The Best Gift I’ve Ever Received
“Hey, throw me a dinner roll!” Dad called to my aunt across the table. She plucked a roll from the wicker basket, then pitched the bread at Dad’s head.
We all laughed, grateful for the comic relief that distracted us momentarily from the absence of Grandma Gracie. It was our first family holiday without her. Her absence reminded us of the other missing face at the table. Grandpa had passed away many years before. Our family kept getting smaller as we lost the elders to disease and old age, and as bigger towns and better opportunities pulled the youngsters away. The only ones left were my aunt and uncle, sometimes cousins, and the six of us — Dad, Mom, my three sisters and me. Everything else was the same — the smell of turkey and bleach, the prayer before supper, the kids going on about what they didn’t want on their plates.
The turkey sat in the center of the table on a large porcelain platter. Mom liked to carve it, then put it back together in the shape of a bird. It grossed me out, but she thought it was hilarious. Pots, bowls, and casserole dishes filled with everyone’s favorite side dishes fanned out around the platter.
When Grandpa was alive, he used to host the family dinners. He made the egg noodles from scratch. He rolled out the dough then used a pizza cutter to slice it into tiny strips. I can bet that you’ve never had a better noodle in your life. And, do you know what you’re supposed to do with those noodles? You put them on top of your mashed potatoes, then drown the whole mess in brown gravy. People out here on the East Coast look at me like I’m crazy when I talk about my favorite Indiana food traditions. But holidays weren’t quite right without mashed potatoes and noodles. Mom reluctantly served the store-bought variety due to a lack of counter space.
We also had stuffing (Stove Top — because no one but Mom liked the oyster stuffing that Grandpa had given her the recipe for), sweet potato casserole, and cranberry sauce. The cranberry sauce came from a can and made a scchhoooopp sound when you popped it out. But have you ever had the non-canned stuff? It’s nasty.
My aunt always brought the green bean casserole. As soon as she stepped in the door, she’d announce, “I’ve got the green bean casserole!” I’m pretty sure it’s from an old commercial, as many of our traditional family sayings were.
My absolute favorite dish on the table was the scalloped corn. Grandpa started the tradition years ago. After he had passed away, Mom and Dad took over as holiday hosts. They made all the same old recipes, passed down through the generations, and we never got tired of them. In fact, we looked forward to them all year.
In the hours before supper made it to the table, Mom labored in the tiny kitchen, while Dad paced the house, sometimes sitting down with my sisters to watch the parade or the dog show. I bounced back and forth between the kitchen and the living room — cleaning and re-cleaning, fluffing pillows, washing dishes, chasing after my sisters, transferring their toys from the living room to the bedroom while they busied themselves moving everything right back.
I tried to help with whatever she needed. It seemed like a stressful venture, cooking such an elaborate meal for almost a dozen people, but she handled it effortlessly.
“Peel these potatoes,” she said. I got out the potato peeler. She shook her head and handed me a paring knife. “This is faster, and it wastes less,” she always said.
I peeled the skins into the trash can, then started chopping the potatoes in my hand. “You’re just like your father,” she sighed as she got out the cutting board. She was right. Dad never used a cutting board. To this day, I rarely do when it comes to potatoes. It drives my husband as nuts as it used to drive Mom to see me holding a potato in my palm, slicing downward toward my vulnerable flesh. But, in my defense, the only time I’ve ever cut myself cubing potatoes was the one time I used a cutting board.
Most of the time, I stood in the doorway trying to keep from rubbing elbows with her as she raced around the kitchen, expertly chopping, stirring, seasoning, and basting. I was in awe of her cooking skills and her ability to plan everything just right so that everything was done at the same time. Sometimes, she gave me mini lessons while she cooked. Those were my favorite. I pretended she was a cooking show host and I was the audience. I repeated her words in my head, trying to memorize the bits of cooking knowledge she so freely shared.
