Isms: Views on life in rural America

I opened the wooden recipe box sitting on the kitchen counter the other day and was transported to my childhood.

It’s funny how reading recipes in your mom’s and grandmothers’ handwriting makes you long for certain foods.

The first recipe out of the box listed ingredients in mom’s seven-minute frosting: egg whites, sugar, water, white corn syrup, salt and vanilla.

I can see her standing at the stove, laboring over a double boiler, using a hand mixer to whip the concoction until peaks formed. It was a delicious final touch on her homemade chocolate cake to which she would add the secret ingredient: mayonnaise.

Those homemade cakes, topped with the sticky frosting, were a treat saved for special occasions, birthdays or holidays or an occasional cake raffle during halftime at a basketball game. Sometimes, she’d dust colored sugar on the crisp white peaks.

From Grandma Neola’s kitchen, I discovered a recipe for sour cream peach pie. Could’ve used it a few weeks ago when we purchased a lug of the sweet fruit. Wish I’d remembered I had it.

In true Grandma fashion, the instructions note, “Mix sugar, an egg yolk and sour cream with enough peaches to fill the glass pie pan.”

Reminds me of asking for her potato salad recipe.

“You need enough potatoes to fill the green bowl,” she told me.

Luckily, I knew which green bowl she was talking about. You’d dig it out of the cupboard to the right of the sink, top shelf.

I opened a recipe on lined stenographer’s paper, straight out of Grandma Larson’s kitchen. She made this delectable fruit cocktail cake, with a brown sugar and walnut crumble topping that was to die for. On the side of the Page, she wrote, “Serve with whipped cream.”

She always did.

The real gems of wisdom are noted on the back of the paper, where she warns about not using a cheaper brand of fruit cocktail since it tends to have more than one-half cup of juice than the recipe requires. Below that, she added, “Dream Whip is a good substitute for whipped cream.”

More than likely, she dropped a dollop of Cool Whip on each slice. She was an instant fan of the frozen topping.

Reading each of those recipe cards transported me to three different kitchens, interconnected with a hint of common ground and cupful of common sense. While I remember the taste and texture of each of the foods mentioned, I wonder if what I’m craving - more than a sweet treat - is the people who made them, time spent sitting around the kitchen table, the effortless ebb and flow of small talk. Maybe precious moments spent with loved ones, for even a brief moment, would alleviate stress and the constant motion of adulting.

Maybe that’s what we all need when the weight of everyday commotion becomes too much ... a little sugar rush and a lot of love ... to make sense of the world, to rediscover peace and innocence, curiosity and joy.

A recipe for connection. Praise the Lord and pass the pie.