Food and Family

When I was a child, one of my favorite places to be was in my Nana's kitchen. It was warm, there was always some scent wafting from the oven, and it was filled with family and friends. Sometimes it was just the two of us, or sometimes my Bubbie and great aunts joined in. Later it was my mother, my sisters, a neighbor or friend. For as long as I could remember, Nana's Lena's kitchen was always filled with love.

Nana would give each of us something to do, each according to our ability-- shelling nuts, sorting raisins, making matzah balls-- and as we worked, she would tell us stories. Her stories of Berkley Virginia sounded like fairy tales of a long ago far away place. Although I passed through the tip of Berkley every time I took the downtown tunnel into Norfolk, it bore no resemblance to this mythical land where no one locked their doors at night and where everyone was related to practically everyone else. Berkley was a Jewish shtetl, a transplanted bit of the old world, settled by a handful of Lithuanian Jewish men who came to America in the late 1800s and brought their families after them. My great grandfather was an ice man in the summer and in the winter he bought and sold fur pelts. My Bubbie Minnie's family was from Kiev. She was born on the ship coming to America, arriving in the New World only hours old. The Gustomilsky's settled in Baltimore, which had a thriving Jewish community and plenty of work.

So back to food. I always like to tell people my great grandparents fell in love because of a piece of fruit. A pear to be exact. Here is the story Nana Lena used to tell:

"In 1904, Mama went to a dance hall in Baltimore. She was eighteen years old. Morris Goodman also attended the dance that night. Now, Morris couldn't move his feet, but Mama, she was some kind of pretty, so he walked up to her and told her she was pretty, and he asked her if he could walk her home. On the way they stopped at a fruit stand, and he bought her a pear. We always laughed at that. He bought her a pear, and he walked her home. And the next day, when she came home from work, he was sitting there waiting for her with another pear. Now they had two. That was when Mama decided that this was the man she would marry."

So today, in honor of my great-grandparents Minnie and Morris, I am making a pear crisp based on the apple crisp recipe in the book.

Pear Crisp
4 cups peeled, sliced pears
1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup white or brown sugar
Butter a deep baking dish and put the pear slices and water into it. Mix together remaining ingredients and spread over pears. Bake at 350° about 30 minutes, or until pears are tender and crust is brown. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
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That's all for today. Let me know how it turns out. You may need to adjust it according to your own oven and baking dish.

For more info about Nana Lena's Kitchen, go to www.nanalenaskitchen.com