Dad’s apprenticeship at the hands of a gifted chef father and savvy manager mother gave him a lifelong love and appreciation of good food and restaurants — and drove him to stay as far away from the culinary biz as possible.

By the time my sisters and I appeared on the scene, Dad generally stayed out of the kitchen. His culinary responsibilities were limited to standard dad stuff — grilling burgers and steaks in the backyard — and a single indoors task: folding wontons.

Wontons — square pasta wrappers folded into elegant little pods around a savory mixture of ground pork, vegetables and sometimes seafood — are dead easy to make, but there’s a catch: there are no shortcuts for folding them the right way. Our hungry family of six could go through a boatload of them in a single meal, but there was no way Mom could fill and fold all of these herself, not with so much housework to deal with and so much childhood misbehavior to monitor.

So the folding fell to Dad, who brought to the enterprise serious mass wonton-folding chops, courtesy of the Golden Dragon.

I can still see the setup: It’s Saturday (or Sunday) afternoon, and Dad is at the kitchen table. Mom’s filling, smelling tantalizingly of scallions and sesame oil, sits in a glistening pink mound in a mixing bowl in front of him. Next to the mixing bowl is an open packet of wonton skins, which Dad keeps covered with a towel so they won’t dry out and crack when folded. At his side is a small bowl filled with beaten egg and a kitchen knife (the egg is the glue that holds the wontons together), and somewhere nearby on the table is a baking sheet soon to be filled with perfectly folded wontons.

By time I got to grade school, I wanted to fold wontons too. I was a bit of a tomboy and seriously into origami, and folding wontons fed both these impulses: Because Dad was the chief wonton folder in the household, I somehow got it into my head that wonton-making was one of those noble masculine arts, like bug-collecting and compass navigation, that would be worth aspiring to. And properly folded wontons are a thing of geometric beauty. By the time I was 8 or so, I’d be sitting beside him, folding away. It made me feel powerful and useful.

For whatever reason, none of my sisters ever took an interest in wonton folding, so I got to see something they didn’t. My parents were masters at keeping up a unified front before us kids, but when it came to wonton folding, this seemingly impenetrable facade ever so slightly cracked. Dad often warned me not to overfill the skins, lest they burst wastefully when boiled in soup or deep fried. Meanwhile, Mom, who grew up on decadent meals Dad could only dream of in his youth, always scolded him for the stingy amount of filling he used.

“Fred! This isn’t the Golden Dragon!”

It took me a while to figure out how to fill and fold wontons in a way that kept both Mom and Dad happy. The optimal amount of filling had to be small enough not to cause the wrapper to tear or the seams to come loose when folded, but big enough to offer diners a generous meaty bite or two. In wonton folding, as in a functional family life, patience and little compromises are the boring but sure secrets to success.

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Lee Family weekend wontons

Mom always made ginormous batches of wontons so she could keep some in the freezer for later. To freeze uncooked wontons, lay them on a baking sheet so they don’t touch and put the sheet in the freezer until the wontons are frozen solid. Once frozen, the wontons can be transferred to a freezer bag for storage. On a cold weeknight when you don’t feel like cooking, take some out of the bag, allow them to thaw, and throw them into a pot of simmering broth for a comforting dinner.

I’ve adjusted the recipe to make a more modest number of wontons — only about 100. I’ve also included instructions for the two most common ways of serving them, cooked in soup and fried. The soup recipe serves 2-4; the fried wonton recipe makes as many or as few as you need. Unless you’re serving dozens of people, you’ll still have some wontons left over for the freezer. Folding all of these will entail about an hour of meditative handiwork for one person, or a pleasant bonding experience for two.

For wonton soup: Heat one quart of chicken broth in a pot until it starts to boil. Carefully place about 12 wontons in the pot along with any meat and/or vegetables you’d like to add. (Mom used wonton soup as a convenient repository for leftovers.) When the wontons float to the top of the broth and look wrinkly and translucent, they’re done. Toss two thinly sliced scallions over the soup as a garnish. This amount will serve two people as a lunch, or four people as an opener to a larger meal.

For fried wontons: Heat about 2 inches of neutral cooking oil (such as canola) in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. When it’s hot enough to make a drop of water sizzle on impact, add wontons, one at a time. The number that you can add will depend on the size of your pan, but you don’t want them close enough to touch each other. Fry until the undersides are golden brown; flip and fry until the second side is also golden brown. Immediately remove from the oil, drain well on paper towels, and serve hot with sweet and sour or hoisin sauce. 

