National publication preserves mealtime memories

Behind every meal shared with friends is good conversation. Sometimes, the conversation is how the recipe came about.

Atria, a senior living company, atriaseniorliving.com, asked residents from communities across the country for their cherished recipes, culled out a variety and put them into a 139-page book, "A Dash & a Dollop; Every Recipe Tells a Story."

Three women from Las Vegas are in the book. Along with ingredients and instructions, the book relates snippets of the recipe's origin or how it was used.

Las Vegas resident Alice "Rosalie" Haddox, 83, submitted a chili recipe she learned when she was 10. It earned her a badge in the Girl Scouts of America.

She had to come up with a complete meal for her family. To go with the chili, she made coleslaw, corn bread and a lemon meringue pie. After she married and had a family, she included it in her dinner repertoire. She also made it for gymnastics meets when her youngest daughter, Karen, was in high school.

"I'd fixed that, and it was slurped right up," she said.

The recipe relies on Campbell's tomato soup for its base. It also has an optional "spice" -- two heaping tablespoons spoons of instant coffee. Haddox said the coffee isn't tasted but, rather, kicks up the chili's tanginess a notch.

She said the recipe was so basic, she was surprised it was chosen for the book.

"There are so many good cooks around here," she said. "I didn't think it had a chance ... it's such a simple one."

Heather Evans, who lives at Atria Sunlake, 3250 S. Fort Apache Road, lived in Puerto Rico in the 1970s after her husband, Fred, who worked for a shipping company, was transferred there. A Cuban refugee family moved into the neighborhood and suffered a family tragedy. Their 14-year-old son was riding a motor scooter when a car struck him and sheared off one of his legs.

"I didn't know what to do," Evans said, "so I baked them a cake."

The son survived and adjusted to life as a paraplegic. Later, Evans was hospitalized with pneumonia. When she got out, the Cuban family brought over its own culinary masterpiece: a flan.

The dessert was so good, Evans asked for the recipe.

"We went back and forth. She didn't speak much English, and I didn't speak Spanish," Evans said. "But we were able to communicate enough for me to get it down."

Flan became a family favorite, and Evans made it for nearly every special event. Her three daughters continued the tradition in their own homes.

Vivian Black resides at Atria Sutton, 3185 E. Flamingo Road. Her contribution to the book is Spanish garbanzo bean soup, a recipe that came from her husband, Stuart's, side of the family. They made it after Easter or Christmas as a way to use up the leftover ham. The beans were a good source of protein. During the Great Depression, when meat was scarce, the soup was simmered with the ham bone.

"It was amazing how much taste was still left" with just the bone to give it flavor, she said.

Nowadays, Black said, it can be made with a crock pot to simmer all day while at work.

Submissions came from food lovers 69 to 106. Some of the recipes traveled to America in the suitcases of immigrants. Others helped families survive the Great Depression. Still others saw soldiers through hard times spent in the field.

Jason Ridley, regional director of culinary services for Atria, said he and his colleagues divided up the 100s of recipes they received, pulled out duplicate ones and spent more than a month testing the remainder.

During the kitchen-testing phase, Ridley said some of the professional cooks ran into a puzzling predicament.

"One recipe was for a diabetic cookie," he said. "We tried it three or four times and never could get it to work. We called up the (submitter's family). It turned out there was a key ingredient missing -- applesauce. We made it again with the applesauce and everything turned out fine."

Atria houses more than 13,000 Americans in 27 states. It manages four communities in Las Vegas, including the Cottages of Green Valley. The latter did not participate in the cookbook.

At each Atria facility, chefs are encouraged to offer the recipes from the book as part of the weekly meal options. One common denominator in many recipes is a can of onion soup. It's representative of the day but finds little favor among today's nutritionists.

"We wouldn't cook that way now," he said. "We do alter them slightly, so they (residents) don't load up on sodium."

One Atria facility is working its way through the entire book. No word on how it plans to find the main ingredient for one recipe -- iguana stew.

"A Dash & a Dollop" is available at barnesandnoble.com and is priced at $15.43. For more information, visit atriarecipes.com.

Contact Summerlin/Summerlin South View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 387-2949.