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Cooking with Eric Carle

Thursday, October 30th, 2025

Eric Carle

My small hometown, Hawley, Massachusetts, houses just over 300 people. Nevertheless, it has been home to luminaries in different fields. We have housed writers, theologians, and architects.

Two of Hawley’s residents stand apart from the rest. Alice Parker, a world-renowned composer, lived here until her death two years ago. And Eric Carle, the beloved children’s book author who died in 2021, had a home in Hawley for many years with his wife Bobbie.

Eric enjoyed food and cooking. He was kind enough to let me publish his bread-pudding recipe in my first book, The Pudding Hollow Cookbook. Although I knew Bobbie better than I knew him, I always enjoyed Eric’s whimsy and of course his colorful books.

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst is currently displaying an exhibit that is dear to my heart and will appeal to lovers of Carle and cuisine.

“Cooking with Eric Carle,” which opened in September and will run for almost a year, focuses on this author/artist’s love of food and food illustration.

Readers of his work (just about every American child and parent) will have seen his food-related work in children’s books like Pancakes, Pancakes! and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

The exhibit has less familiar art from Eric Carle as well, however, including linocuts from a cookbook he illustrated in 1965 titled Red Flannel Hash and Shoo-Fly Pie. Linocuts are block prints made with linoleum.

There are also doodles the author drew on checks from one of his favorite restaurants and much more.

One of my favorite features of the Carle is its studio. I’m not particularly artistic, but the act of drawing, coloring, and pasting there gives me insight into the artistic process. It’s also just plain fun.

The cooking exhibit has its own little craft area. The museum encourages visitors to write down their favorite recipes on cards … and draw pictures of the recipes.

On the exhibit’s opening night, associate curator Isabel Ruiz Cano interviewed Lisa and Sally Ekus. The pair are cookbook-and-lifestyle literary agents at the Ekus Group in nearby Hatfield. Lisa founded the group, and her daughter Sally now manages it. The Ekus women are lively … and they know their cookbooks.

In fact, Lisa holds the Guinness World Record for the largest personal cookbook collection in the world. In 2019, when she was added to the record book, she officially housed 4,239 cookbooks in her vast, multi-story library. I’m sure she has more now.

Lisa and Sally discussed trends in cookbook illustration over the last century or so. Earlier cookbooks tended to have simple sketches or no illustrations at all. Over the years, photography was slowly introduced.

In the last 20 years or so, as color printing has become more affordable, vivid yet naturalistic photos have come to dominate the pages of cookbooks.

The two also charmingly linked cookbook illustration and picture-book illustration as they talked about teaching Sally’s young daughter to read and to cook.

Lisa (left) and Sally Ekus, Courtesy of the Carle Museum

Isabel told me that the Ekus appearance was the brainchild of the museum’s former director of education. “Cooking with Eric Carle” was Isabel’s own idea.

One of her first projects when she joined the staff of the Carle in 2022 was to sort and, as she put it, “rehouse” many of Eric Carle’s illustrations, including the linocuts for Red Flannel Hash.

“I was fascinated by all these different art works,” she said. “I kept finding food imagery.”

She relished putting together the exhibit. She found the work particularly meaningful because she had never met Eric Carle, arriving as she did after his death.

“I learned a lot about his favorite foods and favorite food preferences. He was a very simple man who loved bread and honey … and sushi,” she recalled.

She quickly added that the sushi was consumed separately from the bread and the honey. I’m sure Eric could have come up with a story in which they overlapped, however.

“I enjoyed getting to know the kind of warm person he was, especially since I came after he passed,” she said.

I asked Isabel Ruiz Cano if she had a favorite piece in the exhibit. “Everything becomes my favorite!” she laughed.

She sees the exhibit as a way “to honor who [Eric] was but also present things that people didn’t know about him that will surprise them.”

