Many of us are lucky to hold on to pages and pages of handwritten recipes from our mothers and grandmothers. Some are chicken-scratch, indecipherable to the reader but we won’t throw them away.
No. These handwritten recipes, often written by immigrants who barely knew how to write and often improvising Greek letters to mimic English sounds– they are fairly treasures to most of us.
My dear friend Despina Gianopulos Landers posted a recipe on her Facebook page for her mom’s Lemon Pound Cake with her mom’s handwritten recipe. My mind started swirling back to my mom’s recipes that she used to scribble on scraps of paper and kept neatly in a three-ring binder.
After her death, this binder became my treasure. Despina’s post made me get this binder out from under my bed and start leafing through the pages. My mom’s handwriting brought back memories. The recipes did too and I swear I could actually smell things as I flipped pages.
Despina’s recipe stirred up a lot of memories from my own childhood, as well as a funny story when I was in elementary school and asked my mom to prepare something Greek that I could take to school during an event that showcased different ethnic backgrounds of the kids in class.
My mom made a lemon pound cake… probably a lot like Despina’s mom’s cake. I remember protesting to my mom at the time… “Mom! This isn’t Greek,” I told her.
“It’s made with lemons,” my mom responded. “Of course it’s Greek. Lemons are Greek. How do you think Avgolemono is made? We put lemon on everything we eat, of course lemons are Greek.”
Despina and her mom’s lemon pound cake…
An accomplished marketing executive in her previous life for global powerhouses like Condé Nast and E! Entertainment Television, Despina was born and bred in Brooklyn, New York and eventually moved to Los Angeles where she lives now with her husband Jay Landers and their daughter, Sophia.
She’s not doing marketing anymore, having decided a while back that life is too short to be in a daily rat race and that the true meaning of life is personal happiness. And Despina’s happiness is centered around her family and her love for Greece.
Today, when she’s not baking koulourakia for Barbra Streisand (true story, click here to read!) Despina is busy creating and organizing unforgettable experiences in Greece for discerning travelers.
When Despina posted the recipe I knew exactly where her mind was. I knew she was thinking about her mom, family trips to the “patrida” and the traditions that bind us, like those handwritten recipes.
It’s such a simple recipe but the aroma in your kitchen will take you back to Greece.
And come to think of it… perhaps my mom was right. Lemons are Greek.
Meet Despina and follow her journeys via her Instagram page here.
From the kitchen of the late Mary Gianopulos (aka Despina’s mom)
1 pound unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups sugar
6 eggs
6 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups buttermilk
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup lemon zest
2 tbs. vanilla extract
¼ cup confectioner’s sugar
Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Grease the inside of a round or rectangular Bundt pan and bake in 325 degrees (f) oven for 1 hour. Optional: Dust with 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar for decoration.
