RECIPES & BARBARA

Helen lived with her mother, father and two uncles. George shared several businesses and a home with his brothers, Helen’s other ‘fathers’. Together they ran the local bank, a farm, a grocery store, plumbing business and some apartment buildings. In the 1860s the construction of a railroad put Dunellen on the map but the local’s attitude remained determinedly ‘small town’. Both Helen and her best friend Mary however had ambitions beyond the town’s borders. Helen took a job in New York and regularly wore fur to college football games, Mary went on cruises and played golf. It was Mary who introduced Helen to Tom, her brother. In 1938 they married, left town and had two girls but a few years later Tom learnt that he had cancer. His daughter Barbara was just 5 when he died. His one wish was that Helen ‘stay home and take care of the girls’. And so she did. The family moved back to Dunellen and the girls went to the local school. They’d walk home, work up an appetite and return to the smell of baking cakes; Mabel’s Milk and Honey, Mrs Lutz’s Tomato or Kathleen Kiefer’s Coffee cake. This is Helen’s recipe box, inherited by Barbara and filled with the tastes and smells of her New Jersey childhood.

31 Mar 2013