Monday, December 16, 2002

THE SCHNECKENING It started back

THE SCHNECKENING

It started back when Lena braved the North Atlantic for a man she hadn’t met; he’d written away to friends at home (the Kaiser’s tidy little empire) - “No one like us hereabouts” - that’s Lima, Ohio - the Jews were all Russians, he wanted a German, so he heard about Lena and got her to come to him.  Canny and tough, with a face like a hatchet, personality to matchit, she shaved half a decade off her age to trick him into matrimony.  She brought with her meagre reminders of home; though not much of a cook she maintained in her head a dowery of kitchen skills, recipes, knowledge - the chiefest of which was that she could make schnecken, with hot fists of butter and spirals of sugar....  the legend was born.

She had three sons. Two married sisters, one married their friend, and all six ate the schnecken - but the outsider non-sister spouse Estelle, she really noticed, and made sure the pastries were perfect and plentiful, made them herself from the old german formula, carried on what Lena’d started.  Later, the grandkids called Lena their Grossie and ate of the schnecken that now had attained semi-legendary status.  One grandson in particular, Estelle’s youngest - he got married and his wife was treated to the schnecken.  This one, Donna, she, too, noticed they were special; got the kitchen lore from someone - schnecken-making moved a generation forward.

We didn’t get the Donna schnecken in my house.  That marriage didn’t last; the only person of that generation who made schnecken was to me a distant name, a face in old reunion photos… but not schnecken.  Those were limited to Lima.  Sometimes I would visit Lima; there the old ones still made schnecken.  I would marvel at the glaze and vortex that distinguished them: how did kitchens make such marvels?  But schnecken take a lot of effort - twice-rised dough, a lot of mixing… the grandmas slowly stopped their schnecken making, too much work and time and space.  They all stopped cooking.  No more schnecken for yours truly.... all things pass.... I reconciled.....

Then Donna’s daughter - my dear cousin - very well, her name’s Diane - we became much closer friends, together with our households and some other cousins, plus my sister.  All of us were reminiscing how we loved those sticky muffins, mourned that they were made no longer.  Diane had the recipe, and it was settled - we set a date and got together, made four dozen, each a jewel, and furthermore, we had a good ol’ time while we were making them.

So every year for half a decade we’ve been making Grossie’s schnecken sometime near the winter solstice.  We younger cousins get together, make some schnecken, have some wine, and every year our party became more elaborate, we kept boosting the yield, till this year we chose to go up to the Compound - two perfect vacation homes, side by side in old Sonoma, larded with art and bursting with wine, nine of us plus five dependents.  It poured rain as we caroused, the little children proofing yeast as bowls of dough were generated, growing slowly overnight; the children screamed, their tiny fingers clutching dripping pens and crumpled sheets of paper, secret codes and noms de guerre, they swarmed, cicadalike, their laughter splitting through our conversations, pulling one of us away up to the loft for ‘special briefing’ - Sam shrugged back over his shoulder, had to leave us, dragged like meat behind the children giggling into their armpits.... finally we fell asleep at close to midnight.

Awake: Sonoma morning, linens crisply cradle me and rain has poured forth from the sky for days, the sky all grey when I arise, a thousand colors, each one grey, a schnecken (early batch) for breakfast, stretch a little in the hallway, cushioned with a richly textured carpet, air still still and quiet, walk through rain-drenched flower gardens underneath storm-tossed gazebo; now people are stirring so Let’s get schneckening -

Dough has doubled in the dark; we roll it into living parchment, sprinkle it with nuts and sugar, roll it gently into logs, softer than a hidden breast, delicious down against the granite - slice it into sleeping larvae, let them grow in cups of candy, bake them, dump them, drenched with praline, twenty dozen deadly nuggets… kids got anxious, hide and seeking, dressup, magic, jail, spy, Let them see what’s going on and take them out to watch the creek and see the runoff, storm-engorged; salmon spawn there, nothing going now but muddy water, surging, churning, Let’s go back - They’re making schnecken

Lena did her best, I’m sure, but never could she have imagined such perfection, military execution, such a setting for our little bakeoff, and the final products more sublime than she had scope to dream.  Those products are the schnecken, sure, but also the great joy we took in being there, a family together, all by choice.  Our laughter echoed off the plaster walls and baked into the pastries… now as I eat them, I can feel the warmth of that great cozy home return to me in butterfat and melted sugar, and still the rain falls thick and warm, reminding me that generations will ensue and will ensure the arcane art of schneckenmaking will yet survive another couple generations.  It’s just too much fun.  The bribe that became the burden is now the bonus benefit, the best of times, the consummation so devoutly to be wished… We eat like kings but that is not the wealth we value - rather, it’s the being with each other that made all the difference. 

Same time next year.