Bean's Legacy

    

   

Bean-Lill-Sie Knower

      A legacy is defined as being a gift of money or property, something of value and/or something that is a "part of your history or that which remains from an earlier time."  Love above anything else was my Mothers true legacy that continues on through her children and all who knew her. Her vast cookbook collection is a physical legacy that reflects her adventurous and ever curious mind. Her philosophy... food is the great equalizer. We all eat. We all need to eat. Food brings people together and sharing food connects us. We all have food in common. Food nourishes. Food can heal, and... it's hard to argue when your mouth is full of good food! My Mom had, and now her children have, an insatiable need to feed people.

     My Mom, affectionately known as Bean, was an amazing and skilled cook, a master of the art of seasoning. She could coax a depth of flavor from the simplest of ingredients and was at her happiest when feeding a crowd. She read cookbooks like most people read novels and she amassed a large collection of much loved cookery books as well as every thing one needed in order to cook and serve her love-filled kitchen creations. Whether she was feeding one or a hundred her food was infused with the same care and attention.

     Creativity flowed from her being. She was an accomplished oil painter as well as a  classically trained pianist. Ever curious she explored this world with a sense of awe and childlike wonder reveling in its beauty, celebrating and embracing its many expressions and always meeting it with a kind heart and a refreshing openness. She was one who never knew a stranger...and frequently she'd invite that stranger to her table. They wouldn't be strangers for long.

     Hearts naturally became her personal symbol and signature that she always carved into a dish or shaped into/or out of dough. Her pies always had a heart in their center. Isn't it apropos that the word art can be found within heart because she truly put love in everything she created.

Loved fishing with her Dad and was a mariner scout.

         But where did this love of cooking begin you may ask? My mother was the only daughter of Swedish immigrants who first settled on Long Island, New York. She would tell me stories of all their neighbors, a veritable United Nations in it's own right...French, German, Russian, Polish, and so on, and all welcomed the little blond girl who knocked on their doors and asked "what's cooking?" A German neighbor ran a boarding house for all of the school teachers in town and she started teaching my mother to cook at the age of four. She would stand for hours at the counter and help trim vegetables and loved every minute of it.

1945.

     Later her family moved to a farm in upstate Massachusetts. She was schooled in the kitchen arts of gardening, preservation, canning and the stretching of food during the lean and food rationing times of WWII. She practiced these frugal habits throughout her lifetime. As a child she even had her own egg business with 500 chickens!

Loved her chickens, thriving egg business.

     After she married my father, who worked for the Department of Defense, she embraced life on the road. Many transfers took our family all across the country and her sense of curiosity and zeal for food exploration expanded. Wherever we went we would soon be on the hunt for new taste sensations, new restaurants and new recipes to try.

Wonder who's on the other end?

    Many of my childhood memories are centered around the preparing, serving and sharing of food with friends and family. Never in our household were you allowed to voice an objection to trying something new. I was taught early on that until you had actually tried a food you could not say you didn't like it but, that being said you were never forced to eat anything you honestly didn't like after you had given it a chance.

     Gratitude and a deep sense of respect was ingrained within her three children. Early on, (myself and my two brothers included),  we were taught how to prepare and cook food. We were also sent to an etiquette teacher to learn how to conduct ourselves at table and in social situations...something I have thanked my parents for over the years many times.

     So it is my intention with this blog to share with you her legacy. It is not a cooking blog per se, but rather a sharing. My thought is to spot light one of her cook books at a time; share its history, its expression, its gifts. Many of the cookbooks are well loved which means they have splatters, stains and the comments of many cooks as well as my mothers written in the borders. Great praise to the recipe that earned a "Delish" next to it! Bean haunted used book stores and antique shops alike searching for unloved and forgotten receipt books who needed a loving home. I will then choose one recipe that begs to be tried and post the results.  I will share that one recipe with you, for good or for bad. Mom would appreciate that spirit of exploration.

    Her cook book collection spans over 140 years of history so it will also offer a glimpse into changing food tastes and methods of cooking. Wherever possible I will also share memories of Bean and her generous and loving spirit.

     So pull up a chair and know you are heartily welcomed here around this table..