This year because of the pandemic I found myself alone in my apartment in Manhattan for the holidays. When I listened to the first Christmas carols on the radio, I began missing the dishes I prepared each year, including last year.
There were the stuffed mushrooms and the boiled shrimp with three sauces that I always served on Christmas Eve. The mushrooms had to be pure white. Finding twenty of the just-right size often required a trek to more than one market. Making them involved a series of laborious tasks. One year, in the interest of time, I substituted another recipe that required no scooping, chopping, sautéing, or basting, and that could be made in a quarter of the time.
As we sat down to eat, my youngest son asked, “Did you leave your mushrooms in the kitchen? If you tell me where they are, I’ll go get them.” He was visibly disappointed when I told him they didn’t exist. At the end of the meal there were several of the fake variety still on the serving dish.
Each Christmas Day the menu included turkey with stuffing and gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and, of course, my mother’s famous baked beans. This year when I began to feel sad, I remembered Christmas dinners of years past, especially the one two years ago when the existence of those much loved dishes had been in jeopardy.
My mother, who only had a small refrigerator, would place her freshly baked goods on our screened-in porch to keep them cool and fresh until the big days arrived. After those meals were enjoyed, she’d put the tasty leftovers out there too. South Dakota winters were as cold as a refrigerator, and reliably so.
In 1966, my husband moved from Chicago to Manhattan to take his first job. He was lucky to find a high-rise apartment in a lovely neighborhood that he could afford on his beginner’s salary. It had a large terrace and, though it was only a studio, there was plenty of room for a bachelor. It became a squeeze however when we were married. Then, after our first child was born, it was downright cramped. The alcove (we called it a “bedroom”) became almost all bed when a crib was added in the corner.
Meanwhile, the apartment next door had stood empty for more than a year. My husband, who loved to plan and build, had his eye on it. After months of negotiating and obtaining permits, we bought it and quickly hired a contracting firm to connect our original apartment to the new one. Just in time! Our second son was born a few months later.
With that, each child had a small bedroom, and we became the owners of two kitchens. We never used the second one that came with the new apartment for its intended purpose, but as a storage unit instead. My husband’s building materials and paint, the boys’ ice hockey sticks, sleds, the Christmas ornaments, all took up residence. And, of course, the combo fridge/freezer was perfect to store back-up food and beverages for our sons as they grew hungry teenager appetites.
The Other Kitchen was my own “screened porch,” right here in New York City…until that year. The extra refrigerator, installed when the building was constructed and now well past its 60th birthday, had died. What would I do during the holidays! There is the terrace, of course. But the temperature in New York fluctuates too much to give one any confidence in the food staying safe.
I thought of asking a neighbor for help. But most of the people I knew on my floor had long since left to winter in Florida. A friend who lives five blocks away offered the use of her refrigerator, but maneuvering through the busy neighborhood while carrying heavy casseroles would be treacherous on icy streets in the wind; attempting even that very short distance could mean disaster for the entire holiday.
I rang the bell at a new neighbor’s door in desperation and explained my predicament. She and her husband were about to leave for a few days, and she graciously juggled her food about to make room for my things. She left me her keys, and my sons and I ferried containers of food back and forth across the hall all Christmas-long.
The next year as Christmas approached, I noticed my helpful neighbors were nowhere to be seen. I didn’t have a contact number for them, and soon began to wonder if they’d decided to leave the city early. As the days went by, I realized I’d have to order and reserve the turkey soon. I started revising, paring down my menus with a growing sense of dread.
Our traditional Christmas Eve dinner would have to be served minus the baked mushrooms. The poached shrimp would stay, but unaccompanied by the three sauces I always made to dip them in. The tart cucumber salad that was a nice foil for the delicately flavored shrimp, would be sacrificed. The Christmas Day roast turkey, mashed potatoes, and dressing were non-negotiable. But the cranberry sauce could go. I’d be the only one to truly miss it anyway. Worst of all, in order to free up a significant amount of space, the baked beans made by generations of women in our family, and loved by all of us, would not be served. And would there really be enough room for the shrimp? I’d have to order fewer shrimp.
By this time, thoroughly disheartened, I began to revise my shopping list. Then, seemingly out of a scene from a Hallmark Christmas movie, I heard someone in the hall. I hurried out. There was my neighbor! Yes, she’ll be happy to help me again! There would be baked beans, after all, at our Christmas table that year.
Now this year, even though no one will be entering my apartment, I hung our wreath on the door. I began addressing cards. As carols and new holiday pop songs continued on the radio, I realized how bare my apartment would be without that must-touch-the-ceiling giant fir tree hung with decorations collected by my husband and me from all over the world, and a pang hit my heart.
In its stead and to honor the season, I placed a cluster of small tinselly trees, a few angels, and a carved wooden tree that my brother had given us thirty years ago about the living room. Then, having mailed Santa stockings to their appropriate destinations, I hung my lonely Santa stocking in its usual location.
The following morning I opened an email from my eldest son’s fiancé. Would I send the recipes for his favorite dishes? Of course, I replied. It’ll be an easy thing to do, I thought. Scan them and hit the Send button. But through all those years, I’d scribbled notes and changes of ingredients that I’d made in the margins. Handled so many times by hands that left smudges, they were almost illegible, even to me. I spent several hours deciphering and retyping before they were on their way.
No, I won’t be buying the ingredients, storing them at the right temperature, or making these memory-laden recipes this year, but in another kitchen, another will be recreating the Scoblic’s Christmas dinners.