Miriam’s Kitchen…and mine
April 3, 2010
I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up Miriam’s Kitchen from the library. I found the memoir, written by Elizabeth Ehrlich, browsing through the library catalogue. I was searching for stories about food. There’s something about the spring that makes me search out food-lit. After the long, cold winter both the sun and I want to play. It warms up the earth, I warm up my kitchen.
I knew nothing of the book. I knew that it was a story of a family’s history. I knew it was a National Jewish Book Award winner. That’s all, and as far as books go that’s not a lot.
What I found was a beautiful book. Like many Jewish-American stories it is one of Holocaust survival and immigration. It’s about moving ahead with the promise of a new life while your heart never stops mourning the old life. And it was about how the next generation keeps that old life in their hearts and passes it on to the generations that will come after them. But mostly, it’s a book about love.
I wasn’t even 20 pages in when I found myself declaring on Twitter that if you hadn’t read it you needed to and all but ordered you to add it to your library request immediately.
As Ehrlich explores Miriam’s kitchen I am pushed into mine. She shares Miriam’s memories of being in her mother’s kitchen. Miriam’s mother was the real baker, as is mine. I remember the kitchen of the very first house I ever lived in. It was dark and not that much bigger than the one I currently own. I remember standing on a chair beside my mother as she added things to the bowl of her stand mixer. She teaches me of the order of baking. First we cream the butter and sugar. Then we add the eggs, each carefully cracked into a separate dish before being added one at a time to the mixture. The vanilla, in a glass jar, which she always measured with the plastic cap rather than a measuring spoon– something I used to do. When Lee threw out the glass bottle of vanilla to replace it with a new plastic one I was angry because the plastic felt wrong in my hand. The cap was the wrong size. I haven’t found the right glass bottle of vanilla yet, even more than a year later.
After all the liquids are mixed together we add the dry ingredients, but they must be sifted. My mother’s sifter is old and even then was a scratched and dented from many years of use. We measured the dry ingredients into it and then churned them into the bowl below, the flour falling in tufts like soft snow. We mix carefully, until just combined or until silky smooth, depending on what kind of batter we are making. The batter gets turned into the cake pan and popped into the oven. I got to lick the batters, a special treat, and then we cleaned up and waited. And waited. And waited. First we waited for it it cook. Then we waited for it cool. Then we waited for everyone to come home, for back then we were an eight person household. The waiting is practically a lifetime for a four-year old.
As I read Miriam’s Kitchen it is Easter weekend. We’re marking the long weekend by eating as much as possible it seems. An anniversary dinner. A dinner with friends that we have not seen in far too long. Easter Sunday dinner with my in-laws. These are the people in my life I cook for.
Tonight it is our dinner with friends and our contribution is dessert. I made goodies last night and I’ll bring some of those but having just finished the chapter on Miriam’s cakes a cake demands to be made. I pull out my weathered and much beloved Pyrex bowls. The blinds are up, the windows are open. It’s unseasonably warm and I squint into the sunshine as gentle jazz floats into the kitchen from the living room stereo. The yellow bowl matches both the sunshine and my mood. I turn my back on the stand mixer and cream together butter and sugar by hand with a wooden spoon, tilting the bowl just like my mother showed me. Then the egg, cracked in a separate dish before being added to the bowl. The vanilla, measured by spoon because the cover and bottle is wrong for how my mother taught me to do it.
I pull out the flour and baking powder and think of both my mother and Miriam. I do something I never do anymore. I reach under the cupboard and pull out my mesh strainer. In goes the flour, baking powder and salt. I bump the strainer against my hand. Tap. Tap. Tap. The flour falls into the bowl in soft puffs.
I stir the batter just until all the flour is incorporated into the mix. Then goes in the sour cream, mixing again until just combined. I fold in the cup of frozen raspberries, mixing quickly so that they don’t clump together. The mixture is scooped into the waiting springform pan that’s been coated in butter. I scrape the bowl with my spatula extra carefully, getting every last bit of batter. Miriam would approve, as would my grandmother. Neither approves of waste. Miriam due to the starvation she and her family experienced in Europe. My grandmother due to living through the depression and the many hard times that followed.
It’s time for the topping. I don’t like it, I find it too sweet. But Lee likes it and our friends probably will as well. I use a small bowl, blue this time, and compromise by making only half the topping the recipe suggests. I combine the brown sugar and butter with my fingers until I can crumble it over the top of the cake. I feel both my mother and Miriam behind me approving the use of my hands for this task.
I slide the cake into the oven and pile the dishes into the sink for Lee to wash. The kitchen slowly fills with the scent of sweet cake. We wait.
