PRIME LIVING
Recipes of hope and health Deborah A llard Dion
I’m just going to say it: I love collecting and preparing new recipes.
I love the way recipes are broken down into carefully organized steps and ingredients so I can concoct the entire dish in my mind before I ever assemble the ingredients on my countertop. I love that making a new recipe is a creative escape that soothes the soul by keeping the hands busy while the mind is free to wander. As the scent of spice hangs in the air and my hand stirs, it becomes a practice in meditation. There is also hope – that when I lift the lid or pull open the oven door, my dish will be beautiful and taste even better. Like a good family saga told to us by Grandma, a recipe passed down to the next generation is a way to connect
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S ou th C oast P r ime T imes
the past and present, and eventually the future. Then there are those truly bittersweet dishes we remember that are lost and lamented forever like unasked questions and forgotten stories. The ones never acquired linger unfulfilled on our taste buds throughout our lives. My poor husband can still taste his own grandmother’s custard. He talks about its sweetness and velvet consistency as it poured from its bowl, but the recipe
Like a good family saga told to us by Grandma, a recipe passed down to the next generation is a way to connect the past and present, and eventually the future.
M arch /A pr il 2021
itself went with the dear lady when she departed. Learning to make pierogies with my mom a couple of years before she passed away was a blessing. It took us hours of cutting, stuffing, and boiling. But, in the end we’d made nearly 100 pierogies – no small feat if you’re at all familiar with the process. I have the dented metal pierogi cutter she used, passed down from her mother, to slice the dough into perfect rounds. Mom’s rolling pin stayed with me, too, and I can still picture her standing at our worn laminate kitchen counter, sleeves rolled up, using her weight and small hands to flatten the dough that would be cut and filled with a hearty mixture of mashed potatoes and cheese. When I was a kid, I loved it when there was leftover dough to squish between my fingers and to help her make a few flapjacks which we’d fry in butter and dust with sugar. I have more recipes saved in paper folders, online pins, and small tin containers