Of course, I wanted to prepare a recipe to honor Eric Carle and the exhibit. I decided to make pretzels to pay tribute to the 1972 picture book Walter the Baker, illustrated with Eric’s trademark collages.

Here is what Eric wrote about the book on his website:

“The story is based on the tale of how the pretzel was invented, which was told to me by my Grandmother when I was a boy. But I truly had an uncle named Walter who was a baker and who baked, along with all kinds of bread, cookies, cakes and rolls; pretzels!”

In the book, a hardworking baker named Walter is stymied early one morning when his cat knocks over the pail of milk that gives his sweet rolls their signature texture.

He tries substituting water, with disastrous results. His best patron, the Duke, is affronted and threatens to exile Walter from the Duchy… unless the baker can come up with a special roll “through which the rising sun can shine three times.”

Walter tries and tries to create such a roll with no success. Frustrated, he throws his last bit of dough into the air. It lands in a pail of water, somehow twisting itself along the way. When this creation is baked and served, the Duke beams. Walter is saved, and the pretzel is born.

I’m a less talented baker than Walter so my pretzels weren’t actually pretzels, just blobs. (“Knots” might be a nicer-sounding descriptor.)

I think I needed to roll them into longer ropes before folding them into their final shape. You’ll note that the recipe calls for ropes of more than 2 feet; mine were about a foot and a half.

Even as blobs, my pretzels were tasty enough for my friends to eat, with a soft, chewy interior. Fortunately, unlike Walter, I didn’t need to worry about seeing the rising sun shine through them. (This was just as well since I NEVER leave my bed to bake at sunrise.) The recipe is based on one from King Arthur Baking.

“Cooking with Eric Carle” will run through Sept. 6, 2026. Visit the museum’s events page to see a list of upcoming activities at the Carle.

The Pretzels

Ingredients:
for the dough:
1 generous teaspoon yeast (1/2 packet)
1/2 cup lukewarm water, divided
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1-1/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
for the water bath:
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 teaspoon sugar
for finishing:
1-1/2 tablespoons salted butter, melted
coarse, kosher, or pretzel salt as needed (I only had regular sea salt; it added lovely flavor but wasn’t visible in the final product.)

Instructions:

Make the dough. Proof the yeast for about 5 minutes in 1/4 cup of the lukewarm water along with the sugar. When the mixture bubbles, add it to the flour and the remainder of the dough water. Mix briefly; then stir in the salt.

Knead the resulting dough for about 4 minutes, until it is soft, smooth, and slack.

Dust it with flour to prevent sticking and place it in a plastic zip-top bag. Close the bag, leaving room for expansion, and let the dough rest for 30 minutes

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.

Transfer the dough to a greased work service. Divide it into 4 pieces. Let them rest, uncovered, for 5 minutes. While they rest combine the water and sugar for the bath in a bowl.

Roll each piece of dough into a long thin rope (around 28 inches long). Twist each rope into a pretzel shape (or a blob!). Dip the pieces in the water bath; then place them on the prepared baking sheet. Bake them until they turn golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes, turning the pan halfway through.

Remove the pretzels from the oven, and brush them with the butter. Sprinkle with salt. Makes 4 pretzels. This recipe may be doubled.


Eric Carle Illustration for Walter the Baker. Collection of the Eric and Barbara Carle Foundation. ©-1995 Penguin Random House LLC

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Say Cheese!

Tuesday, December 31st, 2024

On New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, we celebrate both the old and the new. We are looking—like the Roman god Janus, for whom January was named—in two directions. To me, this means that the transition to a new year often involves making new-to-me recipes that are nonetheless traditional.

For my New Year’s gathering, I’m making a cheese ball recipe given to me by Sarah Riley of Greenfield, Massachusetts. I had never made a cheese ball before trying this one. For Sarah, it is a tradition started by her mother. To her family it represents home and holidays literally wrapped up in a ball.

