My Auntie Doris is my father’s sister and one of the great Jewish cooks of our time.
Now at 96-years-old she no longer uses the stove, but when I was a child in the early 1960s and a teenager in the ’70s, my aunt was famous for her holiday cooking and baking.
We would arrive at Auntie Doris and Uncle Irving’s modest bungalow in Chomedey for Hannukah or Passover. The table stretched from the front windows to the back. The adults were seated at the head of the dining room, and we kids were on the fold-away tables which were brought up from the basement for the occasion. The table was set with the good china, including pieces that our great Aunts and Bubbie had collected by going to the movies every week in the ’30s. Before dinner, my sister Sandy and I would repair to my cousin Marlene’s bedroom, where we would play with her beautiful doll and she would tell us adventure stories based on the TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
As we sat down at the festive table and the prayers were said, Marlene’s brothers Murray and Phil would advise us. “Don’t eat the soup!” they would say. “Save room!” Then the courses started coming. After the soup, which was delicious and really not to be passed up, there where the appetizers: homemade gefilte fish, pickled salmon and salad or perhaps chopped liver with its crown of golden onions. Next came the main courses. Often there was roast beef or lamb with their accompanying side dishes. Each year there was a different chicken dish, each one more delicious than the last. I particularly remember a breaded garlic chicken that was crispy, oozy, and spicy hitting all the taste buds at once. Then, after a small rest, when jokes and stories were told, tea was made in the tall turquoise and gold pot. Platters of squares and cookies and plates of fruit would be brought to the table by some of the cousins, and despite having been completely stuffed a few minutes before, that special dessert part of the stomach would open and somehow, we would fall on the treats as if we had been fasting for a week.
My father loved his sister’s baking. His absolute favorite pastry was Auntie Doris’s Turkish delight rolls. This was surprising because he was usually a major chocolate fan and these were delicate, flaky rolls encasing a small piece of Turkish delight and powdered with icing sugar.
My father was a heavy smoker. He began smoking very young, and smoked two packs of Player’s plain cigarettes per day. He worked hard in his trucking and industrial recycling business. He always had a cigarette in his mouth. I remember driving with him on a cold winter day, his lighter in one hand, cigarette pack in the other. Stopping at a red light, he would wipe down the steamed-up window with his pack. The oily brown slime that collected on the box made me worry about what was collecting in his lungs.
When I was 27-years-old and newly pregnant, my dad was already showing signs of chronic lung disease. He had a hacking cough and his lips had a distinctive bluish tinge. His business was also going through a hard time. It was a time of crisis for him.
He never smoked on Yom Kippur. For those 25 hours he would always abstain, his mouth twisting from nicotine withdrawal. The first thing he would do when he left the synagogue was to light up. That year I met him at the shul to walk him home. As we strolled home gazing at the glorious moon, I noticed that he had not lit up his cigarette. “Why aren’t you smoking?” I asked him. “I’ll just wait a bit,” he replied. He never smoked again. The cigarette pack stayed on top of the fridge for a year.
I think quitting smoking was both a way for him to honour my pregnancy, and his desire to be an involved grandfather. It was also a way to take control of his life when it was feeling out of his control.
It was during the crucial second week, when the cravings were undermining his resolve, that my Auntie Doris showed up with a tray of Turkish delight rolls. “I’ll make you a batch every month if you don’t start smoking again,” she promised. I don’t know how long that deal lasted but it was an important part of his quit.
The memory of the Turkish delight rolls was triggered when one of my residents was describing the Lokum rolls she had when she was in Tunisia on her honeymoon. “We ate so many and brought so many home! They are my husband and my favorites. They are so expensive though.” We discussed what they looked like, and indeed they sounded just like my aunt’s pastries.
My aunt’s memory is very poor now, her recipes hard to find on fading index cards. I was not sure that I could get the recipe I craved. Then I looked into the recipe book that I, like every Jewish woman of my generation in Montreal, received as a wedding present. There I found all of Auntie Doris’ recipes: the Hello Dolly squares, the Chocolate Jumbles, the Mandelbrot, and yes there it was, the recipe for Turkish delight rolls. I was struck by how simple, straightforward and unfussy these recipes were, so unlike the elaborate baking competition recipes that are popular now. I made the rolls for our Hannukah party this year. They were delicate, flaky and deeply satisfying.
Quitting smoking when he did, gave my father 20 more years of quality of life. It allowed him to be a real part if his grandchildren’s lives, to make memories for a whole other generation to love and cherish. My Auntie Doris loved her brother, supported him, helped him and pulled him through his dark time. For that I will always be grateful.