Friday, July 10, 2009
Mom's Death
My mom, Alice Evelyn Kvasnak, died on 26 April 2009, one day before my birthday. Since then, Kvasnak homecooking has taken on a new meaning for me. It is connecting with my past. And it is also celebrating my mom.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Kvasnak Home Cooking
Our family has it roots in Bergnersreuth, Franconia (Germany), Eastern Slovakia (Čirč)
& Hungary (Keczkemet). Many of the dishes that we enjoyed as kids came from there. But our cooking was also strongly influenced by the invention of home frozen food storage (Birdseye), canned soups (Campbells), TV dinners, Americana, and Betty Crocker.
No purist would feel at home in a Kvasnak kitchen. Influences from many places are blended in a Kvasnak kitchen. Grandpa Kvasnak’s mushroom hunting skills, Grandma Kvasnak’s swifter than Yan-Can-Cook slicing when making homemade noodles, Grandma Pine’s belief that you should have at least two vegetables of a different color on every lunch and dinner plate challenge Emerald’s Kick-it-up attitudes of the Cooking Channel.
Dad’s Boiled Pig’s Feet, Mom’s Frozen Fruit Salad – as ethnically different as they are, they weave the web of our eating habits. If you have forgotten them, go back. Go back and try them out. Memories will flood your mind. Memories of your childhood will return to you and pull you into their magical spell of childhood.
Do not be afraid of where we came from. Do not be afraid of who you are. But put aside differences, put aside bias, and let us recognize what we have in common rather than what makes us different.
Sit down to some Stuffed Cabbage, some Mushroom Soup, some Spaetzle and think about the other members of our family. Do you remember harvesting cranberries on the shores of Lake Okachobee? Do you remember letting those cranberries ripen in the sun on the dock? Do you remember gathering blueberries in New Hampshire and making a Blueberry Pie? Do you remember buying lobsters in Gloucester from the boats and cooking them live at home? Do you remember Mom’s first oven-baked chicken and scraping up the drippings from the oven pan? Do you remember Bishop’s Lebanese Restaurant in Lawrence MA? And Mom’s hors d’oeuvres at Christmas: white bread cut out with Christmas cookie cutters smeared with the tamale and the row of lobsters? Do you remember Grandma Pine’s chocolate Christmas turtles, her butter cookies and her spice bars? Do you remember Christmas caroling on Smithshire Estates with top hats?
Those are my memories. I am sure that you have more and others. Please share them with us all. These memories will keep Mom and Dad and all of us alive.
Our family has it roots in Bergnersreuth, Franconia (Germany), Eastern Slovakia (Čirč)
& Hungary (Keczkemet). Many of the dishes that we enjoyed as kids came from there. But our cooking was also strongly influenced by the invention of home frozen food storage (Birdseye), canned soups (Campbells), TV dinners, Americana, and Betty Crocker.
No purist would feel at home in a Kvasnak kitchen. Influences from many places are blended in a Kvasnak kitchen. Grandpa Kvasnak’s mushroom hunting skills, Grandma Kvasnak’s swifter than Yan-Can-Cook slicing when making homemade noodles, Grandma Pine’s belief that you should have at least two vegetables of a different color on every lunch and dinner plate challenge Emerald’s Kick-it-up attitudes of the Cooking Channel.
Dad’s Boiled Pig’s Feet, Mom’s Frozen Fruit Salad – as ethnically different as they are, they weave the web of our eating habits. If you have forgotten them, go back. Go back and try them out. Memories will flood your mind. Memories of your childhood will return to you and pull you into their magical spell of childhood.
Do not be afraid of where we came from. Do not be afraid of who you are. But put aside differences, put aside bias, and let us recognize what we have in common rather than what makes us different.
Sit down to some Stuffed Cabbage, some Mushroom Soup, some Spaetzle and think about the other members of our family. Do you remember harvesting cranberries on the shores of Lake Okachobee? Do you remember letting those cranberries ripen in the sun on the dock? Do you remember gathering blueberries in New Hampshire and making a Blueberry Pie? Do you remember buying lobsters in Gloucester from the boats and cooking them live at home? Do you remember Mom’s first oven-baked chicken and scraping up the drippings from the oven pan? Do you remember Bishop’s Lebanese Restaurant in Lawrence MA? And Mom’s hors d’oeuvres at Christmas: white bread cut out with Christmas cookie cutters smeared with the tamale and the row of lobsters? Do you remember Grandma Pine’s chocolate Christmas turtles, her butter cookies and her spice bars? Do you remember Christmas caroling on Smithshire Estates with top hats?
Those are my memories. I am sure that you have more and others. Please share them with us all. These memories will keep Mom and Dad and all of us alive.
Welcome to Kvasnak Home Cooking
Christmas 2008
Kvasnak Home Cooking
This is a cookbook that you will not find on amazon. Neither Border’s nor Barnes & Noble sell it. These are the original recipes – most of them handwritten by my Mom – that have fed hungry Kvasnaks for many years.
Maybe you remember some of these dishes now that you read them. They may be things that you remember from long, long ago and have forgotten. Maybe you have some others that I did not find. I had to call cousin Andrea to get the recipe for Mushroom Soup.
In order for us to better communicate about any additions that you may want to make, I have started a blog at www.kvasnkahomecooking.blogspot.com where you can add through comments.
The idea came to me this year while staying with my parents. Mom loves her Frozen Fruit Salad for Christmas dinner. And every year up until now, she has prepared it. This year she will not be able to because she is bedridden. So I wanted to make it for her. In the kitchen I found her treasure trove of recipes. And then I suddenly thought that all of you would want these recipes, too.
In a family that is as diverse as is ours and so spread apart, there is little that binds us together – but food does.
I hope that you enjoy this little book. It is not fancy. It is a statement all of its own about who we are and where we came from. Like Grandma Pine used to say: “Sag mir was du ißt und ich sage dir wer du bist!” (Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.)
I send you this book with the wish for peace and love.
Kvasnak Home Cooking
This is a cookbook that you will not find on amazon. Neither Border’s nor Barnes & Noble sell it. These are the original recipes – most of them handwritten by my Mom – that have fed hungry Kvasnaks for many years.
Maybe you remember some of these dishes now that you read them. They may be things that you remember from long, long ago and have forgotten. Maybe you have some others that I did not find. I had to call cousin Andrea to get the recipe for Mushroom Soup.
In order for us to better communicate about any additions that you may want to make, I have started a blog at www.kvasnkahomecooking.blogspot.com where you can add through comments.
The idea came to me this year while staying with my parents. Mom loves her Frozen Fruit Salad for Christmas dinner. And every year up until now, she has prepared it. This year she will not be able to because she is bedridden. So I wanted to make it for her. In the kitchen I found her treasure trove of recipes. And then I suddenly thought that all of you would want these recipes, too.
In a family that is as diverse as is ours and so spread apart, there is little that binds us together – but food does.
I hope that you enjoy this little book. It is not fancy. It is a statement all of its own about who we are and where we came from. Like Grandma Pine used to say: “Sag mir was du ißt und ich sage dir wer du bist!” (Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.)
I send you this book with the wish for peace and love.
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