HCMCF Dining Services personalized the 2016-17
Heirloom program for our residents. Beginning in October we selected a
resident chef for the month, Sybilla Hertenstein. Andra, the Assistant
Director of Dining Services, conducted preliminary
interviews and gathered a couple of their family recipes. Dining
Services made the recipes and a share time was held with the other
residents.
Sybilla (Billie) and her daughter, Debbie
reminisced about special times working together in the kitchen. Billie
shared how each of her 7 children had a special day on their birthday.
Debbie called it “Queen for a day”. Each birthday King/Queen
chose the entire meal including the dessert and everyone had to eat it.
The meal that Debbie always selected was a dish of red beans with ham
hocks and homemade cornbread. Most of the kids selected Billie’s made
from scratch chocolate cake for dessert.
Another special memory for Debbie and Billie is
making Sunday Cinnamon Rolls. Every Sunday at 2 am, Billie would wake
Debbie up, to punch down and roll out the dough. They would leave them
to rise while they attended church. When they got
home, broiled grapefruit was prepared while the rolls baked. This was a
breakfast tradition every Sunday. The age difference between Debbie,
the oldest, and her youngest sister is 15 years. Debbie remembers that
even after she moved out of the house, Billie
and her younger sister still carried on this tradition. She shared that
mom let them prepare the sticky bun’s pan and that all the kids LOVED
to have extra brown sugar in the pan., so much so that Debbie referred
to the topping as a crunchy “candy”. So naturally
our Dining Services baker had to make the rolls with EXTRA brown sugar,
just like she remembered it.
Billie’s husband was in the Air Force and so the
family lived overseas in both Germany and Japan. Billie’s husband also
traveled often, leaving Billie to raise the children on a military base.
Most of the celebrations and holidays were
shared with just the immediate family as they were often too far away
from extended family. This is why Billie always made each holiday and
birthday special for her children. A special family heirloom of theirs
was a silver punch bowl and cups that Billie’s
husband bought from Greece. This set was brought out for every special
event including birthdays and holidays. At Christmastime, even the
children enjoyed sipping mulled wine from the silver cups.
After sharing their stories and recipes, the punch
and Sunday Cinnamon Rolls were sampled. The residents enjoyed hearing
family stories from Billie and had many questions for her about her
life.
From the residents in attendance many have
requested to be featured in upcoming months. HCMCF Dining Services plans
to create a recipe book of all the family recipes including recipes
from the staff. The Heirloom program looks to be very
successful at HCMCF because we all have special stories to share with
each other!
(Permission forms are on file to use Sybilla Hertenstein’s pictures)
Andra Shier| Assistant Director of Dining Services
| Huron County Medical Care Facility