Back in June, my prose poem “Instructions for Perrine” was published in an Ekphrastic Review challenge. Inspired by Helene Schjerfbeck’s Factory Workers on the Way to Work, I joyfully toiled over the piece for a few days and was so pleased to see it in print. It’s only 100 words! If you’d like to take a look, click here and scroll down to the 9th piece.
Did you know that first editions of Martha Stewart’s 1982 Entertaining sell for $100 or more? This cookbook occupies a chunk of my childhood kitchen memories. Mom’s baguette recipe, or “Homemade French Bread,” is from Entertaining. Her battered copy—a first edition—was often open on the kitchen counter. It has been so loved that it no longer has its cover. I have my grandmother’s lake house copy, also a first edition. I pulled it out this week and reunited with Martha in her frilly blouse, reigning over her dining room table. The lake house copy is gently used. The dust cover has a tear and the spine is askew, but the tome is intact.
Since I possess the vacation house copy, I can only learn so much about Grandma’s relationship to Martha’s seminal publication. The French bread pages are stained, so she surely tried her hand at this recipe. The pages for the Midnight Omelette Supper for Thirty are rumpled and splattered. I’m guessing she made Swiss Cheese Omelettes or possibly Creamed Spinach Omelettes for friends who were up for the weekend. I am confident that the Red Caviar and Sour Cream Omelettes never happened in the Clear Lake Kitchen.
Grandma Mary Ellen was my “cookie grandma,” and she was forever in search of the next best cookie. A few scratchy brown spots tell me that she may have tried her hand at Alexis’s Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies. Given the splashes on page 125. she must have made Almond Cookies as well.
Martha’s recipes speak to me too. I savored delectable Lions’ Head Meatballs at a dinner party in France last year, and I discovered that Martha has a recipe for this dish in her Chinese Banquet for Ten to Twelve menu. Mom suggested I make the Stuffed Chicken Breasts from the At-Home Wedding menu. I could serve these the next time I invite students to dinner. The Apple Tart Normande is calling my name; I’d just have to acquire a bottle of Calvados.
It’s good to be back in this space. Stay tuned for future musings…