Grandma's recipes are a family legacy

Sadie Pulk, 22, went down the list, measuring ingredients for her grandma's legendary baked beans: 4 Tbsp. dark molasses, 2/3 cup ketchup. Then she came to "little mustard."

"Grandma, what's a little mustard?"

The answer: "About a tablespoon."

As Pulk stirred in onions and crumbled bacon, the question hung in the air: Why had Grandma Pulk never written "1 Tbsp.?" Well, because she didn't have to; she just knew. Now Sadie does, too, along with Kathy and Chelsie and Kelly and Kris and Jen. The legacy has been passed on, because a group of granddaughters asked before it was too late.

Every family has its woulda-coulda-shoulda moment, that instant when it realizes an opportunity has been lost forever. Maybe it was meaning to ask Grandpa about the war, or pressing Mom for details about how Dad proposed. You kick yourself, professing that you were just waiting for the right moment. Mostly, though, you just wanted to pretend that they would always be around.

Joyce Pulk isn't going anywhere; she's hale and hardy at 82. But her granddaughters decided that not only weren't they getting any younger, but their cooking skills weren't getting any better. Thus, the Pulk Cousins Cooking School convened on a recent Saturday in Jen Edwards' kitchen in Shakopee to receive their culinary legacy.

The perils of flying flour

"We hope to capture her signature dishes before she's no longer able to prepare them for us," Edwards said, looking over counters piled with the makings of chocolate chip cookies, baked beans, chicken pot pie with homemade pie crust, and quick pan rolls.

"You always made those rolls?" said Kris Wishy, 40, of Owatonna, always with the wisecracks. "I always thought you shaped them from frozen dough!"

They divvied up recipes by cousin -- Wishy was assigned to rolls -- with Grandma Pulk roving between stations to offer advice. "If there's a learning moment," Edwards instructed her cousins, "you need to call everyone over."

Learning moment No. 1: Make sure the water for the yeast is lukewarm or you'll kill the yeast.

"I'm gonna kill the yeast," Wishy muttered, but within a few minutes, it had foamed nicely. She whisked in the egg and shortening, then began adding the flour. "Now a wooden spoon would work better," Grandma said.

Within moments, Wishy was covered in flour. "Grandma," she said, laughing, "did you wear a full apron when you did this?"

"I don't wear an apron," Grandma replied, then glanced at her granddaughter. "Or black, either."

A return to home-cooking

Throughout the afternoon, the young women made their way through the recipes they had grown up with, and had taken for granted. Ranging in age from 22 to 43, they're of a generation for whom traditional culinary wisdom became dehydrated, shrink-wrapped and microwaveable. It's just the way things are.

Or, perhaps, were. Whether from a need to economize, the popularity of the Food Network, or a brush with a loved one's mortality, more people are cooking at home. The natural next step is to reconnect with those people who always made home "home." The reason Edwards that sent an e-mail to the newspaper about their afternoon was in the hopes of nudging other families.

But please warn Grandma first. Joyce Pulk, who lives in Prior Lake, had never been questioned so closely. "I'm not a teacher," she said. "I just have my own way of doing things."

Here's an example: Chelsie Huntley, 30, of Roseville, was reading the chocolate chip cookie recipe and wondering about sifting flour. "So what does sifting do?" she asked.

"It makes mixing together easier," Grandma replied, telling Huntley to grab a strainer and a paper towel. "If you go back to the old Betty Crocker cookbook, all the recipes say 'sift together.'"

Grandma showed Huntley how to jiggle the strainer while spooning in the flour. The cousins stood back, a little perplexed, a little amazed as the pristine pyramid arose. "Then all you do is lift the paper towel and pour the flour into the bowl."

It was the sort of no-nonsense practicality that helps younger people see the bright side of inherited traits.

Experience trumps a recipe

The afternoon revealed a misconception that many new cooks have about cooking: It's an intimidating process of precise timing and measurement. Turns out, not so much.

Wishy: "How many rolls does this recipe make?"

Grandma: "It makes a nice-sized pan."

Huntley: "I set the timer for 11 minutes, OK?"

Grandma: "I don't time 'em, I watch 'em."

Before long, they had caught on that experience trumps a recipe. "Grandma, when you say a minute, how long is that?" asked Kathy Chase, 43, of Stewartville, causing her cousins to burst out laughing. "Hey, am I wrong?"

So it went, until the kitchen counter was laden with two chicken pot pies with homemade lattice crusts, a bowl of baked beans that tasted both smoky and sweet, two pans of pillowy buns, and several dozen plump chocolate chip cookies.

The cousins seemed rather astonished at what they'd accomplished. "I'm excited now that I can do pie crusts," said Kelly Pulk, 27, of Northfield. "People say they're hard, but they're easy."

Grandma was a little more difficult to read. After years of cooking for eight children and hosting holiday dinners for a growing family -- up to 22 grandchildren, and Huntley's soon-to-be-born baby will make it 13 great-grandchildren -- the kitchen is not a foe, but a companion.

But she clearly was pleased that her granddaughters had asked for her recipes and wanted to keep alive a legacy of home-cooking.

Besides, Wishy says she's bringing the buns for Thanksgiving.

Kim Ode • 612-673-7185