My Grandma's kitchen was my earliest introduction to the world of food as work, service, creative expression, art and pleasure. Of all the places I have been in my life, my memories of that room are the most vivid. Although it is more than 30 years since I last saw it, I can describe it in detail today.
Her kitchen was the warmest, most personal room in her house in Brookline, MA and, although she never said so, I believe it was the happiest room for her. It was a marvel of efficiency, organized to support her creative efforts. My Grandma's cookie tin was always filled, she baked several kinds of bread every week, and there were never any prepared foods in her refrigerator (well, maybe ice cream).
She had a pantry with open shelves above the counter up to the ceiling. The shelves were lined with identical glass jars filled with sugars, whole spices and herbs. I vaguely remember the story about the jars. Apparently they were honey jars, saved, cleaned and collected for this purpose. They were the perfect size and their lids were painted the color of the trim of her house. The pantry was also home to the marble counter where she prepared all her doughs. My first memory of participating in cooking centers on this counter. I was about 5 years old, standing on a step stool and wrapped in a large white apron. She was rolling out pie dough and I was 'helping.'
All her doughs were handmade. With the exception of the refrigerator, the only electric appliance in my Grandma's kitchen was a small hand mixer. I think she acquired this when she no longer felt it was necessary to prove she could whip egg whites and cream by hand.
Yeast doughs were covered with a linen towel and left to proof on the steam radiator.
The main kitchen was dominated by the most fabulous soapstone sink. It was huge - long and deep enough to bathe in. You could fill large stockpots, wash stacks of dishes, and never run out of workspace. There was also a large black and white enamel gas range. It was a mysterious object, completely foreign to the modern electric stove in my childhood home. It had cooking ovens and warming ovens and knobs to turn and buttons to push. I loved it. Except for a brief period when I lusted after the British Aga Cooker, I have wanted to have this exact stove in all of my homes.
My Grandmother's kitchen also had a large, free-standing sideboard and an old-fashioned wooden kitchen table covered with a blue- or red-and-white checked tablecloth.
My Grandma lived in this house until I was 21. During my many visits, holidays, anniversaries, and other celebrations, I experienced many fantastic meals and learned to bake. While my Grandmother and I were separated by a significant generation gap, and lived with completely different daily realities, the only place where we experienced something like perfect communication was in her kitchen. There our hearts were at one and she passed on to me the overriding passion of my life - the love of carefully prepared meals and the pursuit of exquisite flavors.
At the end of her life, after the death of my Grandpa, she moved from this wonderful home to an apartment in Washington, DC. The apartment was beautiful and modern, but I am certain that she missed her kitchen. When she knew that her time was short, she asked me which of her personal possessions I would most like to have. I think my answer was a complete surprise to her, although it really should not have been. I didn't long for her jewelry or any of the other lovely objects she had collected. I asked her for her large, grey metal recipe box. I have it still and visit with her through her hand-written recipe cards as often as possible. One of the reasons I am writing this memoire with recipes is to honor her memory and preserve for other members of the family the flavors of her kitchen.
After writing the above, I happened to read a volume of the family genealogy that my grandma wrote in the last twenty years of her life. Her research was painstaking and she left a record of names, dates and other details that are invaluable. I was delighted to find her own description of her grandmother's home and kitchen, a treasured part of her memories of early childhood.
"The farmhouse in which Joseph and Mary Jane (Read) (my great- great-grandparents) raised their three children was not the log cabin where Mary Jane had been born, but a one-story wooden structure more recently built down near the new road that had been put through from Davisburg to Holly (MI). The house was built directly on the ground without a cellar or other major foundations to keep out draughts and dampness. It faced on a narrow, dirt road with a high crown to allow for drainage, and it was flanked by drainage ditches. It was the direct road from Davisburg to Holly. From this road a driveway led around to the Read's two back doors and on to the barn and other outbuildings.
The rooms facing the highway were used only on special occasions such as weddings, funerals and overnight guests; those at the back of the house were given over to family living."
. . .
"Kitchen: This large square room with its well-scrubbed, broad floorboards was the corner of the house from which tantalizing smells emanated - a meat stew or fowl simmering on the back burner of the wood-burning stove; cake, cookies or pies baking in the capacious oven; aromatic herbs tied in neat bouquets and hanging from the rafters to dry, braided ropes of yellow field onions and ears of corn with husks peeled back and tied into clusters, thus exposing the drying process in anticipation of spring planting.
Both dining room and kitchen exited onto the driveway. Outside the kitchen door was a 'rain barrel' where rain water from the roof was caught and stored. This was called 'soft water' and was used for laundry purposes because soap made such nice suds in it. At the right hand corner was a deeply-drilled well with a windmill to pump the water up. This was called 'hard water' and was used for drinking and cooking and for the animals. It could not be used for laundry purposes because of its high calcium salt content which caused soap to form an unmanageable, greasy scum on top."
All this from the memory of a woman in her sixties or seventies who had not seen the farmhouse since she was an eight year old child.
Clearly food has been a central theme across generations!
