Favorite Recipes of My Mother and Grandmothers

I was twenty-one years old when I came to the American continent. I had no experience in cooking. My brother pitied my new husband. He would only get a record played for dinner. I would not even be able to boil water. There was no problem with cooking during the first months of homemaking. My husband and I ate at inexpensive restaurants, and in the workplace cafeteria. Later, we had an apartment with a kitchen. We bought pots and cooking utensils. Shopping for food was thrilling. There were so many wonderful vegetables, meat, and fruit. However, except for tea and coffee, many cooked dishes had to be discarded. They were inedible—undercooked, overcooked, impossible combinations of spices and ingredients. I had to look into the only cookbook I had—my mother’s cookbook from the turn of the last century, given to her at a convent school in 1912. It was compiled for ignorant young housewives who eventually had to take charge of cooking and baking, menu preparation, and special holiday specialties for an entire household. Therefore, the result was that I cooked as my mother and grandmothers did, remembering the taste and appearance of the dishes. Watching Julia Child in the seventies demonstrating many cooking methods and techniques now made sense to me and completed the mere list of ingredients. Later on, my dinners with friends and family had to have German dishes. They were a special treat since they could not have these meals anywhere else. To pass on the recipes and techniques of cooking, making jams and pickles, and of course, baking, I had to compile these for my children and young family members. This was the beginning of writing down my German recipes. They are basically Alsatian and Rhenish dishes. After retiring and not having a family to cook for anymore, my interest moved on to growing food. In California, in the Mother Lode Country, I have a fruit orchard with special varieties, vegetable beds, and bees. I am passionate about homegrown vegetables, being active in the local farmers’ market.