• Brown 1 lb cubed stew meat in pressure cooker, 1 chopped onion and 1 cube beef bouillon, 3 tbsp minced garlic, 2-to-3 cups water, 2 large eggs, (1/2) cup milk, 2 generous cups of flour, 2 tbsp baking powder, a dash of salt.

1. Brown 1 lb cubed stew meat in pressure cooker.
2. Add 1 chopped onion and 1 cube beef bouillon.
3. 3 tbsp minced garlic.
4. 2-to-3 cups water.
5. Cover and cook in pressure cooker for apx. 15 minutes.
Meanwhile mix 2 large eggs and (1/2) cup milk.
6. Then, gently stir in dry ingredients
7. Turn dough onto a heavily floured surface and roll thin.
8. Fold dough onto itself approx. 3 times.
9. Slice thin and unroll noodles.
10. Roll in flour and drop into boiling water/beef mixture for 5-8 minutes, until noodles are cooked through.
11. Sauce may need to be thickened with either flour or corn starch.
12. Serve on its own, or over mashed potatoes.

My Grandmom, Doris, learned to cook by standing at her mother's elbow. Watching the harmony of motions, savoring the smells, and anticipating the moments of indulgence marked the cadence of her childhood memories. In the kitchen of the four-room house, home became the cacophony of scraping spoons on cast iron skillets intermingled with the clucking of chickens picking under the open window. There was rarely a written recipe to be found; once committed to memory, measurements were reduced to "pinches of this" and "dashes of that." A lifetime spent over a stove gave my great-grandmother a mind for that type of thing, and Grandmom would inherit the same.

In the summer of 1973, that Grandmom returned to the little house with the little kitchen for a visit. At the age of twenty-eight, she was the mother of two-three if you count the bun in her oven, my mother-and the wife of a Navy pilot named Floyd. Returning to the tiny rural town of Fairfield, Illinois was an easy choice to make as Floyd had just begun a cruise and would be at sea for months. They had been there a handful of weeks when the phone rang. "I remember it very clearly," Grandmom recalls. "The girls were in the yard.

Granmommy and I were in the kitchen making lunch. When the phone rang, I thought nothing of it . . . but I knew by the tone of Daddy's voice that something was wrong. Floyd had been lost at sea during a test flight." The news spread through the small town quickly. "The next couple of days were spent around the phone waiting for the call to come . . . on one way or the other. . . "

The small farmhouse was filled with people; neighbors, church members, and family all came to help out. All brought with them an offering. Some ladies cooked there in the cramped kitchen, elbow to elbow with Granmommy. Others brought dishes from their fridges: casseroles, salads, breads, and sweets flooded the family room. It was a revolving door of food and people. No one came empty handed-and no one left empty handed, either.

"I wasn't very hungry. You know those knots you get in your stomach. It felt like my throat wouldn't have opened if I wanted to. The first thing I remember eating was Granmommy's beef noodles. It was late, a couple days after he went missing and everyone had gone to bed. I couldn't sleep, so I went to the kitchen and sat at the window and watched the fireflies. I remember thinking how good it was, even cold as a rock. And with tears in it, even!"

In the end, she never regained what had been lost. But, decades later, she still remembers the support-and the food. "It was comforting to be with family . . . in the kitchen. Doing the same things we had for years, as if nothing was different about the day."