This porridge is j..u..s..t right!

Thank you Amy for this picture

I wish I had more memories of Grandma and Grandpa when I was growing up. The few that are alive with me today are very dear and I remember them as if they were yesterday. One very vivid memory in Grandma’s kitchen (where else) was at a family reunion.

Probably within days of this picture when I was nine or so years old I had woken up before anyone else and made my way to the kitchen. Happy to find Grandpa playing solitaire at the table, I sat down next to him and watched quietly as he won his game. I said to him “Your cheating, Grandpa” then he said, “Go get some oatmeal!” Until this day, I win every game of solitaire I play.

From what I remember, Grandpa would get up early before anyone and make a pot of oatmeal. As we woke and made our own way into the kitchen, the oatmeal was waiting to be consumed. If I have misinterpreted my memory, please let me know.

I like my oatmeal on the clumpy and sticky side. It is often very difficult to achieve this texture unless the pot sits for a while and who has the time to wait? Occasionally I will eat out at Mimi’s Café where they have perfected the art of oatmeal. For anyone who does not know Mimi’s, the theme is a French Quarter New Orleans setting with French style art, music, instruments and jazz. A very fun and delicious place to eat. They serve an enormous portion of buckwheat oatmeal with sides of brown sugar, raisins, granola and milk. I like mine with the above except the granola.

Today I have made a pot of this Kellerman concoction and it is as good as I remember in Grandma’s kitchen.

I miss them.

Lev Gonick Fudge

Ethereal shoe leather

When I was little I thought Lev Gonick Fudge was a standard flavour like Russian or Whiskey Fudge. There were certainly lots of things that we ate at home that no-one else seemed to have heard of, but which I understood to be due to cultural differences between New Zealand and America.

I was quite old when I realised that, really, even in America no-one knew about Lev Gonick Fudge. That's because Lev Gonick was not actually a culturally exotic flavour but the name of the teenage boy who developed the recipe, one of my babysitters in Canada, where I lived until I was three.

This is such a simple recipe that I learned to make it when I was about 5 years old. It's also delicious, and quite robust, surviving pretty much any variation you can throw at it. But don't bake it too long, which is what I did yesterday, or goes rather on the tough end of the chewy spectrum. It's still yummy, but you have to work quite hard at it, and with fragile teeth like mine, that's not the kind of workout you necessarily need.

This week I've moved into a new share house, so a new kitchen with a bulging pantry of exotic delights and redundancies. I was determined to make Lev Gonick Fudge with whatever was available so used the following substitutions for the fudge pictured above:

• instead of vanilla I used almond marzipan flavouring
• instead of brown sugar I used up the last of a jar of sticky raw sugar, and topped it up to a cup with castor sugar
• instead of walnuts I used half a bag of slivered almonds of indeterminate age

The resulting version of Lev Gonick has a heavenly, ethereal quality from the marzipan flavouring. It smells divine but tastes delicately (rather than intensely) of marzipan which is a bit at odds with the shoe leather texture.

Here is the original recipe copied from my old recipe book, recently unearthed from storage with glad cries. It's an ideal sweet to make when you are craving brownies but want to bake with cocoa instead of solid chocolate.

Lev Gonick Fudge

Combine:

• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 2 tbsp cocoa (heaped)

Mix in a medium sized bowl:

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup walnuts

Add the cocoa mix to the rest of the ingredients, mix well.
Bake in an 8" pan at 350 degrees for 25 mins (or just until firm).
Ice as soon as removed from the oven.

For the icing combine:
2 tbsp butter
1 1/4cup icing sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
2 tbsp hot water
When smooth and glossy spread over hot fudge.

Wait until cool and firm before eating (if you can resist that long).

I find my favourite recipes by turning to the pages stained cocoa.

The little red hens are: Kimberly,Meliors, Martha, Judy and Loretta

I have spoken with many of my lovely aunties and mother and cousins. They all are looking on Nourish us frequently looking for a treat or a story. They all have many stories to share and I have offered to post for the feint of heart. So bring me your stories ladies and I will post them. Betty, Edwina, and Jessie. I will accept hand written scraps of paper, emails or whatever you can send. Lets keep this beautiful site alive.

Thanks to Kimberly, Meliors, Loretta, Judy and Martha for all your wonderful stories and please keep them coming. They are more special than you could possibly know.

To my aunties and my uncle you are my first village. You all had a big part in me being who I am. I was with grandma and grandpa a lot growing up an was blessed with their love and was in the mix of whatever they had going on whether it be cooking or driving around on the emergency break picking up 4 carloads of people that needed a ride to church. They took me to church camp and on family adventures.

You are such a beautiful and diverse group of siblings. You all have a different story but it all seems to come back to love and grace no matter the path that you all have taken. We have a common thread, all of us. We saw love up close and with all the flaws we witnessed and were given unconditional love. Wow I am lucky!

I am getting to know my cousins more and more and they too are part of that legacy. We all seem to have some of the optimism that grandma served warm in her kitchen. We also have the strength she had to get done today what must be done no matter how she felt. She was no quitter and neither are we.

I remember having extreme discomfort in my sciatica during a pregnancy and was walking like a wounded duck. She said "Amy stand up straight and walk like it doesn't hurt and it will hurt less." she was right. She told me she always stood tall when she was carrying a child. She believed smiling could make you feel better and it does. Life was not easy for her but you never knew it by her smile.

I miss her everyday and you my dear family are my link to her and my larger than life grandpa. So lets continue sharing and remember the blessings. There were so many. So lets help with this feast of the heart.