Cheese balls were a beloved American appetizer from the late 19th century into the mid-20th century. They combine convenience and creativity; they are shaped using pre-constituted ingredients, but those ingredients vary according to the cook.

By the 1980s, they began to fade from popularity. Amanda Hesser of The New York Times eventually wrote that the balls “tend to be associated with shag rugs and tinsel, symbols of the middle-class middlebrow.”

I guess I’m a middle-class middlebrow.

Fortunately for my self-respect, cheese balls have re-emerged to some extent. Even Hesser accepted them … if they were homemade.

Satirists Amy and David Sedaris centered their 2001 play The Book of Liz around a cheese-ball maker. And in 2012, Michelle Buffardi published the popular book Great Balls of Cheese.

The Food Timeline conducted a survey of cheese balls in cookbooks. “Much to our surprise,” reported the editors, “cheese balls can be deep fried, baked, or refrigerated. They can be served hot or cold. They can accompany salads, be served as appetizers or pop up as desserts.”

The first recorded American cheese ball dates to 1801 and came from the town of Cheshire, not far from me in Western Massachusetts. Cheshire was founded by Baptists, many of whom were dairy farmers.

Elder John Leland was elated when Thomas Jefferson was elected president. Like many in our area of the state, Leland supported the Jeffersonian concept of the yeoman farmer as the ideal citizen of the newly formed United States.

Leland had become acquainted with Jefferson earlier while living in Virginia and had campaigned for the new president. He and his fellow Baptists, a definite minority in mostly Congregational Massachusetts at the time, were grateful for Jefferson’s espousal of religious liberty for all Americans.

Leland dreamed of devising a fitting tribute to President Jefferson. He asked all the farmers in Cheshire to contribute the curds from one day’s milking to the creation of a giant cheese ball, which came to be known as the Mammoth Cheese.

(It wasn’t actually a cheese ball, just an enormous chunk of cheese, but it is commonly referred to as a cheese ball so I’m alluding to it as such.)

A concrete recreation of the large press that created the Mammoth Cheese may be viewed in Cheshire. The town also houses a life-size replica of the actual cheese, created by Adams sculptor Brent Whitney.

Courtesy of “Listening to America”

The Mammoth Cheese was the product of about 900 cows. It weighed 1235 pounds.

It wasn’t easy to transport the cheese to the White House, but John Leland managed to do it.

In Mississippi Sideboard, Jesse Yancy wrote, “Preaching all the way to Washington (some things never change), [Leland] transported the ball by wagon and then rolled it across the White House lawn to serve it to President Jefferson.”

According to the National Portrait Gallery’s website, “The Mammoth Cheese was so awe-inspiring, that it marks the first use of the word ‘mammoth’ as an adjective spurred by a nationwide fascination with mammoths following the discovery of large prehistoric bones in the new world.”

John Leland presented his Mammoth Cheese to Jefferson on January 1, 1802. A fervent Abolitionist, Leland proudly proclaimed to the president that the cheese had been fashioned without the help of slave labor.

The cheese became an instant media sensation. Poet Thomas Kennedy even composed an “Ode to the Mammoth Cheese.” One stanza read:

God bless the cheese—and kindly bless the makers,
The givers—generous—good and sweet and fair,
And the receiver—great beyond compare,
All those who shall be happy as partakers;
O! May no traitor to his country’s cause
E’er have a bit of thee between his jaws.

How was the cheese consumed? In Culture, Dakota Mackey wrote, “Though stories vary about what happened to the cheese, the most popular tale is that it was displayed at the White House for two years and served at various Republican party functions before being tossed into the Potomac River.”

Luckily for the nearest body of water to me, Hawley’s Mill Brook, the balls I made using Sarah Riley’s recipe were small and tasty enough to be devoured by my family and guests before any tossing was called for.

To make sure we could eat our cheese quickly, I prepared a half recipe. It made two small balls. I love cheese, but I feel for the residents of Thomas Jefferson’s White House as they lived with the smell of the Mammoth Cheese for two years.

