How My Daughter Brought My Grandmother Back to Me

Grandma Regina's beloved recipes — collected on fading index cards — helped to connect essay writer Candy Schulman and her daughter, Amy. Sarah Rogers Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

From June to September during my childhood, Grandma Regina lived in her own apartment on the first floor of our house in Brooklyn. She summered in New York to escape the heat of what’s now

known as South Beach, Miami.

When Grandma arrived, I’d greet her before she unpacked, watching her remove the tortoiseshell hair comb to free her curly locks. Time seemed endless until she fished out the annual gift

from her suitcase: a pecan nougat bar and coconut patties.

An even better gift came every Sunday morning, when I’d awaken to the sweet smell of butter melting and see the cinnamon oozing. I’d dash downstairs to be sous chef to 4-foot-8 Grandma

Regina. Those mornings, she wore her baking uniform: a shapeless housedress, high-topped black shoes and stockings rolled to beneath her knees. Her fingers always smelled like sugar and

butter.

Grandma Regina had come to this country from Central Europe in her teens, and she spoke five languages. We were never sure which country she was from, since the borders had changed. But her

baking was heavily influenced by Vienna. Her refrigerator was packed with rising dough balls in pottery bowls — to be transformed into rugelach, Danish and strudel.

In her kitchen, she’d extend a spoon full of sugary cheese mixture to me, the official taster. “Is it good enough for mine Danish?” she’d ask, her accent changing “my” to “mine.”

“I’m not sure,” I’d pretend, securing another taste.

Only Grandma could produce a perfect circle from the laborious process of rolling out dough. She let me spread walnuts for the rugelach and cut them into pizza-slice-shaped wedges. I loved

to curl the wedges into crescents, but my favorite pastries were her streusel muffins: coffee-cake cupcakes with a crumb topping.

Packing to return to Florida grew more difficult for her each September. Sighing, Grandma would say, “Throw away mine pans. I’m too old to bake.”

“I’m not throwing anything away,” my mother — her daughter-in-law — would respond. “You’ll bake again.” Grandma was a master pastry chef, whereas the closest my mother had ever come to

baking was opening the plastic wrap from Hostess Twinkies.

Still, as Grandma got older, my mother wanted to document her recipes. One day when I was in my teens, my mother and I sat down with a pad in the kitchen and started taking notes.