As I am sitting here in bed at a quarter to midnight with my little four-month-old son curled up next to me, my husband’s sleep sounds just feet away, my mother’s voice descanting from the video I am downloading of the two of us cooking at the Cafe, and family members commenting (in real-time!) on the video Facebook posts as they download - I am struck by how lucky I am to have such amazing family all around me.  I am so lucky because my family extends past blood relation to close friends, close customers, and even to a close community.  I feel as though my life at the Cafe is connected to the past.  I have had out-of-town customers come into Dish and the Spoon Cafe www.dishandthespooncafe.com and comment that between pennies for the parking meters and the price of our coffee, they feel like they stepped back in time.  I’m not sure they have always meant it as a compliment, but I take it as one.  While I am thankful for the technologies of the present, I am also thankful to have one foot in the past where the value of good family, friends, and community is not lost.   

Out of this homage to strong family, friends and community, as well as the past, comes the recipe I have chosen for our first segment.  At the Cafe, we serve my Great Grandmother Nellie’s Raspberry Cream Pie.  In her younger years, Grandma Nellie baked at least a pie a day and her husband, Grandpa Pete, ate most (to all) of a pie a day.  When cows were milked by hand, fields were plowed by single row, and baling hay was back-breaking work – ingredients like sugar, flour, and butter were essential to the diet…not an indulgence! 

I am proud to believe I have many of my Great Grandma’s qualities, which were passed to me through my amazing mother.  Not everyone that remembers Grandma Nellie might think I should be so proud, but I beg to differ!  While she may have loved to gossip (in Czech, so no one would know what/who she was talking about), she was also the first to take food, help clean, or care for those she talked about in a time of need.  Even though she wrote my mom’s name in the dust around the house to chastise her for not cleaning properly, she also invited Mom upstairs (she and Grandpa Pete lived on the second floor of the Iowa farmhouse Mom grew up in) to watch cartoons on Saturday mornings.  It was a treat since there was no television downstairs.  In her older age, Grandma drilled the great-grandchildren on church attendance, school grades, and ability to mind one’s mother – but, she also had a freezer chest full of homemade goodies she was sure to spoil us with.

Who knew something as sweet and simple as this pie could carry so much richness, but every slice of Grandma Nellie’s Raspberry Cream Pie served at the Cafe carries the values she had…and we try to retain: love of family, friends and community, hard work, and a little play!

Please visit www.valleygirldish.com for the recipe and how-to video.