Kooky families and Good Food

I stumbled across this blog, Aunt Peaches, and smiled as I read about the far reaching story around a family tradition recipe for Apple Kuchen. What a great tribute to a kooky family.

I think a lot of us have stories like this that we just don't realize we have.

For a woman who could not hear and rarely spoke, Big Alice could communicate across an ocean with her facial expressions. In fact, it was not until Herbert’s mention in the parking lot that day that I realized she was deaf. In my mind, we had spoken dozens of times. Heck, we were pals! She played in my blanket fort. I fetched her unfiltered cigarettes from the patio. She saw me hide brussel sprouts into my napkin and didn’t tattle. I didn’t say anything when I saw her taking a swig off a wine bottle in the kitchen just before she took it out to the table. Herbert’s news that she was deaf came as shock. In vain I searched my memory for the sound of her voice.

Isn’t it strange how the very young and the very old have no problem communicating without words?

Her nickname, Big Alice, was misleading. The woman weighed as much as a wet hamster. The name came only after she had a daughter, dubbed Little Alice, whose daughter then became known as Tiny Alice. As fate would have it, Tiny Alice recently had a baby girl named Emma, which is a lovely name, but I was really looking forward to one day adding an entry to my address book under the name Infinitesimal Alice.

I'll be coming back to this blog. And yes, Peaches, people are like cook books.

My sister years ago took upon her and (her husband) the task of making a Family Cook Book, "Hot Rod Recipes", which went way out of the box. I still refer to it; some good food, good stories, good graphic art, and a great way to remember people who've gone and shuffled off this molten core.