There’s A Legacy

My Nana, Maureen, was the traditional Irish mother.

She believed in nurturing her family, and in later years her grandchildren. She had a brilliant talent for homebaking; her buns and raspberry almond slices are the stuff of legend.

Over the past few years she had asked me repeatedly to take whatever I wanted from her house. I was really reluctant to do this because I felt it was like admitting that she would never return home.

After Grandad died though, the house had to be sold so I took some crockery, table linens, and precious cookery books home with me. Nana was delighted to hear this when I told her. I explained that I would keep her legacy alive, by cooking her recipes and taking photographs of our family food on her plates.

Not the fancy china, but the everyday crockery. These everyday plates to me are perfect. They are the plates my grandparents ate off, the ones that they fed us from, and I have so many fond memories of carrying them gently from counter to table.

Nana hadn’t cooked in many years but she had bountiful cookery advice and knowledge to pass on. She lived her final years in Lusk Community Care Home with her ‘Lusk Family’. Something that always strikes me about this wonderful care home was how much store they put in home cooking and baking. The staff lovingly prepare home cooked meals for the residents, made with local produce. It is something that means a lot to my family, and something that I believe is very important.

You’ve probably noticed a distinctive shallow dish with blue flower pattern in my recent photographs? These are my favourites that I took from the family home.

Today I’m feeling the power of the legacy that she has handed on to me. I have a treasure trove of recipes that are tattered and splattered, probably the best way to measure a recipe’s success.

I’ll share her magic raspberry and almond slice recipe in the future; when I’m feeling stronger. Cxxx