Do You Have A Recipe That Has Made Someone Immortal? Doughnuts: Beryl Lougee

I have a handful of recipes that remind me of special people, as I am sure most of us do. The one I am thinking of on this snowy winter day, is the recipe simply called “Doughnuts.” It’s in a well-worn and stained, hand-typed, plastic-ringed recipe booklet that was put together by a few Methodist churches in the mid 1970s. “Doughnuts” was submitted by a church friend of my mother’s, Beryl Lougee. I remember Mrs. Lougee as a smiling, mild-mannered woman who on occasion invited my mom and my sister and I over to her house for visits. She’d serve my sister and I these wonderful homemade doughnuts on saucers, swimming in real maple syrup! I can still see them and taste them!

She was an active member at the Higganum United Methodist Church, but back then as a kid, I focussed on the fact that she organized the Easter candy sales at our church: chocolate crosses along with the chocolate bunnies.

Growing up, I remember my mom was forever trying new recipes. She adopted Beryl Lougee’s doughnut recipe. At least once a snow day off from school, my mom would whip up a batch of these wonderful wheels while my sister and I played in snow that seemed armpit deep. We’d come in, shuck our snow pants, kick off our plastic bag-lined boots, then saddle up to the table and dunk ’em one after another in our hot chocolate.

I carried on the tradition of making Beryl Lougee’s doughnuts when Erin and Chris had snow days! I swear I’d be as excited as they were went I’d hear school was cancelled due to snow!

Now my kiddos are in college; one in Boston, the other Vermont. It was a little bittersweet making the doughnuts today without them, but Sean and I kept a stiff upper lip as we carried out the sacramental rite. We took turns shaking the royal rings in paper bags of confectioner’s sugar and cinnamon sugar. Ceremoniously we sipped coffee and hot chocolate as we sampled a two, or maybe three.

There is something “magical” as my daughter said about making doughnuts on a snowy day, or any favorite, traditional recipe on a special occasion. Recipes evoke pleasant thoughts/memories of the person or people who shared them with us. What special recipe evokes happy memories of someone past or present in your life or of some special event?