One missing ingredient
Linda Sappington
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I don’t cook much anymore. Or bake. With kids grown, we mostly eat chicken and something raw and green. So when I dug out my vintage recipe binder this morning stuffed with various pages torn from publications dating back to 1977, plus directions/ ingredients scribbled upon random pieces of paper, memories flooded in, pulling me down the remembrance rapids.
I was in search of my cousin Sue Peterson’s chicken/ almond/grape salad she served over cantaloupe at family bridal and baby showers. What I found was one daughter’s homemade tortilla recipe, years before she discovered her body hates gluten; and her “dip for crunchy sticks” recipe — cream cheese, milk, ketchup — penciled in child’s scribble from a summer youth cooking class. “Grandma” Sappington’s pineapple bread pudding, an Easter staple; Zenobia’s Stacked Enchiladas, which she spent an entire day teaching me to cook in 1998 and Zenobia’s Kale, Leek and Potato Soup we made the year Zenobia’s grandaughter became our daughter — ingredients that sound delicious now but foreign at the time when our staple food was Hamburger Helper. It’s all we knew in our family of eight.
And found written in my Mom’s perfect penmanship, Pumpkin Pie Dessert Squares — “cost approx. $2.40 — serve with Cool Whip.” And her Green Jello Salad with Miracle Whip and cottage cheese, always served on iceberg lettuce for holidays. Other favorites found: Auntie Eva’s Lemon Jello Cake, my sister Debbie Ahlberg Keeler’s quiche, my own chili, “quick and easy,” everything from a can. Broccoli Chicken Casserole, the only real dish I cooked when I married at 19 years old. When asked to write the recipe down, I said “boil chicken breasts for one hour.” Oops.
So this struck me. While most of the foods include ingredients I have avoided for years for health reasons, the happy memories of family meals are in embedded in those recipes, many penned by ones I have loved and now lost.
We may eat more raw vegetables, less chemicals, and avoid processed foods, but meals are often eaten at my desk, or best case scenario, with my hubby Chuck Lewis on the couch with four fluffy mutts waiting for a bite. Does anyone still take time to enjoy the process of cooking our food, elbow to elbow in a crowded kitchen, before sharing the creation on fine china with candles, fresh flowers and a damask tablecloth? I long for the full table of laughter, the gracious manners, and mostly the love of family who still love, albeit from so many miles away. I never found the chicken salad recipe, but winged it, after learning via the Internet to bake my chicken 20 minutes at 425 degrees. Juicy and tender for sure, but missing one ingredient ... a table full of family.
