An Apple A Day...

   

  There’s a great show on the Cooking Channel called My Grandmother’s Ravioli, hosted by Mo Rocca. The basic premise of the show involves Mo visiting grandmothers around the country and learning how to cook their specialties. In his travels, he learns much more than the recipes for their food. He learns about their culture, family, and life experience.

   The first time I saw the show, I couldn’t help thinking about my husband’s Grandma Ida. She would have been the perfect candidate for a show like that.

   I actually met Grandma Ida long before I knew my husband. A girl in my dorm was her niece, and Ida would pick her up for dinner on Sunday nights. Picture the good fairies in Cinderella; that’s Grandma Ida. Short and fluffy with a sweet face and kind demeanor, she would even ask us to join them for dinner, knowing ,we too, were from out of town.

   When I started dating my husband, she was the first to ply me with food. Her baked goods were incredible, but she was best known for her apple strudel. She decided I needed to carry on the recipe and arranged a day to teach me (probably the most impatient person in the kitchen) and my best friend , Nadine (definitely more suited to the task) the secret to making her amazing strudel.

She began by placing a clean white cloth on the table and covering it with flour. I wasn’t aware that the weather and humidity affected the outcome of the dough, but the flour was to absorb any excess moisture while we were kneading the dough. After punching and pounding the yeast-risen dough over and over, we gave it one more rest before beginning the process.

   A cup of tea was poured and she had to sit down because the punching and kneading was wearing her out. She needed her energy for the next step, and I soon understood why.

    As I waited for her to throw the risen dough on the table to flatten out with a rolling pin, she took her little chubby fingers and began to stretch the dough like a salt- water taffy machine. Her arm span couldn’t have been any more than four feet, but she worked the dough like a pro. Pulling it and stretching it until the layers were almost transparent, she explained that a rolling pin could never give her the texture she wanted. Stretching the dough was the secret to her flaky crust. Grandma gave Nadine a try and she was pretty successful, but when it was my turn, the dough ripped apart in my hands.

   Patient and kind, Grandma Ida blamed the humidity for my obvious lacked of finesse in the baking department. She softly helped pull the dough and had me lay it on the table. “We’ll let you put the filling on the layers once it’s all stretched out,” was her sweet way of saying, “I’ll do this!”

   In a way, I think she enjoyed being the only one who could make the strudel. Years later, my brother-in-law was able to get close, but he used a pre-made phyllo dough and never dared to compare it to hers. My friend Nadine is a caterer now, so it's possible that she could pull it off.

   But even today, 35 years later, I think of Grandma Ida when I eat anyone’s strudel and wonder if she’s watching.  If so, she knows that no one has even come close to hers and I’m sure that makes her smile.