To Jack Sh*t, Why I Bake

In my post Upping the Ante, my fellow blogger Jack Sh*t asked why I continue to bake for holiday gifts.

Well Jack, it's all about remembrance. Proust may have needed to take a bite out of that Madeline to send him on his journey of remembrance of things past, but for me its the actual baking that does it.

You see, my Grandmother was a holiday baker extraordinaire. Nana would bake at least a dozen different types of cookies every December. There were sugary cookies with an orange glaze she called "Aunt Louise's Cookies" after my Grandfather's aunt, rum balls, Jewel Cookies that were crusted in nuts with a dab of jam, these amazing almond meringue cookies that were covered in pinoli nuts, and so on.

Nana never used a written recipe. Although she only baked each cookie once a year, she kept every recipe in her head. Me, my mother and my sisters often baked alongside her, and had the foresight of actually writing most of the recipes down. We'd ask questions like "how much flour do you use?" and Nana would answer "about three handfuls." From there we had to concoct that "a handful" generally meant about 1/2 a cup.

Nana also made Fruitcakes which were actually baked as early as October and were an alcoholics delight. The process began by soaking dried fruit in rum for a week. After the fruitcakes were cooked, they were wrapped in cheesecloth and carefully tended to with generous douses of rum to preserve them every week for two months.

And she also made Stollen, which is a bit unusual because Stollen is actually a German Christmas bread. My Italian Grandmother usually never diverged from the Italian repertoire, but for some reason, which nobody understands why, she made Stollen at Christmas and not the more traditional Italian Panetone.

I often made the Stollen with her. We'd start the night before by making a starter of yeast, flour, eggs and butter. The next day we'd form the dough by adding more flour, then adding raisins and currents soaked in rum or brandy, dried fruits and nuts. Then we'd need the dough until it was soft and silky and left it to rise. It was then formed into loaves and allowed to rise again. Then we'd bake it, and when cooled dust the bread with powdered sugar.

None of us bakes the repertoire that my Grandmother did. My mother, me and my sisters all seem to have inherited a few of the recipes.

I bake two or three different cookies a year and have become the official Stollen baker (the Stollen is then passed out among family members). Whenever I do this baking, my Grandmother comes alive again. As I knead my dough, I can still hear her voice over me, guiding me, to make sure I get it right.

So now when I bake I bake with my children. It's through them that my Grandmother, and our traditions will survive.

I've often heard weight loss referred to as being a journey. But I think we need to remember that although moving forward is progress, we can't forget where we came from.

I doubt that for any of us Twinkies, Big Macs or crappy over processed foods really connect us to who we are, and our families.

But, if there is food that connects us to our past and our loved ones who have passed on, then we shouldn't give it up simply because we are trying to lose and maintain weight.

Eat less of it for sure, but if it's part of who we are, then we shouldn't just leave it behind.