Except for the bananas in Baba’s Banana-Walnut Cake…(my one and only exception)
Banana Walnut Cake
2 ½ cups flour 1 2/3 cups sugar 1 ¼ tsp. baking powder 1 ¼ tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. saltSift together into bowl.
Add:
2/3 cup Crisco 1/3 cup buttermilk (make using 1 cup milk and 1 ¼ tsp. vinegar) 1 ¼ cups mashed bananas (about 3) Beat with mixer medium speed 2 minutes by clock.Add:
1/3 cup buttermilk
½ cup unbeaten eggs (2 large)
Beat 2 more minutes. Fold in 2/3 chopped walnuts. Grease and flour pans. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes in 13x9x2 pan or 25 minutes in 2- 9” pans or 25 minutes for 27 cupcakes
Ice after cool with Whipped Icicing
½ cup butter ½ cup Crisco 1 cup granulated sugar 1 tsp. vanilla ½ cup warm milk 1 tblsp. flourBeat all ingredients 1- minutes. The longer the better.
At my grandmother’s (aka Baba’s), food was part of the visit. Her meals were the only ones that I seemed to remember during the ages 5 to about 15. (This means I liked them.) Running three different pierogie-making sites, two of which were for church and one for the Polish club, cooking was her middle name. Heading to her house on weekends for a quick visit brought the smells of wonder. Unfortunately, it was only every other weekend or so that we would stop for a Sunday dinner.
Polkas in the background meant there would be… An aroma. (She always listened to polkas [ favorite being Lenny Gomulka] when baking or cooking) You could always smell the butter, That was a few moments ago frying onions in the pan. (It was always real butter— never the “Country Crock” that I was used to in my household) There was always a sweet bite to this aroma. Because of the cream puffs (her signature) that were just placed in the refrigerator. Baba’s Cream Puffs 1 cup water 1 stick butter or margarine 1 cup flour 4 large eggsHeat oven to 400. Heat water and butter to rolling boil, stir in flour all at once removing from heat, stir vigorously until mixture forms a smooth ball. Beat in eggs all at once, continue beating until smooth and satiny. Drop on ungreased cookie sheet 2 inches apart using rounded teaspoons full. Bake 400 for 25-35 mins until puffed and golden. When cool, cut tops off and fill or use pastry bag.
Filling
1- 3 oz. instant vanilla pudding ½ pt. heavy whipping cream ¼ tsp. vanilla 3 or 4 tblsp. powder sugar 1 cup cold milkMix cold milk with the pudding, slowly add vanilla and cold heavy cream. Mix until fluffy and creamed well, slowly add powder sugar. Fill cooled puffs.
At Baba’s house you could eat your dessert before your meal.
Baba’s Top Ten desserts:
- Crescent Cookies (only featured at Christmas)
- Apple Pie
- Cream Puffs
- Nut rolls
- Tosse’s
- Kiffles
- Peanut Butter Logs
- Texas Sheet Cake
- Cream Cheese Squares
- Cherry Crumb Pie
Often, she would be the one sneaking a cream puff for us to try before heading to the dining room table for dinner. Christmas Eve dinner was the best time to pull this trick of treats before dinner.
The cans lined the hallway. Tin and large, Filled to the brim with cookies. Wax paper covered the bottom and top (preserved the freshness) Although they were always fresh. Too many to choose from. Fill your hand, Eat quick, Footsteps! Ugh mom.Food was a passion at Baba’s house. Everyone, including all six kids, tried everything…without a tear.
Baba’s Top Five Meals
- Guamkis
- Chicken Paprikash
- Chicken Scampi
- Homemade Pizza (honestly I think I like my dad’s a little better!)
- Everything featured at Christmas Eve Dinner
I wonder if my mom was jealous that my brother and I always finished our plates there…
…plus at Baba’s house you NEVER needed ketchup.
