The Sunday Memory Drawer - Baked Goods

Oh, my God, it's my grandmother's stove.  Well, not hers exactly.  But this sure does look like it.

I've been going very retrospective with regard to food these days.  Remembering the way we used to cook and dine when I was a kid.  And, for some bizarre reason, I am now duplicating today some habits from the childhood years.

When I was young and trying to sleep a little late on Saturday mornings, I would awaken to glorious smells wafting up from downstairs. 

Grandma was baking.  As usual.

This was her normal Saturday morning habit.  I once asked her how long she was doing this.

"As long as I can remember.  Why do you ask so many questions?"

Indeed.  When it come to her baked goods, I shouldn't have quibbled one bit.  Not that any of it was elaborate.  Grandma was not Paula Deen.

Your basic pound cakes with probably a stick or two of butter.

Bread pudding.  Anything starch that was remotely stale in her pantry got tossed into this mixture.  Waste not, want not.  And then, into the bowl, went about five or six boxes of raisins.

Pies.  With crusts rolled out from scratch.  Usually apple which she had sliced the day before.  But, in the summertime, her pie franchise concentrated on just one fruit.

Rhubarb.  Grown in our backyard.  Now people cultivate their gardens for a variety of vegetables.  Tomatoes. Cucumbers.  Beans.  Who the hell grew rhubarb in their backyard?

My grandmother. 

Once the weather got warm, she'd be out there in the yard with what I remembered as a machete, but was likely just a sharp knife.  Hacking away at the rhubarb plants so we could amass a pile of stalks to stew.

Now I've never made a rhubarb pie myself, although my two cousins in Florida apparently still duplicate Grandma's recipe to a tee.  I do remember the process, though.  These rhubarb stalks would stew for a while.  Then, Grandma would mix in a box of Jello to flavor it all.  This concoction would get poured into a pie crust she had already baked.  Then chilled.  At some point, she'd pull out of the refrigerator and adorn it with fresh whipped cream.  I had likely already licked the beaters for this.

And that was it.  Pure heaven. 

Eventually, Grandma got smart on how to keep the rhubarb pies going all year round.  She'd freeze the rhubarb and then make pies for the holidays.  A sensory perception that I wish I could experience just one more time in my house.

While Grandma was working her baking magic downstairs, there was zero going on in the oven upstairs in our end of the house.  The most my mother baked was never. 

"That's why Schwerger's is in business."

Schwerger's Bakery was on First Street near Eleventh Avenue in Mount Vernon, New York.  Like most bakeries back in that day, it was run by a German family.  And this German family was its ideal consumer base.  Even though there was the weekly allotment of home-baked goods sequestered in Grandma's pantry, I was usually the only one sneaking in there to sample it.  My folks stuck to whatever white box with striped string had been purchased from a bakery when my dad did his Saturday morning errands. 

A cheese struedel.

A crumb cake.

A fruit cobbler.

This would be his (and sometimes my) breakfast for the next couple of days. 

This practice would continue like rote for years.  It actually outlived most of the German family bakeries which went out of business over time.  The new chosen baked good for our family every week came from...

Entenmann's. 

Nothing fancy, but always reliable.  Dad was partial to the coffee crumb cakes.  I loved the chocolate chip loaf.  Grandma?

"I can do better myself."

And she did.  Every time I snuck into that pantry of goodies.

When we finally had neighbors build a house on the vacant lot next door, we were blessed to know the purchasing family that I have written about before.

The Antlers.  Max, his wife Anna, and his sister Minnie.  The fact that we were that close now to a Jewish family was enough of a mindblower for our household.  But, Max, who worked as a baker in the overnight hours, became an instant friend on their second day as neighbors.  He knocked on our back door and Grandma answered it.  Probably reluctantly.

"You eat bread?"

Grandma nodded.

"Well, every morning I will bring home breads and rolls and leave some at your back door."

And that's what Max did every day that he was alive.  Onion rolls, Kaiser rolls, rye bread, pumpernickel.  Every morning.  On weekends, it was even better. 

That's when the pastries showed up.  Of all sorts and shapes and kinds.  My folks and my grandparents gobbled it up as if it was water in the middle of the desert.

Everybody but me.  Gee, it didn't look like the stuff we normally get from Schwerger's Bakery.  I would hold up some alien piece of pastry and ask what it was.

"Rugelach."

Huh?

My mother would lean over and whisper to me just in case anybody was listening to her slight prejudice.

"It's Jewish."

Huh?

"I said....it's Jewish."

That was enough for me.  I turned up my nose as I did any food that wasn't American, except for spaghetti, meatballs, and pizza.  Yeeech!

What a stupid kid I was.

My grandfather dipped his rugelach into a cup of coffee and smiled.  He liked it?

"It all goes down the same hole."

It wasn't long before I was a fan.  And the house was filled with even more baked goods.

I don't know why, but I have suddenly started to bake in the year 2013.  On Saturdays.  Just like Grandma.  A butter pound cake came out perfectly.  A crumb cake was okay.  An adventurous bread pudding was okay, but required three Brillo pads to clean the dish. 

But the smells are the same.  And I'm suddenly a little closer to my grandmother all over again.

And, thinking about these past traditions, I think about those Entenmann cakes my dad used to buy every week.  Even though they are now available in Los Angeles,  I don't think I have ever bought one here.

But, on those weeks when I am camped in my Yonkers, New York apartment, what do you find in my kitchen for breakfast every morning?

Yep.  So, sensory perception is not just about sight or smell.  It's also apparently bi-coastal.

Dinner last night:  Chicken skewers at Malibu Fish Grill.