Here is Sarah’s more modest recipe. Consider serving it to ring in the new year. I wish you good health, peace, and lots of yummy food in 2025.

Sarah Riley’s Not-So-Mammoth Cheese Ball

Ingredients:

8 to 12 ounces Cabot sharp Cheddar cheese
8 ounces (1 brick) cream cheese, at room temperature
4 ounces blue cheese (more or less to taste; I used a little more)
1/3 cup finely chopped red onion.
Blue Diamond smoked almonds, finely chopped
(Start with 3 ounces, and then chop more if needed.)

Instructions:

Grate the cheddar into a bowl. Add the cream cheese, the blue cheese, and the red onion pieces. Sarah recommends mixing these ingredients together with one’ s hands. She says sometimes she wears gloves. I didn’t use gloves but made sure that my hands were immaculately clean.

Shape the mixture into 2 to 4 balls. Roll the balls in the chopped almonds.

Cover the balls and refrigerate them for a couple of hours. Makes 2 large (but not mammoth) or 4 small balls.

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A Fabulous Memorial Day and Dip

Monday, September 30th, 2024

Alice as a Young Composer, courtesy of the Pyle Family

I have written before about my late neighbor, the composer Alice Parker. In early September, Mohawk Trail Concerts (MTC) celebrated Alice with an afternoon of songs she wrote and songs she loved—plus a song written in her honor. I was lucky enough to be among the performers that day.

In fact, I came up with the idea for the concert. I’m sure someone else at MTC would have thought of doing it, but I was the one who first suggested it.

When Alice died in December, I was (not unnaturally) sad. I felt for her family members, who have always been honorary relatives. And I felt for our neighborhood, which had lost one of its pillars.

I decided to do something constructive with my grief instead of just wallowing in it. First, I wrote a memorial article and radio commentary about Alice.

Then I started planning the concert.

The music began with a few hymns arranged by Alice, who was probably best known for her choral singing. The impromptu quartet of singers included Alice’s daughter Molly.

All concert photos are courtesy of Kurt Wessbach.

Molly went on to sing a couple of selections from Alice’s setting of “Songs for Eve” by another local luminary, Archibald MacLeish. (MacLeish read the poems aloud at the music’s initial performance.) She was accompanied by the Farm House Quartet, a group of musicians from our area (including MTC board members) who were dear to Alice.

Two members of the quartet who adored Alice, Maggie Speier and Roy Lewis, played Alice’s arrangement of the Gershwin song “Love Walked In.”

Their son, Jasper Lewis, played and sang a song he had written after Alice’s death about her influence on his music.

Then I took the stage (you knew I had to) with some lighter numbers, including Alice’s composition “Find Me a Man I Can Cook For,” which she gave to me to perform over a decade ago. It’s a comic song, and audiences always enjoy it.

After various people, including Alice’s son David, got up to share memories of Alice, we ended with a sing along. Her family and former students joined me for the final song, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”

And then we drank a toast to Alice and nibbled on contributions from the MTC board and their spouses.

My favorite nibble of the day was the layered-hummus dish prepared by Daphne Bye, a pianist who is married to MTC’s executive artistic director, Mark Fraser.

Daphne has an extensive garden, and that garden was featured in the hummus, which was lovely to look at and lovely to eat. She served it with corn tortilla chips, but if one is grain free like Daphne one can use vegetable sticks to pick up the dip.

Daphne chops the vegetables for the hummus very finely. She even quarters her cherry tomatoes, which can’t be easy to do. The result is that each bite of hummus brings with it several different vegetable flavors, embodying the produce of late summer and early fall.

She said that she has seen similar dishes that add a layer of sour cream and/or guacamole to the hummus. Although I’m a fan of both, I agreed with her that that those might muddy the flavors of the dish.

