So I'm making my mom's (actually my godmother's recipe, passed down to my mom) carrot cake tonight—two of them, to be honest, one for Jim's birthday tomorrow and another for Sunday's cake auction at the Middletown Elks lodge. It's a simple recipe, no pineapple, no nuts....very minimal, except instead of the 3 cups of grated carrot, I use four.
I measure out the one cup of oil, and out of habit I sweep my index finger around the measuring cup once it's empty. Always, there's another teaspoon or so of oil that drips out.
I learned that from Ursula Kannry, my home economics teacher in middle school. "Always, always, when you measure out oil into a measuring cup, sweep your finger around the inside and make sure all of that oil comes out," she would say. "You could lose up to a teaspoon of oil if you skip that part."
Home economics was a favorite subject for me. First, because of course I was interested in cooking, baking, and even ironing. It's what I was used to seeing my own mom do. Second, it didn't involve a lot of academics (but it did involve math). My first impression of Mrs. Kannry was on the first day of school. when she gazed wistfully out of the circa-1970s picture windows in our classroom and said she looked forward to the first snowfall of the year, when she'd make hot chocolate from scratch and we could all sit and sip and watch the snowflakes fall.
The second impression was more serious: After some more banter and laying down of the rules of the classroom, she rolled up her sleeve and showed something that was strange to us. Her forearm bore the traces of blue numbers.
Some back story: Although Pearl River is now known for the second coming of Ireland, back when I was in kindergarten it was an enclave for the German population. In fact, legend has it that one of my high school teacher's husbands had been a German prisoner of war in the United States, and chose to stay in Pearl River because it reminded him of his home country. A lot of classmates in kindergarten had German last names, in fact. But when the NYC residency requirements were lifted for firefighters and policemen the following year, the boom in Irish population began and has not stopped ever since.
Anyway....
Although I recall Mrs. Kannry showing her tattoo, and I remember her serious face when talking about what had led to it, for the life of me I cannot recall her words. I wish I did. I remember the gist: "I tell you this so it may never happen again."
As I measure and mix (and sweep my finger around the inside of that measuring cup), I cannot imagine how that once-young Polish girl could have gone through the atrocities she did (because there is no doubt she did), and go on to teach a bunch of ungrateful pre-teens how to bake, sew, and iron.
She was a strong woman, who blessedly lived into her 80s before passing in 2007. May we all be that strong, and may God bless her memory. I thank her for all that she taught us.
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