“That would be awesome. What’s this place called?”

She inhaled in happy anticipation. “Cracker Barrel!” (Luz went so far as to marry a guy from Tennessee. Her now-former mother-in-law made killer fried green tomatoes.)

I knew Cracker Barrel was the tourist version of Southern cuisine, and it only whetted my appetite for the real thing. This meant I’d have to find a friendly local who could teach me more about it. But where would I find such a person? Rumor had it the old-line Southern natives in my little college town resented — and hence, avoided — the Yankees and foreigners attached to the university where I worked. After all, people who put tempeh on their pizza and drink unsweetened iced tea are not to be trusted.

Then I remembered that I actually knew a real live Southern lady. And I’d been sitting across the table from her on Monday nights for months.

Susie Baxter heads a writing group I belong to, and is a proud native Floridian, born and raised in rural Suwanee County. (This is the north-central part of the state, just east of the panhandle.) One of the first things newcomers learn about Florida is that the more north you are, the more South you are: Suwanee County is closer geographically and culturally to neighboring Alabama and Georgia than to faraway Miami or Palm Beach.

Susie’s memoir-in-progress about her childhood in Suwannee County is a delicious mélange of everything Southern: quiet dirt roads, a homemade rope swing hanging from an ancient oak in the yard, dusty tobacco fields, mysterious bullet holes in floorboards, and, of course, lots of food — all cooked lovingly on a wood-burning stove, almost all grown on the family property.

Meals in Susie’s childhood were filled with all those mysterious Southern foods I’d read about for years, but never actually tasted. Among these are hoecakes.

The term “hoecake” is used across the South to refer to a number of different griddled flatbreads, ranging from simple mixtures of cornmeal and water to white-flour-based breads resembling giant scones. The name “hoecake” recalls the old tradition of cooking the cakes on the back of a hoe. (Most sources spell it as two words, but Susie spells it as one, and I’m following her lead — and recipe — here.)

Susie’s family’s version is a cornmeal griddle cake enriched with eggs and milk. Her family often had them with meals in place of biscuits or bread. Here is Susie’s description of her family’s recipe, from her upcoming memoir, “I, Susanette …”

Mama often made hoecakes for supper, instead of cornbread or biscuits that required a hot oven, which heated up the house. To make hoecakes, Mama measured the ingredients very precisely — a handful of freshly ground cornmeal, a half a handful of flour, a clump of lard, an egg or two, a pinch of salt and baking powder, and just enough fresh cow milk to make the mixture into a batter.

She checked the temperature of the iron skillet by sprinkling a few drops of water in it. When the water danced, she knew it was hot enough. She poured the batter into five separate puddles, cutting off the stream as each puddle spread to three or four inches. In less than a minute, bubbles formed on the surface of the puddles and began to pop, an indication that it was time to flip them. Her hoecakes always turned out brown and crispy on the outside but soft and warm inside.

Like biscuits and cornbread, hoecakes can be eaten with either savory or sweet accompaniments. At her childhood meals, Susie used them to block out the taste of turnip greens, which she hated. If she managed to get down enough of those dreaded greens, she also got to have hoecakes for dessert, drizzled with cane syrup.

Susie’s mother made her hoecakes from homegrown corn (which her family brought to the mill to be ground into meal) and home-pressed cane syrup. For city girls like me and Luz, this is as strange, exotic and wondrous as food can possibly get. 

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Amazingly, I lucked out on my first attempt to re-create Susie’s mother’s recipe. Since Susie is small-boned and petite; I guessed her mother may have been as well, so “a handful” would have been about half a cup at most. To get the combination of crunchiness and softness, the batter would need a lot of fat and tenderizers such as milk and eggs, so I interpreted “a clump” of lard to mean about a quarter of a cup. I actually pan-fry the cakes in a generous amount of oil to ensure crunchiness and even coloring, but the recipe would work with a more conservative amount of oil as well. I’m not sure exactly how close this comes to the original, but it does fit Susie’s description perfectly: The cakes are brittle and crunchy on the outside, soft and almost creamy on the inside. They look like ordinary pancakes, but their texture is distinctly different — and a lot more interesting.

