Kitchen duties

I am not a fan of most domestic kitchen duties. I am one that wishes the dishwasher could load and unload itself. I don't mind, however, cleaning out bowls of batter or dough. I am strange, I do realize that.

In my life, I have cooked and baked with almost every matriarchal woman in my family. My mother was a decent cook and a struggling baker. I never knew she coudn't bake, to me everything she made was great. With the exception of her love of liver and onions. She made cookies, and cakes, she made custards and cream puffs. My paternal grandmother, my Nana, baked always. There were always baked goods in the house. They were one of her favorites, so of course there were. And my maternal grandmother, she always had something in the pantry for us. My maternal great-grandmother often sat in the kitchen when she was stayed with my grandma. Not to mention aunts, older female cousins, and even my sisters at holidays, all of us shoved in a kitchen. While I do love to cook, I also love to observe. What happens in a female filled kitchen can be intriguing. I have learned many stories in a kitchen, and many handed down recipes.

One of my favorite memories is watching the hands of my Nana work dough. Her old hands, with power in her fingers, mixing a non-yeast bread dough by hand. Never afraid to put her hands in and get them dirty. And never put off to taste her creations before the oven (something my nurse mother would tell me not to do while handing me a spoon full of cookie dough).

I remember that my grandma never seemed to have a recipe. She would seem to just know the recipe by heart, moving about the kitchen, creating a dinner, or lunch, or breakfast with no concern of right or wrong. Around 15 years ago I started asking her for recipes. I discovered a few things since then. Both of my grandmothers did, in fact, have recipes memorized. They did not need to go look it up. My Nana even had to measure out her handfuls when my mother had asked for a family recipe shortly after marrying my father. My grandmother once walked through all the motions while I wrote down the ingredients and directions.  My grandmother admitted to me that she did not remember many original recipes because she was always missing some ingredient here or there and had learned to make shift and changes, to supplant, to have alternatives. Both ladies did, however, have recipe boxes, with recipes of things they once made, meaning only once and never again. Or recipes from original clippings, not to have looked at for several years because they became memorized. They could convert measurements, cut or double, with barely a thought.

My mother was much more precise. The nurse in her coming out and needing for the recipe to be like an experiment procedure. I remember learning how to use the back of a knife to even off the measuring cup, or tablespoon, or teaspoon. She told me these were hand me down lessons, passed down from her grandmother. I am not sure if this was true, as I have never seen another in my family be as precise, but it is a memory in our very 1979 kitchen with olive green appliances.

I hope that I have these experiences with my daughter, and even with my son. It seems like it is an old way to hand down stories, even if they are just recipes. But even recipes have stories behind them. When I think of certain treats, Nana cake, or Special K bars, people are attached to these treats, and stories of them asking or baking or eating them with delight. Feeding people, eating with people is cross cultural, everyone does this, everyone needs this, and we can all meet at a table.