Ketchup, Specifically Heinz, (Still tastes the best to me today), Coated many of the meals at Mom & Dad’s.“Karen, you will sit there until your meal is finished. Do you understand?” A typical dinner growing up in my household. My brother often joined me at the dinner table long after my mother and father were finished. While they would walk and watch t.v. in the adjacent living room, we sat there either crying or staring at awful grilled chicken, some kind of vegetable (usually my least favorite red beets), and a starch (plain old baked potato) that we could not get down. The three essentials for a good mom to put out a good meal…definitely. The three essentials a five year old enjoys—definitely not. There was just something that left me literally with a “bad taste in my mouth” about eating at my parents’ as a child.
“Can you get us some ketchup?” Johnny or I would usually ask. Not until a clean plate was in sight, were we allowed to leave the table. Even covered in ketchup, the portions seemed so big and we could just not stomach them all…
Especially when you are a scrawny kid.
That is why ketchup played such a big role in both my brother’s and my life…to mask our meal. Sadly, even the ketchup at times was not a help. We prayed for the Heinz to be the sale of the week, but often it was not. And mom ALWAYS went for the sale or cheapest kind…which 99% of the time meant … <sigh> store brand.
Thank goodness for, our yellow lab, Pretzel. She did help us polish off a good amount of meals during our childhood. She would sit so faithfully under the table during meals waiting for the scraps.
(Only after finally finishing the meal could we have dessert aka peanut butter tandy cakes)
At my parents’ house, I hated food (minus dessert). I hated many types, but the worst of all were bananas and milk. Each morning, a banana would be cut up next to our bowl of cereal. I can still feel it oozing down my throat trying to get finished. Also, a full glass of milk was expected to be drunk, and it would help “wash the bananas down” as Mom would say. Each day, crying, I would down my glass of milk knowing what was to come next.
A sour stomach.
According to WebMD, “Lactose intolerance means the body cannot easily digest lactose, a type of natural sugar found in milk and dairy products. ” [1]
And Baba always had real HEINZ ketchup…but it never was used
At Baba’s the ingredients were rich. All wholesome …Wholesome meaning real butter, name brands, and a non-ketchup needing taste. Today, in my own baking and cooking, I stick to her tried and tested brands. Her pantry brand essentials consist of:
- Butter: Keller’s (2 for $5 is always a good price when on sale at Redners)
- Sugar: Domino
- Flour: Gold Medal
- Walnuts (or other nuts): Diamond
- Baking Soda: Arm & Hammer
- Chocolate Chips: Tollhouse
- Melting Chocolate: keep an 8 oz Hershey chocolate bar on hand
- Lard: any brand-but a “must have” for pie crust
She always told me to never skimp out to save 50 cents by buying a cheap brand. “They are cheap for a reason” stated Baba. This definitely contradicted my mother’s opinions to “buy cheap and what’s on sale”. With all Baba’s trial and error for the 60 years she has been baking, I use her advice. (I even play the polkas in the background when baking.)
- Baba
Maybe she’s my baking Buddha?
Christmas Eve Dinner- My favorite non-holiday
December 23rd each year is when the festivities truly begin at Baba’s…AND this is my favorite meal of all time. Tradition begins by packing my bag to go to Hellertown, PA, to spend the night at Baba’s, along with my two cousins Maggie and Michelle, to prepare for the feast.
Michelle, me, Maggie
We stayed over, talking all night (and drinking once of age) , yet still knowing we would hear “Girls let’s go …we got work to do” at 7:00 am Christmas Eve.
To do:
- Cook ham (after I put on the glaze)
- Cut and peel the celery
- Get the leaves for the table
- Chop the olives and mix with cream cheese
- Get the roué going for the mushroom soup and kapusta soup
- Bread haddock
- Set up the table doing fancy napkins (thanks to Google and my iPhone)
- Make cookie trays (and cover for “after dinner”)Finish mushroom soup – all (with Baba’s guidance we could learn)
- Fry pierogies (plum, potato, and cabbage)
- Plate pierogies (remembering to keep the cabbage separate due to none of the six grandkids liking these)
- Fry (then bake) fish
- Boil kielbasa (when a stove burner opens)
- Slice special Wegmans bread = Without a doubt the best you can find in the area. My Aunt Laura usually will stop on her way to dinner to pick up an amazing loaf of Marco polo and Champagne. It is all about taste in my family! (or was I bias because of my love for my employment at Wegmans?)
