When Roma Kaur of Kaurs, a new magazine for Sikh women, contacted me to do a six page spread on my culinary life with my mother-in-law, Bebeji Jagdish
Kaur because, “women can inspire more women in the family,” it was a confirmation of all that had transpired in my life to that point. It
was a tribute to all the talented women who had been my role models.
My
two grandmothers were my earliest culinary teachers. Both from Mittel
European heritage (Germany and Hungary) with some signature dishes in
common -– delicious soups and dumplings, wilted lettuce and cucumber
salads. But my Grandma Veronica was the gifted pastry maker. She made
heavenly strudel with paper- thin dough, nuts and home-made cheese –- with milk from her own cow!
Having joined a very strict
Catholic missionary convent when I was only fourteen, I was taught by
very dedicated, inspiring women. But when an injury sustained in a
diving accident sidelined me from the formal Catholic religious life,
there was much work in store for me in another religion. I met my
future husband, a Sikh, in a little town in Michigan while I was
recovering. It is a wonderful story of kismet (fate) that I tell in the first vignette of the book, and I was eventually propelled into a totally different world
I
had always loved to cook, even at an early age, duplicating the recipes
I found in magazines. Some of them were not always well received by my
family, especially Chicken with Cherries and Molasses Chew Chews; and
they let me know about them for years! But my cooking was greatly
appreciated at the University of Michigan, where I not only prepared
food for the women who lived in our co-op and for the boarders, (my
future husband was a boarder), but I quickly became the steward in
charge of all the meal planning and buying of food for forty hungry
students.
After three years of marriage, my husband, (who was
an only child) and I had saved enough money to migrate to India to care
for his mother who was a widow. By that time we had a son who was
nearly two. There, in Punjab, I watched my mother-in-law and other
women cook over cotton-stick, charcoal, or dung fires and the
occasional hot plate depending on whether we were in the village or the
city. They were all gifted cooks and produced truly memorable food. I
learned from professionals in the homes of the wealthy and watched the
sweet makers, all men as I recall, produce the stuff of childhood
dreams. The memory of the simple village meals and fragrant dishes from
the open-air dhabas and vendors in the bazaar are still tickling my
taste buds. All of these wonderful scenes and those tasty dishes I try
to capture in my recipes and stories.
Bebeji in 1990
When we returned with my
mother-in-law to the USA, where our two daughters were born, she and I
began working every day in our kitchen together, a collaboration that
would continue for thirty years. We called her Bebeji (mother) as did
the entire congregation that formed around her. She was an unusually
strong woman, deeply spiritual, who went, in one lifetime, from being a
village bride with an elementary education and veiled from head to toe,
to jetting across continents.
We were one of a handful of
families who began to organize the first Sikh community in New Jersey,
and the first temple. During those thirty years, I not only learned the
Punjabi language, but also learned dishes from other Punjabi women,
learning to cook Indian food in large quantities for the free community
meal every Sunday and to prepare meals quickly and efficiently for the
hundreds of guests we would entertain over the years.
The
education of children was dear to my heart as Director of Counseling
for a public high school and as a teacher in our temple. With Mrs.
Surinder K. Puar teaching shabad/kirtan (music) and Mrs. Surindra K.
Dhaliwal teaching the youngest children, we founded the first Sikh
children’s education program in New Jersey. I taught a course I called
“Living Sikh Religion and History” every Sunday to a variety of age
groups for twenty years, making up my own materials since there were
none available. My husband and I also developed the first summer camps
for Sikh children in New Jersey. My husband was busy as well, raising
funds for the first gurudwara (Sikh temple) building and was the
president of the congregation when the first hall was built. Our own
three children have married wonderful spouses and the family has grown
by leaps and bounds with two amazing sets of twins and two wonderful
teens. We are so grateful to God for the life given to us.
But
no life is without suffering as Gautama Buddha realized long ago. The
cookbook was born from tragedy. Our grandson, Bennett Singh, who was
not quite five, died in 2002 suddenly from what we would later discover
to be a rare immune disorder, CGD.
A friend suggested to my daughter that a project – a new playground
where our kids went to elementary school - would be a lovely memorial
to him. We thought so too and we threw ourselves into fundraising while
concurrently going into grief counseling. I desperately needed some
glue to hold my body and mind together while my soul tried to not fall
into the ever-present pit of grief. I thought it would be a good mental
and physical discipline for me to teach Indian cooking. I had not
written down any recipes in all thirty years of cooking, so I began to
standardize them for my children and for a class of six plus my husband
and myself. It took several months to get five menus together with
standardized recipes and then I taught all five menus consecutively in
one week in my own kitchen.
I don’t remember exactly when
we learned that there was enough money for the playground, but when we
did, I was enjoying the process of developing recipes and menus and
teaching the classes so much that my husband and I decided I should
continue. We began a scholarship fund in Benny’s memory. From our own
seed money and that of our generous niece, Beth, and the contributions
of many other family and friends, we have already been able to
distribute over $26,000 to gifted, deserving students for academic
summer programs. The students hail mainly from the school where I was a
counselor before my retirement. All proceeds from the cooking classes
have gone into the fund. We are hoping to expand our own ability to
give to a new project through the sales of the cookbook and through the generous donations of those who feel moved to give.
So
many guests who have tasted the food in the cooking classes said I
should develop a cookbook. So here I am with you, on the brink of a new
and exciting chapter in my life. My spirit feels quite young, as if all
the work gone before is just a beginning. And I hope to share this
adventure with you.
Here are two pictures of me during the only time in my life I did NOT cook!
Left: My family—mother Margaret, sister Catherine, father Nandor and brother Edward. Right: From my convent days
at Holy Ghost (now Holy Spirit) Convent in Techny, Illinois: my dear mentor, Sister Theresine, S. Sp. S. and me
dressed as her patron saint, Theresa of the Little Flower. Happy Days!
