Kitchen Memoirs are a collection of stories about the people and dishes who have inspired me most in the kitchen. Each month I will share a new story about one of these people accompanied by one or more recipes. This month’s feature is my Grandma Rose.

The door is left unlocked. In preparation for visitors, it often is. “Hello!”, I call as a greeting, rather than a question. Ascending the staircase, I’m met warmly by my Grandma Rose, always a site for sore eyes. Her hugs epitomize that grandmaternal embrace: the kind where you want to linger just 2 seconds longer.

Following the initial niceties, my Mom and I start to unpack our overflowing bags filled with soups, pastas, breads, and sweets. “No, no, no”, she manages to kindly demand, “You take that back home with you”. After a light debate, we agree to leave half the cookies, one of the soups, and some of the bread (although I think we snuck the pasta back in the refrigerator). We continue to unpack the lunch we brought, while Grandma Rose takes out the salads and relish tray she prepared. The table is set with a brightly checkered tablecloth, adding the precise amount of cheer that a dull January day necessitates. “Does everyone want tea?”, she asks. With the table prepared with snack plate and cup sets…of course we’ll have tea, Grandma.

A Piece of Cake

Pineapple Cake

My Grandma Rose raised 7 children, my Father being one of three boys. As one could imagine, feeding a horde that size requires simple, delicious, and tried and true recipes. When asked which ones were her go-to’s, she instantly responds, “That Hunter’s Stew. You know the one, with beef, potato, carrot, and onion with tomato juice covering it. But you have to cover the whole thing, so the juice seeps in to the meat. It gets so tender.” Unprompted she adds, “And they all wanted dessert every night”. Chocolate Pudding Cake was the family favorite (and still is my Dad’s, to this day), but the recipe that started her love for baking began with a Pineapple Cake with 7 Minute Frosting.

“I remember when I was in 6th or 5th grade, and every Saturday I made a double layer pineapple cake. I liked it, so I got to make the cake. Although I don’t recall if I had a recipe or not. That was during the war. Everybody loved it. It was a double layer, with seven minute frosting. That seven minute frosting was a lot of work, standing over the hot stove, but I loved it. That was the first recipe I really got good at”, she so humbly recalls. There were, of course, countless recipes she mastered over the years.

At age 10, this encounter with baking would be the catalyst for a life filled with creating beautiful and delicious desserts. But more specifically, cake.

Wedding Cake

In 1976, Grandma Rose took a cake decorating class. It was taught by a woman named Elaine Petters, as she vividly recalls. In this class, Elaine shared that there was only one cake recipe to use when decorating cakes: the one that comes from a box with the name Duncan Hines proudly stamped across it.  She followed this advice and made her very first wedding cake: an impressive 6 tier white cake with soft whipped frosting. It just so happened that the lucky couple whose wedding day this cake sweetened was my parent’s!

“I didn’t really know what I was doing. I had made the cakes at home, but then I didn’t know how to get them there. Lou, Tom and Danny had to bring them. It ended up working out, but the next day I find out they goofed up getting them there – they tilted and were smashed! You don’t realize how much work it is to travel with cake until you do it.”

I’d say they turned out just fine.

This cake marked the beginning of a hobby which would result in a total of 15 formal wedding cakes that she made with her own two hands and sparkling creativity. I recall one story she told me years ago. “A woman tracked me down at a wedding where I had made the cake and she told me, “This is the best cake I have ever had!’ I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was Duncan Hines!”.

Years later, after her baking days had sunset, I was lucky enough to join her in the kitchen to make a beautiful two tier for my own wedding. To say that this is a cherished memory would be a blatant understatement.

Image be Janelle Elise Photography

Rules to Live By

After we finish lunch, it’s time to bake. As I follow the instructions on the back of the box, I ask Grandma Rose why she prefers white cake, her resident flavor of choice. “I don’t know, I don’t really like chocolate cake. I mean I’ll eat it, but it’s not my favorite. Well, I’ll eat any cake I guess.” Advice to live by!

Once the cake is in the oven, we both get started on the frosting. Not knowing what recipe she normally prepares, I came with standard buttercream ingredients which I figured would suffice: butter, vanilla, cream, powdered sugar. Unfortunately, my assumption was incorrect. “Always Crisco. And not Butter Crisco….CRISCO”, she says matter of factly.

Life Rule #2.

“I haven’t used this recipe in so long”, she says, as we navigate an attempt at her delicious decorating frosting with half of the ingredients we really need.

“Is it too thick?”, I ask, unsure of her level of approval, given our lack of using Crisco. “Should I try the old fashioned way?”, she says with a hint of humor in her voice. After her finger organically starts towards the mixing bowl, she says, “Oh, well…I suppose I should use a spoon”.

We adjust, we tinker, and finally, we have it. I start to clean things up, and as I add the whisks from the hand mixer in to the sink, she disappointedly tuts,  “Jamie…you threw that away. Haven’t you learned?! You have to lick the spoon!”.

Life Rule #3.

Winner Winner

As the cake cools, we refresh our cups and sit down to chat. Our conversation returns to cooking, naturally. “What other types of meals did you make for the family?”, I ask while slowly sipping my tea. “That Betty Crocker cookbook is IT”, she says with inflected gusto. “The family was so big though, that I had to adjust the recipes to make them work.” When asked if she still had her original cookbook? “Well of COURSE I do!”, she states proudly.

As we thumb through the well-worn pages, she shares some of her favorites as we go. She continues to mention a Chicken and Rice dish (that I lovingly recall her making and I enjoying as a child). One can only assume that over the years, she’s memorized the recipe and would be able to make it with her eyes closed (we never came across the exact recipe).

“I used to make my own spaghetti sauce. One time, Patty was at a friend’s house and came home to tell me that she had the “best sauce she had ever had”. So, of course  I was going to get the recipe from the mother. Guess what it was? Ragu. I quit making my own after that”.

The Sweet Life

Today, January 26th, 2020, marks my Grandma Rose’s 90th birthday. While this story has reflected on the time she’s spent in the kitchen (and how that has ultimately impacted my love for cooking), there is obviously so much more to her remarkable life. She’s done so much in her 90 years, that she’s started a list of things she no longer does. And yes, the list is as charming as you think. It includes things like darning socks, borrowing a cup of sugar from a neighbor, putting her hair in curlers, wearing high heels, and washing her floor on her hands and knees. That last one may need to be Life Rule #4…although I think it can only be followed once one hits 90. Her well-lived life has been one that’s been filled with love, success, family, and of course – cake.

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