The Secret Ingredient
Sarah Groundwater
Every time a holiday rolls around I feel inspired to get out my mixing bowls and Kitchen Aid to spend glorious hours baking up endless supplies of cookies, cakes, and tarts.
Valentine’s Day is no different. I plan on making red velvet cupcakes sprinkled with tiny red hearts, cherry fudge cookies and a no-pudge chocolate cake dripping in soft chocolate icing and rose petals.
Something about tying my apron and dusting flour sends me to a happy place, perhaps because it takes me back to my grandmother’s kitchen. I used to spend each summer with my grandma on the farm: endless days of walking through wheat fields, picking strawberries at the U-pick farm in our floppy hats, or toiling in the hot prairie kitchen baking butter tarts and popcorn balls.
Right before my grandma passed away, I went to her kitchen to learn the art of making popcorn balls—I think these are a prairie delicacy. We put on aprons, melted a big pot of butter and marshmallows, and went to work. Mostly my grandma went to work while I ate the newly formed sticky concoctions. She also taught me how to make the perfect pie, starting with a crust we would roll out with the help of Crisco. Even my grandma’s skin was soft and powdery, as if she was covered in flour all the time. I will never go to that kitchen again, but the smell of it will always stay with me. And so will those lessons of careful measurement and delicate balance.
When she died, I took her box of recipe cards to have that important piece of her with me always. I look at those worn cards with spots of molasses or egg hiding the words. I especially cherish the recipes marked “Mrs. Della’s fudge cookies” or the ones with only the ingredients and no way to tell how to bake them.
My grandmother never cared for perfection—she only cared for taste and love. It sounds slightly cheesy, all right very cheesy, but love is one of the most important ingredients. I know that on Valentine’s Day I will bake cupcakes that are slightly lopsided and may crumble a teensy bit when I ice them, but they will taste delicious. Grandma’s butter tarts were always slightly squishy, but they melted in your mouth and made you audibly groan over how tasty they were. The reason they both taste so good? Because we made them with our loved ones in mind, to enjoy and savor.
My grandma may be gone, but I think of her every day. Her recipes live on in my memory and in my oven.