Susie’s Mama’s Hoecakes

Radiation had failed, and chemo was not recommended. He could have opted for surgery to remove the larynx and learned to talk again through a mechanical device. The Ranevskayas could have saved themselves from ruin by razing their beloved cherry orchard.

So: a party. Champagne and slices of his famous saffron spice cake, the one that had taken second prize in the Maui County Fair. The toast was given by the guest of honor: “At least I won’t die of AIDS!” he crowed, triumphant as his feathery voice allowed.

Even then, I didn’t quite believe it. “Uncle Herb” had been dying for as long as I could remember. After Paul’s death in 1988, he had moved from Hollywood to be near us, so my mother could help to care for him at the end, which the doctors assured him would be in three months or six — a year at the most.

“You won’t have to buy Myrlin a car when she gets her license,” he announced to my mother in his inimitable high style: part gallows humor, part drama queen. He punctuated his lines with deep drags on his cigarette — why quit smoking? “I’ll be dead by then and she can have mine.”

I, then 13, eyed the ’78 Ford Fairmont, with its bumper sticker from a California burger chain modified with a razor blade to read IN-N-OUT URGE, and prayed that he would outlive it, at least.

A peculiar fairy godfather, his gifts were eclectic, and often mostly intangible. Herb bought my first pair of shoes: white patent-leather Mary Janes, which, he gravely informed the stroller’s tiny occupant, must never, ever be worn past Labor Day. Then, gallantly wheeling me out the door, he had announced: “Now that was Saks. And someday I will present you at the Court of St. James’s.”

He never did present me at the Court of St. James’s, but he flew to Portland to see me graduate from college. He was on the phone when I brought my boyfriend around to the hotel to meet the folks, and held up a finger to us: Just a minute.

“Hello,” he said into the receiver with his perfectly clipped speech, “Is this the Eagle? Just to be clear, the Eagle, the leather bar? Mm-hmm.” He smoothed his neatly trimmed mustache. “And what would be a good time for an older gentleman from out of town to come in, have a drink, maybe meet a few of the locals? Eight o’clock?” He checked his watch. “Excellent. I’ll just have a little supper, then watch ‘Jeopardy!’ and finish the crossword puzzle, and I’ll be right over.” He clicked off the phone and peered over his glasses at my date. “So tell me — are you two having safe sex?”

He had by then become a fixture at the Maui AIDS foundation, doing education, outreach, client services. A legend as well, for though his tale — of cocktails, treatments, near-undetectable viral loads — is not uncommon now, back then it was extraordinary: an island of hope in a sea of despair. When he was diagnosed with cancer “unrelated to the HIV,” I remembered something my mother had said some years before, when a social worker at the foundation had died suddenly of a stroke, rattling everyone. Surrounded on all sides by death — but death tested for, foretold, that followed a predictable, inevitable course — we’d all forgotten that its underlying cause was not AIDS, but life.

After the party, Herb did not last long. A few weeks later, I received my last letter in his precise handwriting. Not an official will and testament, it nonetheless bequeathed to me my small inheritance. The Fairmont being long gone, these were remembrances of more modest taste — his amethyst ring; the Rockwell Kent illustrated Shakespeare (“… no need to feel you must read every word …”) and bookplate sketch.

But the most precious gift of all was humbly tucked into a separate envelope: a red ribbon from the county fair, and the recipe that had won it –  a yellowed newspaper clipping with his additions and innovations noted in ballpoint pen.

I am an imprecise cook normally, measuring my ingredients to the knuckle or by the pinch. But remembering Herb’s impeccable correctness in all things, I followed his instructions to the letter, grinding cloves and caraway seeds with my mortar and pestle, measuring out cinnamon and nutmeg by the half-teaspoon.

But before I poured the batter into the bundt pan, on sudden impulse I reached for the jar of cayenne pepper, and added just a sprinkle. I find it brings out the warmth of the saffron and gives the spices in the cake a little extra kick. So my recipe may not be exactly the same as my godfather’s, but it reminds me of him anyway: classic taste. Unexpectedly spicy. Improves as it ages. Goes well with Champagne, and dancing while the ship goes down.

Myrlin A. Hermes is a novelist living in Portland, Ore. Her most recent book, “The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet,” is dedicated to her late godfather. Find out more at her website.

