Aunt Marge's Rolls

 

As we get close to Christmas, Hanukkah, and the end of year holidays, I thought it was high time to dig back into my family’s recipes to share a treat that is perfect on any holiday table… none other than “Aunt Marge’s rolls!”

My Great Aunt Marge was my paternal grandmother’s (MaMa!!) younger sister (pictured here) who lived on a farm near Staunton Virginia most of her adult life and who was an incredible cook.  MaMa used to pose the question of who the better cook was, she or Marge, and I learned early in life not to “take the bait” and find a way to steer clear of that perilous question.  Aunt Marge was quite a character, outspoken and full of life and would share a delicious dinner when we would come visit her and Uncle Adley at the farm when we were kids.  While all the dishes were incredible, her rolls were exceptional, and my brother and I have worked to recreate the recipe ...the best we know how.  What follows is a recent “translation” that comes close to original, though Aunt Marge would have used probably used lard (most likely “leaf lard”) and would have omitted the dill during our summer visits.  The picture below is the batch I made last week following the recipe below. 

 I wish you all peace, love and understanding as you take some time off for the holidays…. in these times filled with conflict, division, and uncertainty here at home and all over the world, my hope is that you all can take some time over the holidays with your family and friends , share a meal and some stories... and don't forget to enjoy the rolls!!

                                              

Aunt Marge Rolls

 

 

Using my brother Mark’s “recipe” as a foundation, here is my version

 

The way I start is to put 1 cup of All Purpose flour in a bowl with 1/4-1/2 cup Whole Wheat flour

A little less than 1/4 cup sugar

1 heaping tablespoon (or 1 packet) Instant or Rapid Rise yeast

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped dill

Mix dry ingredients with an electric hand mixer

 

When the dry ingredients are mixed, add 1/4 cup “Crisco” oil (you could melt solid Crisco) 

1 cup hot water, ½ cup buttermilk and make a "batter" with the hand mixer.

During the mixing process, add 1 egg and up to 1 more cup of All Purpose flour. 

 

Using a hand mixer, I stop adding additional flour when it starts to bog down.

With a wooden spoon I continue to add regular flour until the dough is dry enough to knead.  There is no exact amount, as it will depend on exactly how much water you use, the size of the eggs and the relative humidity.

Once the hand mixer “bogs down”, keep adding flour and mix with a wooden spoon It will probably take at least 1- 1& 1/2 cups AP flour more (3&1/2 - 4 cups flour total +/-)

 

Turn out onto a floured bread board or your countertop and knead until the dough is quite resistive.

Place dough into a large, oiled bowl and spray a little oil on top.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until it has doubled in size.  This should take 1 hour, depending on room temp.  (I place mine in an oven with the oven light on)

Take dough out onto your floured board and cut into the number of pieces you want for the rolls.  This sized batch of dough makes 16-18 of the "Aunt Marge" rolls. Cover with a light towel.

Let the rolls rise until at least doubled in size-an hour or more this time.  More rising is better.

Bake at 400F for about 16 minutes (less if you do individual “chef's hat” rolls in muffin tins) or until the tops are nice and brown. 

 

 

In Memorium: after 50 years

 

It was 50 years ago this past week, December 8, 1974, that my mother passed away after a tough battle with breast cancer.  My mom, Arline Marie (Wark) Levisay, was a lovely, kind, gentle person who passed much too young, and whom I think about all the time.  I am startled to think that it’s been 50 years… in some ways that amount of time seems both too long and too short in my perspective today.  In many facets, her passing was (and is) the core defining element of my life.  “I am who I am” through enduring the pain, sadness and loss after her illness and death, and equally “I am who I am” by becoming a stronger, more independent, more confident self-driven individual because of her death.  It took quite a while for me to recognize that there were positive elements in my life that emanated from her untimely passing… but that realization is true.  I am deeply saddened by the thought of her never knowing my sweet wife Jennie, or ever getting to meet her two beautiful incredible grandchildren Bryson & Marie because she died when I was only 13… far too young for both of us!

 

Last year I wrote and published a family history book that focused on the lives and family of my father, Dale Hill Levisay and my mother Arline.  The copies have been shared broadly across the family, and I often refer back to it to refresh and renew my memories.  The excerpt below is a section that I wrote about my mother, and I thought it fitting to share on this anniversary.

 

 

 

 

Arline lived her young life in Brooklyn with her sister Lorraine, and her parents Fred and Kunigunda (and for a while her grandmother Marie often called Nana, who lived in the same home with them.)  She went to school at P.S. 104 the “Fort Hamilton School” and I still have a wonderful photo from 1943 of what must have been her 8^th or 9^th grade school class picture.

 

 

 (a picture of Arline in front of the Christmas tree, probably late 1940’s…. that electric train has been passed down in the family and it still runs every holiday season!)

 

 

We don't have too many details of her early years, we know that she was confirmed at St. Jacobi Lutheran church in Brooklyn and after High School, she attended the nursing school at Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn and graduated as a Registered Nurse in 1950 or 1951.  She met my dad in 1951 on a blind date, set up by mutual friends, while he was in the Navy, while his ship was docked for repairs at the Brooklyn Navy Yard; the image seems right out of a movie, a sailor dating a nurse in New York right after WWII.  They dated for six months and as the family story goes, he asked my Grandfather Wark for his “permission” to marry his daughter and my grandfather denied his request!  Whether it was that my dad was a skinny hillbilly from West Virginia, or that he and my mother had only known each other a few months, my grandfather “required” them to wait a year.

 

Indeed a year passed and in 1952 my dad did propose, my mother agreed, and ultimately on August 8, 1954 they were married in Brooklyn N.Y.  The picture earlier in the story shows the wedding party in full formal wear, and the white dinner jackets really caught my eye… they were the inspiration for our wedding party when Jennie and I were married in August, 1987.  The two of them enjoyed a Honeymoon in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and there are photos of them at Franconia Notch State Park.

 

(the photo below is one of my favorites of my mother, I believe taken on the Honeymoon trip in N.H.)

 

 

Arline’s story continued for another twenty years with a happy marriage, giving birth to four children (my older sister Lois died of childhood Leukemia just a few weeks after I was born in 1961), raising our family and being very active in the local Lutheran Church in our “hometown” of Murrysville Pennsylvania.  She stayed very close with her sister Lorraine (my dear Aunt Lorraine whom I have written about often in this blog) her parents and her two aunts, Katherine and Emma.  She became very sick in the spring/summer of 1974, unfortunately suffered deeply from the disease and brutal chemo treatments and ultimately passed that December.  Her death rocked our family and left an impact that I still feel and consider today, now 50 years ago; my mother Arline was and is loved, was and is missed, and her life and death have deeply defined me to be the person I am today… I will miss her forever!

 

p.s. the picture of her grave above was recently taken at the beautiful cemetery where she is buried in Delmont Pa.  My dear friends Jimmy & Dave (highlighted in the recent essay on “gratitude”) both have family members buried nearby my mom’s grave, and they keep on eye on her plot regularly… I am very appreciative of their attention to keeping our family plot clean and cared for!