Mother's Pasties — When the Recipe Comes Through the Phone

September. Caleb started daycare. I dropped him off Tuesday morning and he walked in — WALKED, not clung to my leg, not cried — and joined a group of toddlers at the play table and didn't look back. Military kids. They walk into new rooms without flinching. (I flinched. I cried in the parking lot. Because I'm the one who's been with him every day for twenty-two months and the separation is harder for me than for him. He's an Abernathy. He adapts. I'm also an Abernathy, but I'm the kind who adapts and then cries about it in a parking lot.) Three hours of writing time. THREE HOURS. I drove home and sat at the kitchen table and opened the laptop and wrote 2,000 words without stopping. Chapter Four: the desert kitchen, the crockpot, the three square feet, the adaptation. The words came like they'd been waiting in line behind Caleb, just waiting for him to leave so they could pour out. The book is alive. The manuscript is growing. Clara checked in: 'How's the desert treating you?' I said, 'Badly, but the writing is good.' She said, 'Suffering is great for art.' I said, 'Tell my air conditioning unit.' Mom and I have started doing a new thing on the phone: she reads me recipes from her binder while I cook. Not her copies — the ORIGINALS, which she now has again (I photographed every page and sent the binder back because it belongs in Norfolk). She reads the ingredients, the instructions, the margin notes, and I cook in real time. 'A pinch of cayenne,' she reads. 'How much is a pinch?' 'A pinch. Less than you think. More than nothing.' This is how she taught me. This is how her mother taught her. Through the phone now, across three time zones, across the desert and the mountains and the country — but the teaching is the same. Listen. Follow. Adjust. Made her cornbread tonight. The real kind — no sugar, because 'real cornbread doesn't have sugar, Rachel, and I will FIGHT about this.' Cornmeal, buttermilk, egg, baking soda, salt, a little bacon fat. Baked in the cast iron. Golden, crispy-edged, crumbly. Caleb ate two pieces. His first cornbread. In the desert. From the cast iron. The tradition continues. In three square feet. In 103 degrees. With Mom on the phone. Always with Mom on the phone.

The cornbread came together the way all of Mom’s recipes do — imprecise, intuitive, and exactly right. But it was another call, another page from the binder, that reminded me just how far back these recipes go: her pasties, which her mother made, which her mother’s mother made, each one a little different and somehow always the same. If you’re going to cook your way through someone else’s handwritten binder — reading the margin notes aloud, arguing about pinches and handfuls — you might as well start with the one that tastes like every kitchen they ever stood in.

Mother’s Pasties

Prep Time: 45 min | Cook Time: 55 min | Total Time: 1 hr 40 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• Pastry:
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
• 1/2 cup ice water, plus more as needed
• 1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)
• Filling:
• 1 lb skirt steak or beef chuck, trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch dice
• 2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice
• 1 cup rutabaga or turnip, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme
• 2 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Instructions

1. Make the pastry. Whisk flour and salt together in a large bowl. Work in cold butter with your fingertips or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining. Add ice water a tablespoon at a time, stirring with a fork, until the dough just comes together. Divide into 6 equal portions, flatten into discs, wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
2. Prepare the filling. Combine diced beef, potatoes, rutabaga, and onion in a large bowl. Season with salt, pepper, and thyme. Toss well to distribute evenly. Do not pre-cook — the filling will cook inside the pastry.
3. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 400°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
4. Assemble the pasties. On a lightly floured surface, roll each dough disc into a circle roughly 8 inches in diameter. Mound about 3/4 cup of filling onto one half of each circle, leaving a 1-inch border. Dot the filling with a few small pieces of cold butter.
5. Fold and crimp. Fold the empty half of the dough over the filling to form a half-moon shape. Press the edges firmly together, then crimp by folding and pinching in overlapping folds along the curved edge to seal completely. Place on prepared baking sheets.
6. Vent and brush. Cut two small slits in the top of each pastie to allow steam to escape. Brush the tops and edges with beaten egg.
7. Bake. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until the pastry is deeply golden and crisp. If the tops brown too quickly, tent loosely with foil for the final 15 minutes. Let rest 10 minutes before serving — the filling will be very hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 540 | Protein: 23g | Fat: 29g | Carbs: 47g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 640mg