The Lost Cooking Lesson

This is my first attempt at Mom Hovie's Pasties. It almost looks like I know what I'm doing!

I think that a big fear that people have when they lose someone they love is that as time passes that the memories will begin to fade. About two and a half years ago we lost my mother-in-law to cancer. She had a short battle from the time we found out until she passed. I was lucky in that I had a really good relationship with her. Not a lot of daughters-in-law are quite so fortunate, I’m told. She was a very giving person and we became great friends in the 18 years I knew her. I think about her all the time whether it’s when I’m lying on the couch with my head on one of the throw pillows she made, or if I’m putting on one of the many coats or sweaters she had given me over the years. I have so many wonderful memories of my time with her and I cherish them all. My mother-in-law was an outstanding cook and my only regret is that I was never able to have her teach me how to make pasties. If you don’t know what pasties are, they are a Cornish meat pie that can actually be held, sort of like a Stromboli. Pasties became popular in the UP because the Finnish loggers would take them into the woods for their lunch. Being both Cornish and Finnish, my mother-in-law was a great pasty maker. She would bring us pasties that were ½ the size of dinner plates. Tom and I would split one for dinner and freeze the rest. I can still see her coming in the door with an armful of foil-wrapped pasties, ready for the freezer because she only made them once or twice a year and wanted to make sure we always had some on hand. I buy pasties from time to time from Glen’s or Oleson’s and I even tried to make some from a recipe I got in Munising last summer. Tom and I just looked at each other as we ate them because they weren’t even close to hers. I thought that was the end of it. Then I was going through my recipe box and found an old yellowed note card that said “Mom Hovie’s Pasties.” I had completely forgotten that she had given me the recipe! Tom and I were excited when I showed him that we were going to be able to reproduce his mom’s pasties. We got the ingredients and I felt like she was there with me as I carefully pinched the dough of each one, giving me one more thing to add to my cherished memories and reminding me that the pain of losing a loved one is eased by those memories (recipes) that they leave behind.