More cookies

I want to warn you all ahead of time: this is a sad story in some ways. People die in it. People I miss. But I want to tell their story here. It involves Gertie, and Richard. And it involves horrific things: the holocaust, AIDs, and cancer. And Xmas cookies.

You ready? Ok, here we go.

When we first moved into our apartment, back in the early '90s, I was intrigued by an older, very tough looking woman. Tough was NOT the word: this woman was downright ROUGH. She sort of looked like the kind of woman you see coming out of the nastiest, darkest kind of bar, with a red face, and who looks 15 years older than she was. One day, she was struggling with some bags up to her apartment, and I offered to help. The look I got could have curdled milk and the tongue lashing about "I'VE BEEN DOING THIS SHIT FOR MYSELF FOR YEARS I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP" really scared me. But then she dropped something, and I grabbed it before it could fall and shatter and she agreed to let me help her. I didn't get into her apartment that time, but it was the ice breaker. Eventually, I learned that her name was Gertrude, but she preferred to be called Gertie. I also learned that she was a lesbian. And I learned that she was a concentration camp survivor. The ONLY member of her family who did survive.

One of the things that I learned from Gertie was that, when we study the events of the past, it is very easy to forget the inarticulate, the illiterate, the ones who really are a part of that history, but don't get any say in writing about it. Let's face it: we've all read or at least read about the scholarly histories of the holocaust, and the brilliant doctors, musicians, etc, who died. But there WERE "blue collar" jews, who died as well. Millions of them. And we forget them. Well, Gertie was one of them. Her family was NOT educated, she did NOT go to school, and when she came to the United States, she did not have rich relatives to take care of her. She had to rely on herself, always. Eventually, she became one of those people who clean the subway stations for the MTA, and eventually retired on disability She had a rent stabilized apartment, a studio, and lived alone, because when she moved to Greenwich Village "because people told me I should live there," she didn't know how to express her sexual preferences in a way that would interest any of - in her words "those hoity toity dykes who live around here."

I used to visit with Gertie, and she told me once that I was one of three men besides her father and two brothers who she trusted. I never met the other two. And one day, I was brave enough to ask her about something in her apartment: there was ALWAYS a bowl of lemons on her table. ALWAYS.

Be warned. This story is going to break your heart. It still breaks mine. As poor people, in Poland, her family didn't have enough to eat a lot of the time. Even before the occupation. And they certainly couldn't afford fancy stuff like citrus fruit (remember: this is before easy transportation of food). One day, no one knew quite how, her brother came home with a lemon: one, single lemon. There was, of course, the usual questioning and buzz about how he got it, but ultimately, her mother decided that she'd use it to make cookies.

She never got the chance. They came for the family that day. She never saw her brother or her father again. But by having the lemons , in her words "she remembered them."

At the time, I was working with my much missed baking teacher, Richard Sax. I told him the story about Gertie. He got very silent for a while and then he said "let's make her something. Let's make her some cookies." Richard knew EVERYTHING about cookies, and he recalled a recipe which, as I have learned, is not uniquely Polish, but is middle European, and is classic to Jewish communities because it uses oil, and no butter. And Richard told me that in the classic version, there was no citrus, but we were going to do it because "Gertie deserved it."

We made these cookies, and I brought them over to Gertie. Even though she liked me, she was VERY suspicious of gifts. She ate one of the cookies and I remember her saying something like "damn it, now you're making me think there may be some kindness in this freakin world." The lemon taste startled her (I learned, after making the cookies, that she never actually ATE the lemons she'd put on the table. She'd just replace them as they spoiled).

I made those cookies for her every chance I got. One fall, I went on vacation, and when I came back, the doorman told me that Gertie was "gone." Cancer. All the while, I did not know she had inoperable cancer, she never told me. She had decided not to do treatments because she was "just sick and tired of everything." I never got a chance to say goodbye.

A year later, Richard died, of lung cancer, which was related, I think both to his HIV status, and to the death of his partner a year before. I didn't get to say goodbye to him either.

These cookies are the cookies we made. They are NOT the fanciest cookies in the world, nor are they the easiest to make. Their texture, as with oil cookies in general, is not so creamy and soft as you might like, but "they are what they are." Try them. You may really like them. I make them every year, send them in my assortment tins, and when I make them, I think of Richard when I pour the poppy seeds into the batter, and Gertie when I'm grating the lemon peel. And they're in the kitchen with me.

You will need 3 eggs, half a cup of vegetable oil, 1.5 cups of sugar, and a pinch of salt. Whip all of these up together in a mixer, until you have a light, frothy mass. Then stir in three cups of flour, a tablespoon (yup, a tablespoon) of baking powder, and then AT LEAST a half cup of poppy seeds. Make sure the poppy seeds are fresh. They have a high oil content, and go rancid quickly. Finally, grate the peel from at least one, and maybe two lemons, and stir that into the batter.

This may not come together really easily and if it doesn't, add a little water until you get a cohesive mass of dough. It behaves a bit like piecrust in that respect.

Richard used to refrigerate this dough overnight. I find that unnecessary, and if I DO refrigerate the cookies at all, it's for an hour, maybe two. He also used to roll them out and cut crescent moons of them, and he used to call them "Mohn munds," because "mohn" is a poppyseed, and mund is of course, a moon. But he had better technique at rolling than I do, so I just break off balls, roll them, and line them up on baking sheets. Then I bake them at 375 for 12 minutes or so. Sometimes you need to bake them up to 15 minutes, because they're not browning. That's ok too.

When they cool, you store them in a tin. But like I said, their texture is not the greatest in the world, and after longer storage, they begin to feel almost like a cracker.

My description of these cookies may make you think "why bother?" Well, I don't really have to answer that, do I? I've written before as to how my friends live on for me, through the recipes I associate with them, and honestly, they DO taste good. They're just a little different.

Folks, you have someone out there who you associate with a particular recipe or dish or restaurant or something. FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE before you forget it, record it. You'll never lose it. Holidays are a time of remembrance, and that's when you call these things forth.