by Writing Nag

Created on: June 29, 2008   Last Updated: November 30, 2011

Growing up my siblings and I were blessed to have my mother's mom, Nana, living in our house. A retired schoolteacher she now filled her days helping to raise us and cooking mouth-watering dinners and baked goods. From the time I was seven years old, I was chosen to be her designated kitchen assistant. I was in charge of stirring the pots, kneading the dough and learning what distinctive ingredients made her food so delicious.

Nana had special recipes for every meal, occasion, and season. She canned glistening jars of spicy piccalilli and crisp bread and butter pickles every summer. In the fall she filled the cookie jar with fat, crinkly molasses cookies and baked loaf after loaf of spicy pumpkin bread for the family and lucky neighbors. And her creamy homemade eggnog, topped with freshly grated nutmeg and served with cherry pecan cake was as traditional as the tinsel topped tree at Christmas time.

But it was Sunday mornings in the winter months that my family loved best. Nana would make her delicious raisin bread. After church and a quick breakfast, Nana and I would tie on our aprons, shoo the rest of the family out of the kitchen and get to work.

I can still remember the smell of yeast filling the small kitchen with its distinctive fragrance. Nana mixed the plump raisins, mace, sugar, lemon extract, butter, salt and scalded milk mixed together, let it cool down, and then added the sifted flour and beaten eggs. I helped her knead it until it was ready for rising in her favorite bowl. Nana always used her everyday, ordinary yellow ware. Its large size, wide bowl, and glazed surface made it the perfect container for our favorite bread dough.

It was hard to wait for the dough to rise, and then for the dough to rise again in the heavy, dark brown bread pans. We would busy ourselves making Sunday dinner as the bread baked, and I would listen as Nana patiently taught me how to cook.

When the bread was finally finished and it was cool enough to cut we all gathered at the kitchen table for a slice, thick with creamy sweet whipped butter. And all week we were delighted to have raisin toast in the morning.

Years later when I moved my mother gave me Nana's prized possession: the yellow ware bowl along with her simple wooden recipe box. Inside the box I found all of her original recipe cards including the one for her raisin bread. Just reading the recipes brought back a flood of memories and promises to my family that I would make some of her favorites.

Last winter I

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