Daphne’s Layered Hummus

All the ingredients here are more or less to taste, and one could easily double or even triple the recipe. Daphne tends to end up with 1 to 2 cups of chopped vegetables of varying colors. She suggests adding, or substituting, other vegetables according to preference.

Ingredients:

8 to 16 ounces of hummus
finely diced red bell pepper
finely diced black olives
finely diced red onion
finely diced scallions
finely diced cucumbers
quartered cherry tomatoes
chopped herbs: basil, parsley, or cilantro (I think she used basil when she served this to me.)
a generous drizzle of olive oil

Instructions:

Spread the hummus on a small platter. Top it with the vegetables and the chopped herbs. Drizzle olive oil over all. Serve with tortilla chips, gluten-free crackers, or sliced vegetables. Serves 4 to 8 as an appetizer.

Daphne snips basil.

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New Year, New Flavor: Tamarind

Wednesday, January 10th, 2024

Courtesy of McCormick

I’m always lurking on the internet to spot food trends. It was thus impossible for me to resist what McCormick, the purveyor of spices and much more, calls the 2024 flavor of the year.

I had been intrigued by the 2023 flavor of the year, a blend of Vietnamese and Cajun seasonings. Unfortunately, that spice was sold out by the time I found out about it. I decided to investigate the 2024 flavor early.

The 2024 flavor is tamarind. I consumed quite a few tamarind-related chutneys and other dishes when I lived in India as a teenager. I didn’t realize at the time what a global food tamarind is.

Tamarind fruit grows on a lush tropical tree (also called tamarind) that originated in Africa but spread to grow in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Tamarind is extremely health to eat, with lots of vitamins and antioxidants.

According to Buddhist lore, tamarind seeds are supposed to embody faithfulness and forbearance. Those certainly seem like good qualities with which to launch a new year.

Tamarind has a unique sweet-and-sour flavor. You may not think you have eaten it, but you probably have. It is a common ingredient both in Worcestershire sauce and in Pad Thai, the popular noodle dish.

Tamarind’s combination of sweetness and savory gives it versatility. In Mexico it is often incorporated into candies and beverages. In Asia it is generally used more for tart dishes and is frequently employed to make marinades for meat and fish, as well as in the chutneys I recall from my youth.

It can be obtained in a variety of forms. In India, my family purchased tamarind paste, in which the fruit flavor is highly concentrated. The paste is available in specialty-food shops and online. One can also purchase the fruit whole (mostly dried, I gather) or dried and powdered.

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

Since McCormick is primarily a dried-spice company, it prefers its tamarind dried. Its signature tamarind product is a tamarind and pasilla chile blend. Pasilla chiles are the dried form of the chilica pepper. They are popular in Mexican cuisine for adding just a little heat (they are only mildly spicy) but a lot of smoky flavor.

The company sent me some of the new spice blend to play with. The first thing I did was open the jar to smell and taste a few of the mixed granules inside. The first flavor that hid my taste buds was a slightly sweet heat. Its aftertaste came across as citrus-y.

I tried the blend that evening with a catfish filet. I sprinkled the fish with the seasoning and pan fried it in a little olive oil and butter. The heat, the sweet, and the citrus notes worked well with the fish.

My next venture with the tamarind and pasilla chile blend was to try a recipe provided by McCormick for a feta-based dip. It took a little doing. The recipe was more complicated than my usual dips because it included not just a semi-liquid mixture, but two toppings for that mixture.

One was a honey glaze that added just a hint more sweetness to the tamarind and chile flavor profile. The other was a mixture of fresh herbs and nuts.

I altered the recipe when I made it, and I enjoyed it with my changes.

I didn’t have any sesame seeds. Instead of mixing those in with the nuts and herbs, then, I blended a little sesame oil in with the dairy products. (I used 1 teaspoon sesame oil and 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil instead of the 1 tablespoon olive oil in the recipe.)

