THE REVELATION

 An important article of property in Momma’s home was her noodle board, or, as she called it in Yiddish  lukshen bret This was a flat, rectangular board, 3/4" thick, about 32" in width, and 24" in depth. There was affixed to one of the board's long sides a strip of wood about 2-1/2" in height facing downward so that when placed on a kitchen table, the board could not move forward. There was a similar piece of wood on, the other side, facing upward, which prevented ingredients being mixed on the board from spilling off. I doubt the board was purchased in a store. More likely, it was made by Joe Wishik, our mishpocheh, (family) (master carpenter. Both sides of the board were used by turning it over and reversing the front and back. This was necessary because Momma was Orthodox Jewish and one side was used for dairy and the other pareve (contain neither meat nor dairy). 

While the lukshen bret was used to make egg noodles, hence its name, it  was, more importantly, the culinary temple from which Momma's hands turned out her delicious cheese and raisin rogelach, strudel, honey and sponge cakes, hamantashen, challahs, apple pies and tsibale kichels (onion cookies). It was also used to make verenickes, known in Eastern European restaurants as pirogen or pierogis. These were small dough dumplings filled with either mashed potatoes and onions or blueberries, served either boiled or fried, and together with sour cream. The dough was made from flour and water, no eggs, flattened out on the lukshen bret by Momma using her rolling pin or, as she called it, valger-holtz. It was a time when glass and stemware and extra kitchen utensils were beyond our means and our drinking glasses were used Yahrzeit (memorial) glasses. These were not the small ones available today, but thick, sturdy glasses (I cannot recall ever seeing one break) with its open end having a diameter of about 4 inches. The open end was placed on the flattened dough, twisted, and produced a perfectly sized piece of flat, circular dough. The filling was spooned onto the dough, the edges folded over the filling and pinched closed. It was then boiled and eaten boiled or fried. 

Momma ultimately moved from Middle Village to Florida, but did return most summers and spent several weeks with my wife, Ethyl, and me. While visiting, she made good use of her sorely missed culinary skills. One day, while making verenickes, she suddenly

smiled with a broad grin (Momma did not easily smile, except in relation to her grand and great-grandchildren) and exclaimed, “That's how she did it!” “Who,” Momma was asked. “Bobba,” she replied, referring to my father's mother, the only grandparent who came to America and the only one we knew. Momma explained when Bobba lived with us she watched her make verenickes and observed Bobba with a quick hand motion was able to make a perfectly shaped verenicke. Despite for well over 50 years trying to duplicate her mother-in-law's hand movement, Momma was unable to do so. That is, until that one summer day in the twilight of her life when it was in some inexplicable manner revealed to her. Perhaps it was a loose string in her long life she wished tucked into place, or perhaps in anticipation of their meeting once again, it was Bobba's hand that guided Momma's.

Ben Haber