We will wait for the cake to cook. When it comes out of the oven, warm and the berries a bit bubbly I’ll call out to Lee. “Come see,” I’ll say. “Come smell.” We will wait for the cake to cool. I’ll run a knife around the edge so it will come out easily later. We will wait to take it to our friend’s place. We will wait through the snacks that our friend can’t help but put out for us to ruin our appetites on. We’ll chat about what’s been happening in our lives, as it’s been too long since we’ve gotten together like this, just us four.
We’ll get the details on their Passover. They’ll get the details on our anniversary dinner. The two men may make plans to go to Easter mass together. We’ll talk about summer vacation plans, and the breakfast we have next week with a former co-worker and friend whom we’ve not seen since she was diagnosed with cancer (lungs and brain). We will wait until after the burgers are cooked on the grill, the first burgers of the summer. When our dinner has settled and we’ve moved on to coffee or cocktails the waiting will be over. We’ll cut into the cake and feast, not only only on the sweet cake, but of the heritage passed down to me from my mother and grandmother. And yes, from Miriam too.
Miriam stood with me as a baked this cake. No doubt she disapproved of my use of butter instead of margarine. She nodded with approval when I sifted the flour. When I looked at my hands as I stirred and mixed I saw my mother’s hands performing those tasks as she learned them from her mother. When Miriam cooks and bakes her hands perform the tasks of her mothers before her.
I am not Jewish. My kitchen is not kosher. But Miriam and I, we understand each other. We understand that this is how we pass on our traditions. We understand that it is how we show our love those closest to us. As I make my way through the book Miriam passes on her traditions and way of showing love to her daughter-in-law. Lee and I have decided, we think, to not have children. We’re not certain, we’re not quite ready to declare absolutely not, but we don’t think parenthood is in our future. And I wonder to whom I will pass down these lessons, traditions and ways of loving.
April 3rd, 2010 at 9:34 pm
You made me want cake.
I also sent this post to my food writing class online. That’s exactly the sort of book we love reading… and you do a gorgeous job writing about your own kitchen with it as a jumping off point.
Elizabeth W´s last blog ..April Foolish
[Reply]
sassymonkey Reply:
April 7th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
It’s a very good book. I recommend it very much.
[Reply]
April 4th, 2010 at 8:24 am
This beautiful post brought tears to my eyes. And it also made me put Mariam’s Kitchen on reserve at the library.
Virginia´s last blog ..Dancing at the Revolution
[Reply]
sassymonkey Reply:
April 7th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
I think you’d really like it Virginia. It’s got lots of short pieces in it and I can see you getting some really good writing prompts out of it.
[Reply]
April 4th, 2010 at 10:26 am
I can’t remember the last time I read such a beautiful piece of writing. I loved the connection you made between Miriam’s Kitchen and learning to cook with your mother. I loved the details of your own day, as you baked that delicious treat to share with your friends. If this were a book, I’d buy it, rave about it on my blog, and hand-sell it to all my favorite customers. This was simply outstanding!
Les in NE´s last blog ..Faithful Place
[Reply]
sassymonkey Reply:
April 7th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Aw, thank you Les. That’s one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever gotten. (And the cake was very good.)
[Reply]
April 4th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
I bought this book when it was first released, and love it so that I now own it in paperback, to lend, and hardcover, to keep. Whenever life seems just too hard and I am struggling too much just to hold on, I pick it up and read it again, loving it, again, and find strength to go on. Miriam and Elizabeth feel like personal friends by now, and I am always happy to find someone else knows and loves them, too.
Beth´s last blog ..
[Reply]
sassymonkey Reply:
April 7th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
The copy I’m reading is from the library but I foresee myself buying a copy. Have you ever tried any of the recipes?
[Reply]
Beth Reply:
April 17th, 2010 at 12:09 am
Yes, I have: the chocolate cake, the butter cake, the cream soup, to name a few. I would like to try the cheese Danish. I agree with what Miriam told Elizabeth, that ‘those women cooked by feel, they were going for a certain look,’ and that’s what I do, too. I know how my dough is supposed to feel when it’s perfectly kneaded, things like that…
Beth´s last blog ..
[Reply]
April 5th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
thank you for that wonderful post. i’m a synagogue librarian and MIRIAM’S KITCHEN is one of our enduring classics- everyone loves it. thanks for spotlighting such a special book with such a lovely post!
[Reply]
sassymonkey Reply:
April 7th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
It really is a special book. Now I have to confess my ignorance – synagogues have librarians? That is awesome!
[Reply]
April 8th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
this is a wonderful post about a wonderful book. i have re-read your post a number of times, i just enjoy your writing of it so much. thank you for reminding me of this book and of the importance of passing on traditions…
phyllis´s last blog ..How to Get Your Kids to Love Passover
[Reply]
May 29th, 2010 at 9:08 am
[...] never would have read Miriam’s Kitchen had it not been for Sassymonkey’s post, Miriam’s Kitchen and Mine – and tweets. And even then, if someone hadn’t nicely nominated it for BlogHer [...]