In addition, I was serving the dish to a neighbor with a nut allergy so I had to find a substitute for the nuts.

I didn’t want to bypass them entirely; their purpose is to add a little crunch to the dip. Instead, I used pepitas (squash seeds) to take care of that extra bit of texture. The pepitas had the added advantage of being popular in Mexican cuisine so I felt they worked with the flavor profile of the dip.

The dip was a big hit. The feta flavor was strong, adding a little extra salt and tang to the tamarind. I’d make it again in a heartbeat. Here is the recipe, along with my wishes for a happy and healthy new year.

McCormick Tangy Feta Dip

Ingredients:

1 cup feta cheese, coarsely crumbled
1/3 cup full-fat ricotta cheese
1/3 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons tamarind and pasilla chile seasoning, plus another teaspoon later
1 tablespoon assorted chopped nuts (pistachios, almonds, walnuts, whatever)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh dill
2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon white sesame seeds
2 tablespoons local honey

Instructions:

In a food processor or an electric mixer with a whisk attachment, combine the feta, the ricotta, the sour cream, the olive oil, and the first 2 teaspoons of tamarind and pasilla chile seasoning.

Spoon the mixture into a bowl that is relatively wide, cover the bowl, and refrigerate the dip for an hour or so to let the flavors meld.

In a bowl, mix the nuts, the dill, the parsley, and the sesame seeds. Set them aside.

Heat the honey just until it is warm. Add the remaining teaspoon of seasoning. Let the mixture stand for 5 minutes to allow the flavors to blend, keeping it warm. (I left it over a very tiny flame on my stove.)

Take the feta dip out of the refrigerator. Drizzle it with the warm seasoned honey, and sprinkle the nuts and herbs on top.

Serve with chopped vegetables, pita chips, or breadsticks. Serves 6 to 8 as an appetizer.

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A Centennial Celebration

Thursday, September 21st, 2023

Arnold Black

Food does much more than nourish us. It connects us to other people, in the present in the past. This week I’m using it to remember Arnold Black (1923-2000) of Charlemont, Massachusetts, and New York City. Arnie was a composer, a violinist, and the founder of our local chamber-music series, Mohawk Trail Concerts. He was also an utter charmer.

Arnie would have turned 100 this year. MTC will honor this special anniversary this Saturday, September 23, at 3 p.m. at the Charlemont Federated Church with a celebration of Arnie Black.

This fundraiser will begin with a concert featuring works composed by, or about Arnie. Those gathered will then move into the church social rooms to share refreshments and anecdotes about him.

The Federated Church is an appropriate location for this tribute. It was there in 1969 that Arnie came up with the idea for the concert series. He and his family were spending the summer at Singing Brook Farm here in Hawley in a cabin called Pudding Hollow.

Our neighbor, composer Alice Parker, asked him to play his violin at the church one Sunday.

Arnie Black lifted his bow that morning to begin a Haydn concerto and quickly discovered what members of the Federated Church had known for more than a century: the sanctuary had magnificent acoustics. (The first time I sang a solo there, I was so impressed with my suddenly fabulous voice that I vowed never to sing in another venue. I’ve broken that vow since, but I never sound quite as good elsewhere as I do in the Federated Church.)

Arnie and his wife Ruth decided that those acoustics warranted a concert series, and in the summer of 1970 Mohawk Trail Concerts was born.

From its first concert, MTC threw musicians and community members together. Folks from the church and the surrounding hills raised money, built stage platforms, and occasionally even performed themselves. They showed that, for them as well as for the professionals, music was something you made and not just something you listened to.

Arnie and Ruth both had outgoing personalities and wonderful senses of humor. They encouraged musicians to linger after the concerts to get to know audience members. That interaction was perhaps MTC’s greatest strength, one that continues to this day.

Returning musicians seem to look forward to the fellowship almost as much as the audience does. In particular, Bolcom and Morris, the duo made up of composer/pianist William Bolcom and mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, have made many friends in our community.

