Nourishment in the Time of a Pandemic

There is a cookie recipe from a holocaust survivor that her grandson contributed to my cookbook. I think of our present time and wonder what we will contribute to this next phase of our lives here on this Earth. 

"This is the sugar cookie recipe from my great grandmother (Baba), Chana Dora Heitler. My mother was able to reconstruct the recipe, as Baba never really measured anything out with precision. As a child I simply loved the cookies, knowing anytime I would visit her in Nashville, there would be a tin of them in her kitchen. Baba was a holocaust survivor. After the German invasion of Poland, Baba, my great-grandfather, and their three children escaped Lodz, and ended up in a forced labor camp in Siberia. There, my great-grandfather and my grand uncle died. Baba, my grandmother, and grand aunt escaped Siberia into Kazakhstan. Eventually they went back to Poland to search for any surviving family. From Poland they smuggled themselves into the American zone in a displaced persons camp in Landsberg,Germany. Here, Baba remarried and my mother was born. Eventually the family all came to settle in Nashville,Tennessee. Baba had 9 brothers and sisters. Besides Baba and her two children, one brother and one nephew survived the war. As an adult I think of Baba and I immediately remember her tight hugs, loud laugh, and the joy she derived at the seemingly most simple things in life. When I eat these cookies, I not only taste the sweetness of childhood nostalgia, but I take in the lessons the matriarchs of my family have taught me - strength, courage, pride, and the gift to realize life is precious and magical." Billy Golden, 

p 114-115, Everything I Eat Nourishes Me, A Cookbook for Body & Soul

We have the time to create the memories with those we love without excuses that we are too busy. We have the time to be with those we care about and listen to them share about their lives. We have the time to digest the gifts they give to us with their sharing. We have the time to be nourished by their presence in our lives.

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