I watched as she started the scalloped corn. She opened four cans — 2 cans each of sweet corn and creamed corn. Then, she expertly flicked her wrists and drained both cans of sweet corn at once. I imagined the camera zooming into the bowl as she did the tricky part — adding the perfect amount of sour cream. “Too much or too little can ruin the whole recipe,” she said. “You usually need about a cup. Sometimes ¼ cup more. Sometimes ¼ less. See this color?”
I stepped closer to look into the bowl. The color was light yellow.
“That’s the color you want,” she said. “If it’s too white, it won’t cook out.”
Then, she dumped in a box of Jiffy corn muffin mix (only Jiffy will do — no store brands allowed for this recipe). She handed me the butter and told me to grease the casserole dish, so I did it just like she had shown me. I put a pat of butter in the dish, then smeared it around with a paper towel, taking care to hit the corners.
After she had poured the lumpy mixture into the casserole dish, she popped half a stick of butter in the microwave, just long enough to soften it. She cut the soft butter into slices and fanned them out over the top of the corn mixture. “You can even poke some down into the batter,” she said as she used the butter knife to sink the pieces of butter into the lumpy yellow corn ocean.
At supper time, the corn casserole was the first thing we all put on our plates. There were rarely leftovers. And if there were, they were fought over.
After I got married and moved out, I fumbled my way through the holidays — usually with just my husband and me in attendance. Sometimes we had friends over. My husband handled the meats, and I did most of the sides. I could never time things right, and I was always flustered. Mom used to make it look so easy. It certainly wasn’t. I made the mashed potatoes and noodles, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and Stove Top, but there was always something missing, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.
Then, a few years after we had moved away, Mom sent me a box for Christmas. Inside, I found a fat envelope stuffed with index cards. On the first card, she wrote: “I hope you’ll enjoy making these recipes for your family as much as I enjoyed making them for all of you.” She had handwritten a dozen or so recipes of all of my favorite foods growing up.
Tears formed in my eyes. It was the most meaningful gift I’d ever received. As I flipped through the index cards, I could see her sitting on the couch, glasses on her head or on the arm of the couch, a movie playing in the background as she wrote out her favorite recipes from memory. She probably wondered what type of things I cooked. Did I cook like her? Did I make green beans three times a week like Dad? Did I still cut potatoes in my hand?
When I saw the recipe for the scalloped corn, I realized that that’s what we were missing every holiday. I could hardly wait for the next holiday so I could try it out. When Easter rolled around, we invited our East Coast friends over for a taste of Indiana home cooking.
That afternoon, I read the recipe carefully. Checking three, four, five times to make sure I had all the right ingredients laid out on the counter. It’s probably the easiest recipe in the world, but I was nervous. I thought there was no way I could make it as good as Mom’s.
I poured the corn and Jiffy mix in my biggest red mixing bowl, remembering Mom’s metal ones and the sound they made when you scraped the edges with a spoon and the way they spun on the counter when you used a hand mixer.
“1 cup of sour cream (maybe a ¼ cup more or less),” I read.
What if I mess it up? “If you add too much, to where it’s really white, then it will not cook out. Go slow…” she wrote. I carefully measured a cup of sour cream and stirred the mix with a long wooden spoon.
Then, I poured the lumpy batter into the dish, popped it in the oven and waited an hour to see if I could duplicate the old family recipe.
It turned out just like Mom’s, but it wasn’t quite the same without the tiny kitchen, the flying dinner rolls, the faces of family around the table, and the imaginary cooking show.
Scalloped Corn (Corn Casserole)
Ingredients:- 2 cans whole corn — drained- 2 cans cream style corn- 1 cup sour cream (maybe 1/4 cup more or less)- Box Jiffy cornbread mix (dry)- 1/2 stick butterDirections:Butter casserole dish. Use a smaller size dish if you prefer it to be thick. :)In a large bowl, add drained whole corn and cream style corn.Melt butter a bit — just until soft. Set aside.Add sour cream and mix well. If you add too much where it’s really white it will not cook out. Go slow…Add 1 box Jiffy cornbread mix. Stir well. You want the batter to be thick. Pour into casserole dish. Spread butter over top. You could even poke some down into the batter. Bake at 350 for one hour or until golden brown. Let set before serving.
