certainly had the love and attention to put in her nut rolls; she just didn’t have a good recipe.
“Her nut roll recipe really is just awful,” Bess almost pleaded. “How about I give you my nut roll recipe for her to use?”
“So?” Eleanor cut in. “What’s she saying about my baking?”
“Oh, nothing much,” I replied. “Do you have a pen and paper? She’s so thankful that you called and got me out here to help that she wants to give you a recipe—her recipe for nut rolls.”
“A secret recipe?” Eleanor breathed, her eyes widening and sparkling. She got up breathlessly and fetched me something to write on and with.
“I don’t know if it’s secret,” I answered truthfully. “But this is the first time a ghost has ever given me a recipe.”
Eleanor smiled broadly, and I could see it in her eyes that this one “secret” recipe summed up for her everything she remembered from her childhood about her family’s cooks, and all the “secret” recipes she wished she had now.
I also have fond memories of the wonderful smells that always came from Grandma’s house. On my mother’s side—the Italian side—it was Grandma’s spaghetti sauce and Grandpa’s pizza. There was homemade wine, with the fragrant aroma of grapes always drifting up from the basement. On my father’s Bohemian side, the food was heavier but just as memorable and delicious: nut rolls and doughnuts and the weighty scent of yeast and hops for Granddad’s beer. Visits were little more than one long excuse to eat and drink and eat some more. The food never ran out, and the beer and wine flowed in an endless stream.
That was the era, though. The women usually stayed home and kept the house, and the week was divided into chores around that: Monday was laundry day, Tuesday was for ironing, Wednesday for cleaning. But Saturday was for cooking and baking for the next week, so when we visited, there was always something fresh and delicious to be had. Cooking, baking, preparing food—that’s just the way it was.
Now we try to pack all those food-related memories into holidays, and we spend a week off work trying to cook from scratch without really knowing what to do. We follow recipes designed not for taste and nutrition, but for efficiency and show. We try to cram everything into one or two special meals, or one big meal a week, and invariably something goes wrong or the food doesn’t come out right or it just doesn’t taste like you remember it tasting when Grandma made it.
This book sets out to right those wrongs that so many earthbound spirits have perceived. These aren’t recipes from TV or created to highlight some trendy ingredient. These are recipes so beloved that the living asked me to get them before a loved one crossed over, or so meaningful that a loved one wanted to make sure it was kept by those they left behind. These are simple dishes from typical homes with basic kitchens, from all over the country. Some recipes are what we’d now call ethnic, while others are tried-and-true recipes with unique twists that add so much to the flavor. The best part is, they can’t help but also inspire the kind of love and attention that fills homes with mouthwatering aromas and creates long-lasting memories for guests.
These are recipes for some of the best home-cooked meals you can find, because they actually came from homes: straight from the kitchens of the mothers, grandmothers, uncles, and grandfathers who prepared—and perfected—them over a lifetime. We say it’s difficult in our modern society to find the time to make a fresh soup, but we still feel like we should try, and for good reason. Nothing will ever beat a home-cooked meal for nutrition, value, and satisfaction—that’s one thing every spirit who has passed on a recipe from beyond agrees on.
Eleanor called a few weeks after my visit and after Bess had crossed over. She was overjoyed but also circumspect. No one had ever asked for her nut roll recipe before, but since she started using Bess’s recipe, suddenly people were, and she didn’t know if she should give it out. In the end, she figured it should remain a secret recipe—but I found out much, much later, when she died herself, that Eleanor shared her secret recipe with almost everyone in the parish!
And now I’m passing on all these “secret” recipes to you. I think you’ll agree with me that everything in this book is beyond delicious.
Bess’s Nut Roll
FILLING:
½ cup water
½ cup sugar
1 cup walnuts
Bit of vanilla or grated lemon peel
Dough:
1 cake yeast
¾ cup warm potato water
½ cup sugar
3 eggs
½ cup lard or butter
Dash of salt
4 cups flour
For the filling, boil water and sugar together, then let cool. Add walnuts and pound into a paste. Add a bit of vanilla or lemon peel, and stir until smooth.
For the dough, dissolve yeast into potato water and add a little bit of sugar. Then combine remaining sugar, eggs, lard, salt, and flour. Let dough rise about 1 hour. Roll out into a rectangle. (Hint from Bess: Roll out dough on a floured cloth, then roll up by picking up the cloth. It makes a nice tight roll that way.) Spread with walnut filling.
Let dough rise again until doubled in size. Place roll, seam down, on greased pan. Brush with egg wash. Bake at 350 degrees for 30–35 minutes.
CAULIFLOWER SOUP
THE LONG NEW ENGLAND WINTERS had given Ann much more than a passing interest in “hand piece” work—linens, scarfs, doilies, anything crocheted. If it involved handiwork, she loved it, not only to make herself but also to buy and collect. (To be honest, it was more so the latter.) She spent her winters poring over her collection and marveling at the ingenuity and craftsmanship that had gone into every piece, running her fingertips over the fine stitchery with reverence. The only thing she wished for was to know more about the seamstresses and embroiderers who had made them.
Some of the linens she’d been given by friends and relatives, and she knew their stories, of course, but more often than not she spent her time rummaging through thrift stores and boxes at church sales, amassing new finds she could go over in more detail once she was snowed in. It was these she always wondered about, and it was a unique find that would finally afford her some insight into the artisan.
A lot of the pieces she found were close to ruin with stains and rips. These she’d carefully nurse back to their former glory with gentle hand washings and by applying her own talents for repairs. Even so, sometimes she found pieces that couldn’t be saved. Sometimes they practically disintegrated the moment they touched the soapy water, and sometimes the fabric was so worn that there was nothing left to use to hold the rips together.
That was the case with the box of flour-sack dishtowels she’d found at a farmhouse estate sale. It was a set of eight and she took them all, but she wasn’t sure any of them would survive. The fabric hadn’t been designed for longevity, and then the towels had been stuffed in a box for who knew how long. But they were beautifully embroidered with vegetables—green peppers, carrots, onions—and a relevant message or thought regarding each one, such as “Don’t cry” for the onions. Only four of them
