When contrasted with the scorching San Antonio weather that I’ve learned to embrace—adventurous summers that teem with potential,—the chill makes this season seem hollow and unforgiving, the bitter wind howling at my back like the accumulation of this year’s forgotten ambitions. Winter is my season of repentance. It’s a time for me to excavate and examine all of the year’s partially buried skeletons in an attempt to detect some applicable lesson among the waste. As it does every year, my ruthless internal interrogation has left me tired and sullen while failing to produce an answer, any answer, that might provide me with some remote sense of optimism for the year to come.
But as I step through the door and I absorb the aroma of sweet potatoes and molasses, a familiar comfort washes over me, and suddenly I not only feel at ease, but even a bit giddy with excitement for the potential that this new year may bring. I walk to the kitchen, where I find my mother elbow deep in a not-so-enthusiastic looking turkey as she prepares for Christmas dinner.
She keeps her mother’s personal recipe book sitting open on the counter, as she always does when recreating the most applauded dishes from my grandma’s table. But she rarely even steals a glance at the words on the pages, as countless years of helping her mom in the kitchen have left each recipe deep-rooted in her mind. When she does stop and turn her focus upon my grandmother’s recipes—her mother’s instructions, her eyes don’t roam the pages as if in pursuit of some missing ingredient. She gazes at the words with a joyful knowingness, as though she’s witnessing her mother’s spirit emanating from the book and throughout the kitchen.
Like my mother, I too sense my grandma’s presence when her food is at the table. I lost my grandmother when I was 11, and although my perception of her may be blurred and incomplete, I know for certain that she was a practical woman. The sock monkeys and lace angels that she crafted now serve as beloved mementos, but it’s the scratch-made food which she dutifully served us three or four times a day that will forever define my memory of her. Thus, when I catch a whiff of one of those nostalgic dishes, I feel the earth tremble as I’m momentarily transported back to my grandparent’s humble house in their story-book neighborhood in Arlington, Texas, where the gardens grew easily and the neighbors would encourage us to take home all of the free-fallen pecans that we could carry.
As I greet my mother, I pick up the antique recipe book, curious of what to expect at Christmas dinner. It’s one of those ancient “fill-in-your-own-recipes” cookbooks, and it’s nearly filled to the last page with my grandmother’s cursive writing. The black plastic binding is brittle and cracked in some places, and the stiff, yellowed pages are begging to be laid to rest.
While I’m thumbing through the book for the umpteenth time, each page seems to speak to me in its own distinct voice. Each recipe tells me its own favorite story. Stories of love, frustration, celebration, and mourning. These recipes have been present at countless parties and family meals; they’ve been witness to myriad personal conversations. Within each page of ingredients and instructions there lie a thousand pages of unwritten history.
The recipes offer more to me than just directions for producing great food. I find a sort of guidance in my grandmother’s words. She found immeasurable pleasure in providing nourishment for her family. And although I’ve always remembered her as a stern woman—one who showed her affection sparsely—when I see the scrupulous detail she includes in her recipes and the numerous footnotes strewn throughout the pages I understand that each vegetable she planted, raised, harvested, and cooked for us was in itself her own private declaration of love for her family. Thinking of it now, I’m reminded of the words of M.F.K. Fisher, who wrote, “It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and intermingled that we cannot straightly think of one without the others.”
This feeling, I think, is the truest manifestation of “comfort food”. Occasionally, when somebody pours all of their love and care into a recipe that’s made especially for you, it’s difficult not to imagine that person’s warmth and hospitality each and every subsequent time you encounter that same dish.
I’m still examining the neat, flowing handwriting when I notice a small green thumbprint on the margins of one of my personal favorites:
Pan-Fried Spinach w/ Bacon
_________________________________________________________________
2 ½ tablespoons
of salted butter
¼ cup of
olive oil
1 garlic clove, chopped
3 bacon slices, quartered
Cook
the bacon in a frying pan on low heat until slightly brown. Add butter and oil
gradually and stir until melted. Next add the garlic and sauté on medium heat
until it’s slightly brown around the edges. Add spinach and mix it until
covered in oil. (^Sprinkle lightly with salt) Cover and cook on low for about 5
minutes. (^Season lightly with pepper) Finally, shake the spinach in a colander
until you have your desired amount of oil remaining. Serve immediately.
_________________________________________________________________I haven’t had the dish since my grandmother passed. I fondly remember a sunny day during late summer.
I’m in the shared garden plot across the street from my grandmother’s house on Nancy Circle, a pair of garden shears in my eager hands as I anticipate the thrill of harvesting the vegetables for tonight’s dinner.
“Here,” she says, “Why don’t you cut the spinach? Now make sure you pick all the largest leaves, not just the prettiest ones. They may look a little beat up now, but they’ll still cook all the same.” I know better than to question her judgment. I’ve never been disappointed with her spinach before. Besides, I was just grateful to be included in the preparation of one of Grandma’s astounding meals.
I
put down the book with a renewed sense of purpose. I tell my mom that I’d be
making a rather unorthodox dish to add to our Christmas dinner, but one that I
felt was appropriate. So I grab my coat and make my way to the store, no longer
feeling so adverse to the elements. I was warmed by the knowledge that this
Christmas, I’d be cooking the food that I love, from the people I love, for the
people I love.
