Recipe As Memory and History

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 7, 2022

I may have written about this before but it came across my mind the other day while in the kitchen – as it always does. 


When I work in the kitchen, cooking or baking a family recipe, all sort of memories and thoughts of family history come back into my mind. Some are stories passed down; others are memories that I hold in the recesses of my mind that get stirred up (ha!) while cooking. I often feel like Mama Minnie is leaning over my shoulder as I attempt – and likely    destroy – her pasta sauce recipe. It was a recipe my Mother wrote down as Mama Minnie made a batch of her sauce. My Mother figured if she was in the kitchen, writing it down, she would get her grandmother-in-law’s recipe exact. Unfortunately, try as she did, my Mother never felt it was the same and handed it to me. I don’t remember tasting my great grandmother’s pasta sauce but now I riff on it and she may not like what I do. Because when I followed the recipe, it did not taste right. How would I know “right?” Maybe it’s the genes not the taste buds. 


I often feel Mama Minnie and her daughter-in-law, my grandmother, leaning over my shoulder with their kitchen aprons on commenting on my eggplant parmesan (one of my favorite things). And then, I think about running around barefoot in my Mother’s vegetable garden at maybe the age of 2 or so (yeah I have a serious memory so don’t ever tell me you didn’t say something when you did) picking things for her. I remember distinctly being plopped in over the fence after a play in my wading pool and told to pick X, Y, and Z and I know there were eggplants in there. 


Almond Poppy Seed Muffins. I just made those. They were a big favorite of my Dad’s. It’s not a family recipe though. In his office, they had a lot of foodies – and a lot of Italians I might add. Once they moved their offices out of the city, and were in a more relaxed setting, they had “Big Breakfasts” every Friday, no doubt HIGHLY encouraged and supported by my Dad. It helped that they had a small efficiency kitchen installed so they could cook and bring things in. I looked forward to helping out in my Dad’s office so I could be with him (and also those Big   Breakfasts) – though not the library filing of thousands of pages of tax updates printed on TISSUE paper. A woman who worked for him was a great cook and she and my Dad had come across these muffins and wanted to replicate them. I think it took MANY batches before she came up with what they both thought was the right amount of    almond – my Dad was an almond freak as I am too. They obviously enjoyed tasting all the test runs but the final recipe is excellent and even better, easy. Each time I make it, I think about my Dad’s office, going to work with him, and those fun Big Breakfasts that turned a CPA office into an incredible bakery and restaurant every Friday!


JNLF


P.S. If you are wondering why she was called Mama Minnie – my Dad was the first grandchild and so was the one who named the grandparents. She was tiny, especially in comparison to her husband, who called her Minn or Minnie. Thus, she became Mama Minnie and her husband (my great grandfather) became Big Daddy.

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The Birth of the Maria Mitchell Observatory: Celebrating Over 100 Years of Discovery

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 30, 2025
As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the amazing people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. Founded in 1902, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) had its beginnings in the Mitchell House where Maria Mitchell was born. Over the first few years, the preservation of the Mitchell House, family artifacts, and the collection and display of Nantucket’s native flora and fauna, as well as a small library, were the key components of the MMA. Special “Moon Evenings” were held on the lawn and people observed Nantucket’s night skies using several small telescopes, including William and Maria Mitchell’s two-and-three-quarter-inch Dollond telescope. The popular evenings led to the inevitable – a desire and need to expand based on the demands of the visitors to, and members of, the MMA. In 1906, Lydia Hinchman, a founder of the MMA and a family member, purchased the house and lot adjacent to the Mitchell House. The house – once the home of William Mitchell’s father and mother – was taken down. The MMA began a dialogue with the Harvard College Observatory and its director, Edward Pickering, Ph.D. The connection to Harvard was to become essential to the success of the beginning years of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and continued a legacy of friendship and work – Maria Mitchell and her father worked with the Bonds who once ran the observatory at Harvard and the families were close friends. Besides his assistance, Pickering asked a member of his staff, Annie Jump Cannon, to assist the MMA. This “provided an indispensable collaboration for Nantucket astronomy,” with Cannon spending two weeks on the island in 1906 and 1907 lecturing and teaching. While back at Harvard, she continued to teach the students on Nantucket by mail. Cannon would go on to be recognized as the leading woman astronomer of her generation and as the founder of the MMA’s Astronomy Department. JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 23, 2025
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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 16, 2025
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