Here I am with Joan and Bill a few years back.

Bill Bolcom always appears a little surprised that I am now grown up. He met me first when I came to the concerts as a child. My parents took me to the very first MTC performance. I have been a loyal audience member ever since, and I have volunteered frequently.

When Arnie died in 2000, Ruth Black took over the concerts. She retired nine years ago and handed the directorship to Mark Fraser. A cellist who lives in Montague, Mark continues the concerts’ traditions of excellent music, humor, and accessibility.

When I was writing my first cookbook, I asked Arnie for a recipe. He gave me his formula for Squash Latkes. I made the latkes last week in preparation for the MTC anniversary party. Being me, I also adapted them into my own version.

Interestingly, the squash disappears in both versions but leaves a little flavor as well as nutritional value. Two people who had known Arnie attended the party at which I served the latkes: composer Alice Parker and violinist Masako Yanagita.

Masako told me she remembered eating them with Arnie many times. For her and Alice, as for me, they represented a taste of a dear, talented man.

Anyone interested in attending the MTC event on the Sept. 23 is encouraged to email info@mohawktrailconcerts.org to reserve a place. The suggested donation is $75, but the public is welcome with a contribution of any amount.

And … just in case you were wondering, I will be singing a couple of songs on the program!

Arnie’s Squash Latkes by Way of “The Steppes of Central Asia”
(to be eaten to Alexander Borodin’s Music of the Same Name)

“My mother was from Russia,” Arnie told me. “She was a great cook, and many of her specialties were derived from the Russian cuisine. Borscht (Hot: tomatoes, cabbage, beef; Cold: beets, sour cream, potatoes), Blini, Blintzes, Stuffed Cabbage, Stroganoffs up and down the Don.

“A vegetable dish which as a child in Philadelphia I found particularly delectable was ‘Squash Latkes,’ or ‘Squash Pancakes.’ She would serve them with a dollop of sour cream. Years later, living alone in New York and cooking for myself, I fondly remembered those wonderful Latkes.

“Thinking they might be within my modest ability, I called my mother for the recipe.”

To make things simpler, I used Bisquick for both recipes because Arnie’s recipe called for it. If you don’t have that mix, use 1 cup flour, 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt for each cup of Bisquick. Add a tablespoon of oil to the wet ingredients.

Ingredients:

2 good-sized summer squash
1 egg
2 tablespoons cooking oil
1 cup milk
2 cups Bisquick, plus a bit more if needed
sour cream as garnish

Instructions:

Grate the squash; place it in a dish towel inside a colander to drain for 15 minutes or so. Place the grated squash in a in a mixing bowl and add the egg. Add the oil, the milk, and then the Bisquick, stirring but not beating. Add a bit more flour or Bisquick if the batter seems runny.

Spoon the batter into pancakes on a very hot, buttered griddle. Turn when bubbles start to appear. Serve with sour cream or maple syrup or both. This recipe serves 4 but can be doubled easily. I made tiny pancakes as an appetizer; I ended up with about 25 little cakes.

Tinky’s Squash Latkes by Way of the Steps of West Hawley
(to be eaten to “The Hawley Song”)

Ingredients:

2 good-sized summer squash
2 eggs, beaten
a handful of dill, broken up into small leaves
1/4 cup finely minced onion (I used red onion for color)
1 cup grated store cheese (aged Cheddar)
1 cup Bisquick
butter or extra-virgin olive oil as needed for frying

Instructions:

Grate the squash; place it in a dish towel inside a colander to drain it for 15 minutes or so.In a bowl, combine the eggs, the dill, the onion pieces, and the cheese. Stir in the squash, followed by the Bisquick.

Spoon the batter into small pancakes on a hot griddle greased with butter or olive oil. Cook until they brown on one side; then flip them over. Makes about 20 little cakes.

Alice samples the latkes.

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