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08/13/2007
Cooking with GrandmaRecipes are a lifetime in the making
Emmy Parsons learns from her grandmother, Sue Garthe, a recipe for Garthe’s homemade doughnuts. I can still remember the feeling of digging my fingers deep into the flour in my grandma's kitchen drawer. It felt like sand, only silkier. Every one of my cousins and I played in that drawer. We'd stand or kneel, depending on age, and play with an assortment of sifters, from the can-shaped hand-crank sifter with beater, to the flat and wide sifter we had to shake back and forth. And over the years, we ate the countless pounds of cinnamon buns, caramel-pecan rolls, Polish paczkis, cake, pies and cookies. But we never learned how to make any of them. Even my mom and her sisters never learned her recipes, and they grew up living with her. I decided the time had finally come to learn. I wanted to know how to make her doughnuts, but I knew it would be no small task. My dad's brother tried to get my grandma's cherry crisp recipe out of her once. He managed to get most details, but without ever having written the ingredients down, how could she possibly be expected to say whether she would include a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon in the recipe without actually making it right then and there? But I thought I'd give it a shot. So I gave her a call, rolled up my sleeves and got ready to bake. When Doug Tesner, the Record-Eagle photographer, walked into the room, I proudly proclaimed: "We're making doughnuts.” My grandma corrected me. "We are trying to make doughnuts,” she said. "There's a difference.” The first task she gave me was to mix one cup of sour cream with one teaspoon of baking soda. I stirred it too long, and the mixture started to spill over the edge of the measuring cup. Then she entrusted me with setting up the deep fryer, but when I snapped the heater into place, a bit of melted oil splattered. I decided to sit back and watch as my grandma taught me the mystery of her doughnuts. "This is the biggest secret about making doughnuts,” she said. "How you handle the flour.” I watched as she sifted the flour into the mixture and carefully folded it in. Mixing too quickly made the doughnuts hard, she said. "If you can't bite through 'em, it's very bad,” she said. She didn't trust me to try the mixing for myself. And so I watched as she made the recipe that she had made all of her life. And as I watched, I learned. I learned about the doughnuts, but I also learned about my grandma. She grew up in Lake Leelanau and went to school in Isadore — not learning English until the age of 14. "I was brought up very Polish, went to a Polish school, and my parents spoke Polish at all times, even after we tried to learn English,” she said. I learned how she and my grandpa brought my uncle Peter home from the orphanage even though they barely had room enough in their house for the five children they already had. "When he came here they said he was blind, deaf and had a very serious heart condition,” she said. "When they asked us, I don't know why they asked us, I didn't have room for him. My kids were sleeping two in a bed, and I had to put him in my bedroom, and I didn't have room between the bed and the crib.” Although I had always loved her treats, I came to appreciate them even more. I realized that mixed in with the flour, eggs and occasional cinnamon were countless stories from years of feeding an ever-evolving and expanding family. On my way out the door, I told my grandma that I would have to come back and try the recipes again and that the next time I would be in charge of the recipe. I know I'll go back and try again, but I don't think I'll actually make them on my own. I'm not sure if my grandma could sit back and watch and I don't think they'd taste quite the same if she did. There's something mysterious about a grandma's doughnuts. Grandma (Sue) Garthe's Doughnuts
Heat frying oil to 375°. Beat eggs and add in sugar. Once mixed, add shortening and vanilla. In a separate container, mix sour cream and baking soda. Combine those ingredients together in a large bowl. Gradually sift flour and salt into the mix, and fold it into the mix. Go slow and do not stir rapidly. The flour does not have to be perfectly mixed in. Spread a thin layer of flour out, and flatten the dough out using either hands or rolling pin into a circle about ½-inch thick. Cut into rounds and make holes in the center using your thumb. Use excess dough to make doughnut holes. Drop doughnuts into the oil, and gradually turn them. Remove once they are a golden brown color, or to taste. Pie Crust
Preheat oven to 450°. Handle gently. Mix flour, shortening and salt by hand or with a mixer. Gradually add in water, but do not stir. Makes 2 single crusts. To make a fruit pie: Start with oven at 450° for 20 minutes. Reduce to 350° for an additional 40 minutes. To make a single-crust pie: Bake crust at 450° for about 18 minutes. Emmy Parsons is a Traverse City Record-Eagle summer intern. A Traverse City native and 2005 graduate of Traverse City Central High School, she attends Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
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