Herb’s Spice Cake

Serves 16

But some of the most unusual and tasty coffee-flavored confections come from Japan. Coffee jelly — essentially sweet black coffee set with gelatin — is a case in point. It’s one of those amazingly simple, yet out-of-left-field concoctions that make one think, “Wow, I wish I’d thought of that!”

Since good ideas tend to spread, variants of this treat have migrated to other traditionally coffee-free regions of Asia, and even to Asian enclaves in the U.S. My favorite coffee jelly came from a Hong Kong-style dim sum restaurant in Southern California, where it was misleadingly labeled “layered coffee cake” on the menu: It consisted of  layered coffee and coconut-flavored gelatin cut into pretty striped cubes. It was cool and smooth, firm but melting, and the coconut added creaminess and flavor.

I must have scarfed down three or four of those pretty little striped cubes during that brunch, and I’ve been promising to re-create that “coffee cake” ever since. My version pays tribute to Vietnamese-style coffee (strong, fresh French roast swirled with sweetened condensed milk), and features layers of coffee- and condensed-milk jelly. (It’s worth noting that in parts of Asia sweetened condensed milk isn’t seen as a mere utilitarian mystery ingredient, but as a condiment in its own right — and deservedly so.)

At dim sum meals, sweet and savory items are traditionally served together, and diners can choose to eat the available offerings in any order they please. But the coffee jelly also works nicely as a light stand-alone dessert, garnished with a touch of chocolate sauce.

Of course, this garnish isn’t traditionally Chinese — but neither is the jelly itself.

Coffee and Cream Jelly

We ate them during the summer months, when their farms were in high season, when a “Butterbeans — You pick!” sign on the side of the road meant we might get a few new children to play with for an afternoon. Then, when the season ended, the blackberry doobie and the fried green tomatoes disappeared, just like our temporary playmates.

The blackberries grew about a mile from Granny’s house, in the ditches of a red clay road. Granny would send me, my brother Ben, and my cousins Will and Darlene out to pick them, saying, “Y’all take Duke with you.” Duke was her homely mutt, black and tan and stubby-legged. We called him “Wiener” because sometimes his wiener would roll out like a tube of honky-tonk lipstick and get stuck that way for half a day or longer. When he wasn’t distracted by his faulty privates, he dutifully protected us from unlikely strangers and probable snakes.

Headed back with our full pails and badly scratched limbs, we always argued about whether it was safe to eat a few — surely some animal had peed on them. Inevitably we’d arrive at the house with stained mouths and half the berries we’d started home with gone, hoping there were enough blackberries left for Granny to make her blackberry doobie — a sweet blackberry broth, thick with tender dumplings, topped with vanilla ice cream that quickly melted, creating a creamy purple soup. It was all the more delicious because we had picked the blackberries ourselves and had the laborers’ scars to prove it. (Duke/Wiener got a bowl too. He did his part.)

Nanny’s fried green tomatoes were easier to come by, though she often seemed reluctant to make them. I think she felt it somehow wrong, sneaky almost, picking a tomato before it reached its promised hue. But if I followed Nannie out to the garden, and if I begged her to make the fried green tomatoes, she’d pluck three or four real quick, before the other tomatoes could see and wither themselves with worry about dying young.

In the kitchen I watched her slice them and dredge them — first in seasoned flour, then in buttermilk and egg, and finally in cracker meal — before she slipped them, one by one, into a large cast-iron skillet shimmering with hot oil. As they sizzled and popped, I hovered like a gator over a turtle’s nest.

At the table, Uncle Odie, who was pastor and lone parishioner at the Church of Uncle Odie, gave the blessing as if he was capable of writing a book every bit as long as the one God wrote. I let the eye that faced Uncle Odie pray, while the other eye searched the platter for the darkest, crunchiest fried green tomato. My mother would want that one too, and I’d need an advantage if I was going to get to it first. By luck or prayer or my mother’s indulgence, that gloriously crispy tomato usually landed on my plate. Along with others, just as tasty.

As hard as it was to choose between them, between their kitchens, I did have a favorite, but I can’t bear to say the winner’s name out loud for fear that Granny and Nannie might somehow hear. Now that they are gone, I miss them both equally. I truly do. I’m glad I have their recipes, and that I can share them with my family and with others.

Maybelle’s fried green tomatoes

Lola’s blackberry doobie