- Microwave the corn (really.)
- Greet family
- Put all food at the table
Xmas 2009 Table
Then, they arrive. Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia! (Merry Christmas)
Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun
Roll out the barrel, we’ve got the blues on the run
Zing, boom, tararrel, sing out a song of good cheer
Now’s the time to roll the barrel, for the gang’s all here
Food appreciation=Christmas Eve
Thanks to the fabulous Christmas Eve dinner at Grammy’s, I truly appreciated food more as a kid and especially the work that went in to a meal. It is amazing that a whole day of preparation from 7 am until about 5 pm went all away in about 20 minutes or so! I savored every bite of that meal knowing this. As I got older, working at Wegmans also contributed to my new food appreciation
The meat department
Working at Wegmans was where my adult food love, outside of Baba’s house, began.
Getting ready and beginning my shift, Helping customers pick the best meats for their meal, Whether it be a sirloin for grilling, Or a chuck roast for slow-cooking, To this day, I still have an eye for those meats. Recommending recipes, Cutting steaks, Making ka-bobs, I loved every second.Wegmans was my favorite part-time job.I learned a lot from the training we were put through, called Meat University. This was where we worked with our boss to learn about all the cuts of meat, where they came from, and the best ways to cook each piece, to allow a recommendation to future customers. I even began to try and cook at home some of the recipes I learned.
Trying different foods, for the first without ketchup (and on a non-Baba food!)Wegmans allowed me to explore my taste buds. I tried everything at our weekly “meat ralley” from chicken sausage, to feta veggie burgers, and even grilled pork chops. Loved them all! Working at a grocery store definitely meant you spent some money on food! I would stop by the tea isle and get my Yogi Egyptian Licorice mint, which I grew fond of, or fresh vegetables from the produce section. Whatever I needed, I could find it at my Wegmans store. Working there from age 19-22 taught me a lot. I learned to cook and learned that even today…
Wegmans has the cheapest Diamond Walnut prices.
Often before leaving work at the Meat Department in Wegmans, I would get a “Karen, phone’s for you” from one of the other workers. “Karen, it’s Baba. Can you please pick me up four bags of diamond walnuts on your way home? I have three more nut rolls to make, and the prices are the best at Wegmans.” And, of course, I would. Plus, that meant a stop to Baba’s and most likely a meal.
Today, I find myself stopping at Wegmans for my Diamond Walnuts to make Baba’s kiffles or tosses. I care today about the food I purchase and am looking for the wholesome taste I grew up from Baba’s.
Food You Feel Good About
Now that I am watching what items I buy, specifically meats and produce. I found Wegmans offers a great amount of organic and locally grown foods, which is my new passion at the age of 25. When I got married, I began to slowly explore the art of cooking. I began to care what went into our meals and what could make them taste the best.
Today, I find myself going up to the Allentown Wegmans in search of more organic produce. The Food You Feel Good About label is the items I often purchase. This label, according to Wegmans, means they are “free of artificial colors, flavors or preservatives, free of trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils, fresh meats are from animals not given antibiotics, hormones or animal by-products”. [2]
I began to start paying attention to where it all comes from…and as I “grew up” I started to care.
Slowly, I find myself transitioning into an organic eater. During this slow transition, I found my favorite deli Good Eatz, began my Wednesday trips to Leesport Farmers Market, and started purchasing mostly local produce. I want to know where my food came from and the best ways to cook it. I care about the taste and want to find the freshest and best in Berks county. Even trying to eat less of the items with ingredients like corn syrup and choose more natural ingredients is also on my transitional list. However … Ketchup. Specifically Heinz. (Still tastes the best to me today.) I now like eating…wholesome foods, (most times making my Baba’s recipes), And I no longer need the mask of… my Heinz ketchup. (Except on a good cheeseburger!)
[1] “Lactose Intolerance.” WebMD Medical Reference from Healthwise. 3 August 2009. 20 July 2010. < http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/tc/lactose-intolerance-topic-overview>
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