Guilty Comfort Foods Eliza's Secrets

9780970441010

0970441010

Stirs up nostalgic memories with ethereal photos, simplistic dessert recipes, and an idyllic story of a mysterious woman from another time. The woman, it turns out, is Bick's grandmother, and the recipes were hers, found after her death in a faded pink box at the back of a forgotten stairwell closet. Bick has put the pieces she found together and woven a story about her grandmother's life told not from a granddaughter's point of view, but from a romantic's perspective. She knows little about her grandmother's state of mind as a woman, but through re-creating her hand-written recipes she imagines what life was like for this farm woman who gave birth nine times and was widowed at age thirty-eight. Bick has rewritten all the recipes, removing what she calls 'grandmother code' -- such as 'two lumps of butter the size of eggs' or 'butter the size of a walnut' -- replacing the nebulous text with standard baking measurements of teaspoons and tablespoons. Tantalising descriptions introduce each recipe with hints of garnishing, like adding fresh berries to the One Egg Cake that otherwise might be plain and uninspiring. Bick includes old-fashioned desserts like Depression Cake, developed in a time when butter and eggs were in short supply. Rounding out the cake and pie selections are easy recipes for Cake Doughnuts, Drop Sugar Cookies, Buttermilk Biscuits, and sinful Cinnamon Rolls. There are 28 recipes included in all, each with its own picture. The evocative photos by Tom Casalini included in the book pair deliciously with the country dessert recipes, though none of the photos are of food. The pictures capture people in ordinary situations: an aproned woman sweeping a sidewalk next to a late 1950's Chevy pick-up truck; an elderly couple sitting on a wooden bench, on the covered porch of an old white farmhouse, flanked by two American flags that are blowing in the breeze. The recipes and photos play off each other, creating moments of sensual solace. The pairs establish a sentimental connection with the reader, an invitation to travel back in time to visualize a country kitchen perfumed with sugar and spice. The 'Guilty' part of the title is well earned. The recipes are packed full of butter, sugar, whole milk, and other fattening and high calorific ingredients. Bick makes no excuses. Her reasoning is that self-indulgence is one of life's sweet rewards.