recipes were added in the 1920s and 30s. There are free standing pages typed or hand-written (some by my mom or my aunt) inserted here and there. Many of the recipes do not indicate oven temperatures and instruct the 'cook' to bake in a moderate oven until golden or browned. I love this cookbook.


I love this cookbook, because it keeps Mamie, who passed away when I was 12 or 13, alive in my mind and in my heart. I love seeing her penmanship. I love how her words are immortalized allowing me to introduce my children to a dear great grandmother they have never known. Katie has discovered how clever Mamie could be by whipping up a tasty dinner menu using only the ingredients she had stored on her 'emergency shelf' when a 1936 storm prevented her from heading out to the store to shop for food.


 A portion of her menu is hidden beneath the newspaper clipping. I am including her note and menu here:

The following menu was worked up from the emergency shelf on a storm day when I couldn't get to the store - 1936
 Very delicious menu
Creamed Shrimp Patties
Baked Spaghetti and Cheese
Scalloped Tomatoes
Hot Sour Milk Biscuits
Vanilla Pudding with Strawberry Sauce
Tea

Katie and I giggled at how well stocked my grandmother must have kept her emergency shelf. Not sure we could pull off on a whim as complete a meal as Mamie did with items stored in our pantries! 



Every Christmas I bake Freda Foley's Molasses Drops. Freda Foley's recipe is not included in Mamie's cookbook, but she was a friend of my grandmother's and the recipe has been passed down through the generations. No other baked goods conjure up the spirit of Christmas like these cookies do. The mere aroma of the batter, a fine mixture of molasses, cloves, ginger and cinnamon, has the power to melt the heart of even the most sour-faced Scrooge.


They are simply delicious and delightful.


There are a few cookies and cakes that we traditionally bake at Christmas time that we sometimes never get around to making. And that's okay. We almost always make Buckeyes, for example, but once in awhile it is permissible to not include them in our repertoire of holiday sweets. But not so Freda Foley's Molasses Drops! Christmas just wouldn't be the same without them. Another Christmas must-have is Margaret  McMahon's Coffee Cake. The recipe I have is written on the back of a yellow flier advertising an Oil Change and Lubrication Special for $7.95 at a Shell gas station that my husband, Jim, managed many years ago in Detroit, Michigan. It is written in Jim's handwriting and yes, he inadvertently misspelled the last name by omitting the Mc!


My family has been nibbling on Margaret McMahon's Coffee Cake every Christmas morning since we had babies in our house. My husband's Aunt Kathie (his mother's sister) was kind enough to send me a note informing me of Margaret Ann McMahon's identity. She is Jim's mother's first cousin. Her mother, Mary Sexton Mahoney is the sister of Jim's "Grandma K" (Catherine Ann Sexton Kilsdonk). A big slice of this coffee cake along with a few good, strong cups of coffee have provided much-needed stamina to my husband and me on many early Christmas mornings when the children were little and the opening of gifts could take hours. We nibbled on it this year as we waited for our breakfast casserole to come out of the oven. I can't show you a picture of it, because there is no more to show! It never lasts very long on the cake plate. However, I will include the recipe for it and the Molasses Drops at the end of this post.

And so, I am grateful for my grandmother and Jim's dear cousin, for introducing us to their own delectable recipes and those of their friends and relatives. Friends have mentioned to me how they, too, have old, family recipes that have been handed down through generations. Delicious recipes that have stood the test of time and connect us in a palpable way to those from our past; allowing great grandmothers to reach out to the great granddaughters they have never known, but perhaps dreamed of on stormy nights in 1936. May God bless all our Mamies, and Grandma K's, Freda Foleys and Margaret McMahons. May the souls of those who have departed this world rest in peace and may good health and cheer be granted to those who are still with us. 

Freda Foley's Molasses Drops

350 degree oven

3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
4 tbsp molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp each cloves, ginger and cinnamon
1 tsp salt
Roll in small balls and dip in sugar. Bake 2 inches apart about 10 - 12 minutes. Cool on cookie pan a few minutes. (I bake them on parchment paper and a little more than 12 minutes so they come out crispy).
 Margaret Mahon's Coffee Cake

1 cup shortening or butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 cups sifted flour (I don't sift All-Purpose Flour)
3 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
Mix in order, beating well after each egg. Fill angel food pan (or bundt pan) that has been well greased and floured with 1/2 inch of batter. Spread on batter 3 tbsp sugar, 3 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 cup chopped nuts (I usually use walnuts). Cover with remaining batter.
Bake for 70 minutes at 350 degrees. While warm turn pan upside down and let cake fall out.

ENJOY!


Saturday, December 17, 2011

Casting Joy: A meditation for the final week of Advent

She rises early while the household is still sleeping. Only the cat stirs as she makes her way downstairs aware of the winter chill. He is hungry and meowing for food, so she pours dry chow in his bowl and gives him clean water to drink, then brews herself a cup of coffee.

Most everything is done and she smiles at the thought of it. Only cards are left to mail, but she's in no hurry since Christmas really hasn't arrived yet. Although the world outside speaks otherwise. The fa, la, las blaring from the radio and the garish lights and decorations that have been blinking off and on since before Thanksgiving have annoyed her. Yet, even now her own home dons evergreen and sparkle pausing only for her heart to catch up. 

She still waits in longing and it is silence that draws her in. In the hush of the mid-December morning, cold and cloud-covered, she knows solace and peace and hope.  

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born
She finds herself there in that precious moment, her soul kneeling in wonder and awe, pleading to a newborn King.  

Born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. 
She marvels at the humility of it and shivers as each note of the Virgin's sweet lullaby gently casts joy upon the bitter frost.  

In that hour, vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and grant my desires. 
In that hour, that beautiful and blessed hour, Love knows us, listens to us and gives us what our souls need most. 

She is not alone. She is united now at that hour and moment with those who have reached out to Him throughout the centuries and with those, too, who are yet to come. Together in the penetrating stillness of the eternal present that is God's time, not ours. 

And so, for a moment, a tiny bit of the veil is lifted as she prays in earnest for a great grandmother she has never known.