Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini

culinary ignorance.”
    “It was delicious,” protested Sarah. “Especially with a little vanilla frosting on top.”
    “That is not strudel,” said Sylvia. “Not real strudel, at any rate. If you had ever tasted my mother’s, even your damaged taste buds would perceive the difference.”
    “I’m willing to learn. Teach me how to make the real thing.”
    Sylvia waved a hand, dismissing the notion. “I haven’t made it since the war—the Second World War, before you get the idea that it was more recent. I would need at least a day to try to re-create the recipe from memory.”
    “You mean it isn’t written down?”
    “Of course not, dear. In those days, an accomplished cook didn’t measure cups and teaspoonfuls; it was a heaping handful of flour here, a dash of salt there, bake in a hot oven until done. The instructions were never as specific as cooks require today.”
    And yet somehow food had always tasted better then, when recipes were handed down from mother to daughter and stored in one’s memory rather than in a card file or on a computer.
    From down the hall, she heard the back door slam; a moment later, Sarah’s husband appeared in the doorway carrying two paper grocery sacks. “Looks nice,” he remarked, admiring the festive table. “Does this mean Christmas isn’t canceled after all?”
    “Not even Sylvia can cancel Christmas,” said Sarah. “No one can.”
    “Oliver Cromwell did,” remarked Sylvia, rising and taking one of the bags from Matt. “In the 1640s, when he came to power in England. He thought it was too decadent. But I’m no Oliver Cromwell, and Christmas at Elm Creek Manor was never canceled. You shouldn’t make assumptions based upon the lack of paper snowflakes and strings of colored lights. One doesn’t need decorations to have Christmas.”
    “But it helps.” To Matt, Sarah added, “Let’s go out soon and get a tree. To me, it doesn’t feel like Christmas unless it looks like Christmas.”
    “And sounds like Christmas,” replied Matt. “We need to put on some carols.”
    “I left my CD player in the foyer,” Sarah told him. He left the second bag of groceries on the counter and went to retrieve it, his curly blond head just clearing the doorframe. While they waited, Sylvia and Sarah put away the groceries Matt had purchased for their Christmas dinner, including sweet potatoes, cranberries, corn, apples, flour, onions, celery, and a contraband can of gravy Sylvia had deliberately crossed off the shopping list. Honestly. Canned gravy at Elm Creek Manor for Christmas dinner. When Sarah was not looking, Sylvia hid the gravy in a back corner of the pantry so that she would have no choice but to allow Sylvia to make theirs from scratch. Everything else they needed, they already had on hand. A turkey breast was defrosting on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, and Sylvia had already torn a loaf of bread into cubes for the stuffing. She had made a pumpkin pie earlier that morning, before the young people came down for breakfast.
    Sarah and Matt were quite right to attribute the holiday feeling to the sights and sounds of the season, but it was the smells and tastes of Christmas that flooded Sylvia with memories, transporting her to Christmases past as if she had lived those moments only yesterday and not decades ago. When Sylvia caught the scent of aniseed, no matter where she was or what the season, her thoughts immediately turned to Great Aunt Lucinda, turning out batches of savory cookies for her eager nieces and nephews. The smell of baking apples and cinnamon and pastry called to mind her mother, and her grandmother, and even her great-grandfather’s sister, Gerda Bergstrom, the first to make strudel in the kitchen of the farmhouse that would one day become Elm Creek Manor.
    Gerda Bergstrom had brought the strudel recipe over from Germany when she emigrated in the 1850s; all of the family stories agreed upon that. Whether she had created it herself or learned it