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Good Letters

Last Tuesday night, there was no dinner in the house, but at the bottom of the refrigerator drawer was a bag of middling-sized potatoes that I had bought at the local farmers market, and which, if I waited any longer, would sprout.

After considering for a moment, I went to work. I rinsed and scrubbed them with a clean sponge, and boiled them on the stove in a heavy Dutch oven. I drained and then mashed them, adding a stream of white milk, a couple of scoops of butter, and salt and grindy pepper. Because I do not have a food processor or even a flat wire potato masher, I used a good old everyday fork to mash them in a bowl, until they raised snowy peaks like freshly whipped cream.

I tasted them: They were very, very good. And although my husband and I have an egalitarian approach to domestic affairs, I beamed with a kind of ancient female pride when he went on and on at the dinner table about how great they were, along with the chicken and the salad.

It struck me that these days you practically never hear about anyone making homemade mashed potatoes. There are the highly-spiced, artisanal “smashed” versions one is served at bistros along with, I don’t know, slow-roasted pork loin, and then there is KFC.

But mashed potatoes! Making them was insanely easy. It made me wonder why anyone would ever buy a box of the instant stuff again. Two days later, I followed up by making, from scratch, an apple crisp. That was good, too, only next time I won’t use Granny Smith apples, which were a bit too tart.

I should also say: these were weeknights. I had work the next day, a preschooler underfoot, and dizziness from my unexpected pregnancy. But the effort, such as it was, was entirely worth it, and I made a vow to get beyond mere roasted meats, steamed vegetables, and salads.

Undoubtedly in the back of my mind as I went about these culinary adventures was a book that, for most of the last 10 years, I have tended to reread every fall: Miriam’s Kitchen by Elizabeth Erlich.

Published in 1997—one of what seemed like a spate at the time of memoirs and novels that included recipes—the book documents a year in which Erlich, a New York mother from a secular, “Old Left” Jewish background, learns to cook from her meticulously observant mother-in-law, Miriam, and moves herself toward a more Orthodox Jewish observance. The daughter of a restaurateur and a survivor of the Holocaust, Miriam has lived now for decades in the Bronx, but her household and cooking labors—done only with a few old pots and no exotic equipment—continue to make her faith vividly tangible:

For Miriam, the week curved toward Sabbath, each day a referenced journey to that goal. Always she worked, and worked hard….Whatever the work, whatever the week, by sundown on Friday, Sabbath was ready.

The dawn of Labor Day, as the rest of humanity barbecued, picnicked, and walked the beach, meant for Miriam a mustering of forces for the fall holidays: ordering meat for Rosh Hashanah, grating apples for cake, choosing New Year’s cards, and addressing them in the careful, ornate script she learned in a Polish village school before her childhood caved in. Spring brought Passover cleaning, anxious checklists, lining shelves, changing dishes. Each day, each lunar month, moved her closer to another holiday, festival, observance, each with its custom, preparation, food.

As a child, I was raised in a nominally religious Christian home, but one utterly devoid of that kind of ritual and ceremony, and it was something for which I always longed. The faith was never incarnated in the home. Perhaps this has to do with the ethereal nature of Protestantism itself, the grand, invisible, “saved-by-grace-through-faith” philosophical construct on which it depends. I think it also has to do with the fact that my mother despised the cooking that she diligently performed (21 meals a week for eight people), and in another era would have been the first to buy frozen Ore Ida hash browns on the way home from the office. (My great iconic memory of my mother is of her neglecting the housework for hours to watch the Watergate hearings.)

It was that longing for rigor, for faith that meant something tangible on a daily basis, that led me a dozen years ago to convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity—another faith whose New Year begins in the fall. Now I mark the seasons with Christopsomo bread at Christmas and roasted lamb at Easter, and already, at four, my son associates Easter with bright red eggs.

It is not even remotely as complicated as keeping kosher—the direction toward which Elizabeth Erlich’s spiritual journey ultimately takes her, which re-orders her priorities, pots and pans, and kitchen shelves. Read this book to understand how Erlich’s concentration on the tiniest details of everyday life brings light and meaning to her family. After reading this book, I, too, hesitate before putting cheese in a pan that has held meat, and think of chametz when I vacuum the crumbs under the sofa cushions. Rosh Hashana is coming in two weeks now, and I think before heading off to the Greek Festival that I might just as well make Miriam’s apple cake.

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