Thoroughly Modern Millie

Aunt Millie, my dad’s younger sister, passed away early this morning. The fishcakes pictured in this post are named after her.

I’m not sure why, why that is I picked this particular dish. She actually never made these fishcakes as far as I can remember. When I was putting together our soul food menu, I wanted to honor her with a dish. This one seemed a good choice: simple, elegant, no-nonsense, not finicky but no so easy to prepare either, not very forgiving if you messed up, healthy but with a nod toward frying (she loved french fries).

Millie, unlike my mom, was an excellent cook. The Friday night meals she prepared, first in the house on Gordonston Avenue that she shared with her mom, my grandmother, then later in the townhouse on Habersham Street, those meals were always prepared to perfection: green beans with toasted almonds or orzo and toasted almonds, roasted chicken, a simple lettuce salad with just the right touch of vinaigrette. The table was beautifully set as well: bacarat wine goblets and water glasses, English china, real silverware, linen napkins of course. My dad always sat at the head of the table. He was her hands-down favorite. After dad passed, that was where I reluctantly was placed.

The dishes I most remember coming out of her kitchen however, were the casual ones we ate in the kitchen: a tuna salad with capers, matzah brei, things like that. Millie, like most of the people I am most fond of, was a pastiche of contradictions, the very informal sidling intimately to the formal.

She was a businesswoman, a civic leader, a force to be reckoned with. Cooking was just something she did on the side, like her NY Times Crossword puzzle. I miss her already.