Yorkshire Pudding and Toast

Kate, 

Your Yorkshire puddings look wonderful.  So tall! Maybe it’s the newfangled Yorkshire pudding molds that you use.  I’ve always wanted to try them.  I still make my Yorkshires in large muffin tins.  That is the way my mom made them and Grandma Huntriss too.  Though every once in a while mom would make one great big Yorkshire in a pie plate and serve it in wedges.  Christmas dinner is coming, probably won’t make any until then, but my taste buds are getting ready!

Funny you should mention the smell of toast at Grandma H’s house.  Yesterday Udon made some toast. Udon is the nickname of my youngest daughter, she loves to eat anything pasta-like.  At the time we gave her this nickname she was studying Japanese, thus we call her Udon (Japanese for noodle).  Pooh is my middle daughter, more on her later.  Anyway, I didn’t know Udon was in the kitchen.  When I opened the door from my room the smell of toast wafted down the hall and I was taken back to Grandma’s house. 

It was the same every summer that I visited Grandma. I would get up sometime after all the adults.  I would slide down those very steep stairs with the green carpet my untied bathrobe trailing behind me, hoping I would stop before I reached the bottom stair and my feet hit the closed door.  Then I would slowly open the door into the white-floored hallway.  As I opened the door I would smell the toast; always burned – or maybe it was the crumbs in the toaster that were burned but it was that smell.  I would sneak over the closed kitchen door (there are lots of doors in that house) and see if I could open the door and enter the kitchen before any of the adults noticed me.  Of course I never succeeded.  My mom had ears like a hawk and she was waiting for me.  There they were sitting at the table in the kitchen nook, Grandma and Grandpa H, Mom, and Dad.  The morning paper would be spread around the table, different sections for each person.   Coffee cups and empty plates were scattered among the leaves of news.  I know that there was marmalade and creamed honey but I don’t remember much more.

This scene repeated itself year after year and even into my college days except at some point I stopped sliding down the stairs and trying to sneak into the kitchen.  It is fun to know that you smelled the same smells at Grandma H’s that I grew up with!

There was one other very specific time I remember that smell.  It was after I gave birth to Udon at Swedish-Ballard Hospital.  It was mid morning.  The smell of Grandma’s kitchen came wafting into my room.  Such a pleasant feeling rushed over me and suddenly I was hungry for toast.  At Ballard-Swedish toast is always available in the maternity ward and within a few minutes I had toast in front of me and my youngest daughter in my arms.  The world was right.

With all the emphasis we put on food these days I sometimes wonder...have we have lost the taste for the simple foods and all they can bring?
Love,
Mom

Yorkshire Puddings

I love Grandma's kitchen and thinking about it always makes me remember the smell of nearly-burnt toast slathered with butter and creamed honey. To this day, that smell takes me back!
What I associate even more with Grandma and Gram is Yorkshire Puddings. I remember your mom teaching me to make them the first time, giving me pointers like, "make sure you get your pan as hot as you can," and, " mix your batter ahead of time so it can come closer to room temperature before you cook it." I don't think she even had a recipe. This was just one of those things she'd made so many times she could do it with her eyes closed!
Here is her recipe, as told to me one summer when I was about 14:
YORKSHIRE PUDDING WITH BEEF:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
30 minutes before beef rib roast or boneless rib roast is done, mix all ingredients with a hand beater just until smooth.
Heat a muffin tin in the oven. Remove beef from oven; spoon off drippings and add enough melted shortening, if necessary, to measure 1/2 cup.
Increase oven temp to 425 F. Return beef to oven, place hot droppings in heated pan; pour in pudding batter.
Bake 10 minutes. Remove beef, continue baking pudding until deep golden brown, 25- 30 minutes longer.
Kate

Naked Potatoes

Kate,

It’s good to hear that you are making food that was a family favorite when I was growing up.  I learned to make them from Grandma Huntriss.  She was the one that called them "Naked Potatoes".  I don’t really know if they have a name.  They are so simple to make and satisfying too.  Just peel and half smallish russet potatoes; toss them veggie oil and salt then arrange them single layer in a baking dish, cut side down. 

Grandma always used a glass rectangle Pyrex baking dish, a clear one not a tinted one.  I know that any baking dish would work but, for some reason they can only be grandma's naked potatoes if they are baked in a glass dish, maybe it's because it the only dish I ever saw grandma use or maybe it is the way that they look as they near their finished state...anyway.  Grandma would drizzle the potatoes with a bit more oil - enough for her to baste them occasionally while they baked.  They were done when they their color was golden brown on the tops, and the bottoms, which became a deep golden brown released from the pan.  

What is so wonderful about these spuds is that, when made with russets, the outside has a crispy, crunchy, bite to them and the insides explode with soft potato essence. I guess they are nothing more than glorified homemade french fries but when served with slices of beef from a pot roast or a meatloaf, green beans and a salad they seem like so much more. 

I remember one time Grandma made these potatoes.  The pot roast was resting on the counter and the potatoes were finishing in the oven.  She was standing over her stove making beef gravy in the black roasting pan, the kind that everyone had, with the white speckles.  There she stood, mixing and stirring the flour and water into the beef dripping.  I was standing next to her, drooling, I'm sure, watching her make the gravy. She wasn't teaching me how to make gravy but I think I was learning through osmosis.  Any way she was humming as always, and asked, "What do you think? Enough?"  I didn't know how to tell her "NO!" More gravy, we need more!  My Mom came in about that time and said to Grandma, "Mom, I think we will need more than that!'  Poor Grandma, I remember her face falling a bit, disappointed that she had failed to calculate the amount of gravy needed ...Suddenly she smiled, and the humming started again, broken by a giggle and she said, "I forgot how to cook for a crowd! It is so good to have family here.  More gravy it is!  Isn't family wonderful?" 

I learned more than how to make gravy and naked potatoes that day.  I learned to sing and hum while cooking…something that my Mom did and I’ve heard you do too.  Isn’t it amazing what we learn in the kitchen?

Love,

Mom