Forever on a search for a pasty that really tastes 'homemade'!

Photos: A Jean Kay pasty; outside views of Dobber's in Escanaba; inside views of Jean Kay's in Marquette.

My mother, Helen Marjorie Roberts Sage, was a fantastic cook, professionally and in the home. As one of five children I grew up with foods such as kreplach and pasties, cooking that she had brought from Ishpeming and Negaunee. Mom used to make pasties in the wee hours of the morning after she had finished one and sometimes two shifts at a local country club. When we awoke, my brother and I would have a pasty for breakfast (we were not a breakfast-orthodox family!) and take a wrapped one for school lunch. Hiding them at school became a challenge, as mine was sometimes stolen from my desk (we didn't always have lockers in my elementary school). The aroma, though, would often give up the culprit.

When I left home, it was first to Houghton, Michigan in the UP. I had no need to make my own pasties there, as pasty makers had certain days during the month for making pasties and people could call in orders. Also, the Kaleva Cafe across the canal, in Hancock, had substantial and extremely tasty 'homemade' pasties.

When I finally started making my own, it took six attempts before I could match the taste of Mom's. She never had a recipe, but I had watched her so often and was always amazed with her skills. My older son asked for a recipe and I had to find the closest I could with proportions and then give him the basic rules: USE RUTABAGA and ground beef! It may be true that I adhere to

the idea that the best pasties use rutabaga only because my mother made them that way. People may show their passion in discussing religion or politics, but never underestimate the passion about pasty ingredients!

Years ago I used to make ethnic food for art fairs (I found it more lucrative than my artwork). My son and I would generally make about three hundred pasties, a couple hundred each kreplach and tamales. A woman once approached me asking her question before even reaching our booth: 'Do you use rutabaga?' When I said 'yes', she began her rant against rutabaga in pasties.

I used to look forward to visiting Grama T's in Negaunee for pasties....great crust and the right mix of ingredients. The last good one I had there was in 2002. While visiting the Hiawatha Music Festival a year or two later, I took my friend with me and I was sadly disappointed. Was it because they had strayed and gone the way of expanding to pasties with cheese, broccoli, etc. or because the shop had been up for sale? When does a pasty stop being a pasty? Their traditional pasty had lost its flavor and my favor.

A couple years ago when in Negaunee/Marquette, I bought four different pasties to take home for a taste test. I rated three very low and one so-so. On this July trip with my aunts and cousins, we tried Dobber's in Escanaba - never again. Lawry's in Marquette - better, but not again...and the potatoes were julienned! Some people would say that one shop's location would have better pasties than their other location, but even if true, I want consistency. The last we tried on this trip was Jean Kay's in Marquette. It was better. It actually had rutabaga, onion and flavor....Cleo and I agreed though...it was still not as good as OUR homemade!

Cleo is a great travel companion, ready to try different things and have fun in the doing. It got to the point where we were almost dissecting each pasty as well as critiquing it. But we never complained about them and always had fun. At one shop I had ordered my pasty, then added a cudighi sandwich to take out also. We got back to the motel, and found the cudighi, but not the pasty! Cudighi is another story...

I'll have to cool down my kitchen, make room in my freezer, and get started! It's so labor intensive, I'll need to psyche myself up for the task. Pasties - so much more to write about them: origin and evolution of recipe and ingredients, sociology of..., short personal stories related to the ubiquitous pasty.

Joseph Jerome Roberts

My cousin, Joseph Jerome Roberts, died last week. I drove up to Negaunee in the UP for his funeral this past Thursday. Joe was 89 years old. It was, I think, about four years ago that I first met him. Two of my sisters and I had gone to the Marquette County Clerk of Courts to search for Roberts family records. We requested records of our mother's name and a man came out of an office, saying, "I believe I'm your cousin." This was the first time we had met or known the existence of our cousin, David Roberts, then Marquette County, MI Clerk of Courts. Later that day, he introduced us to his dad, Joe Roberts.

Joe at first thought he was our uncle, but quickly found out he was a cousin. When he told us that, I sensed he was disappointed...anyway, I acknowledged the cousin relationship, but have always written 'Uncle' in my notes and letter to him. I rather liked the idea of an uncle, and I kind of thought he did, also.

Joe had been in a nursing home over the last three years. He had suffered a stroke and slowly deteriorated. At his funeral, as I watched his family - David and his wife, Pat; their children and grandchildren, I thought how loved Joe was. In my few visits I recall references and treatment of Joe of great respect and love. That same love and respect was shown him at his casket as war veterans saluted a fellow vet; co-workers and friends of Dave and Pat understood the love for Dave's father; people who knew Joe from his work in the iron mines paid their respects.

Joe was my grandfather's nephew - now I'm not sure I have that right; have to check the family tree. For the hardship he experienced growing up, both parents having died early in his childhood, Joe seemed to me a wise, gentle man of deep faith and belief in humankind. In truth, of course, I barely knew him as we met so late in life. He probably knows more about me from my letters to him!

I've just met or gotten to know Joe's grandchildren and great grandchildren just a bit while in Negaunee. I believe all the graciousness and goodness of Joe reveals itself in them. He left an awesome legacy.

Selfishly, I will miss Joe. My letters were one-way, of course, as he wasn't able to respond because of his health. But it was as if I received a great gift from him in being able to write and feel he accepted me fully and looked forward to hearing from me. I received such fullness from the short time I knew Joe. He gave me a Roberts family connection that I cherish.

Whether it was because of the domestic violence or other dysfuctions in my birth family, we moved around a great deal and had few ties to my mother's family, except for my Aunt Cleo, whose family lived nearby. though I had written to my Grandmother Roberts (Eugenia Johanna Pelto, also known as Helen), my memories of visiting her in the UP are of perhaps, a five year old. One day, while we lived in Bloomingdale, Illinois, an elderly woman came to the door and asked to see my mother. Thirteen or fourteen at the time, I showed her to the kitchen where Mom was, and I left for my errand. I learned later, from a very angry mother, that the visitor was my grandmother. It was the last time I saw her. My mom felt angry with me for leaving (how could I have known?), but I also felt a loss in not knowing my grandmother.

I think part of my writing to Joe was to be in some way, a part of his life, of the Roberts family. That sounds a bit selfish as I lay it down. At the funeral I thought again, how such services are for the living - to remember the good and the bad, how a death affects our lives and perhaps induces change for the good.

In Joe I also found a living link to my grandparents, to my mother's family. On visits to the cemetery, he talked about aunts and uncles who have been only names to me. He told me about family health issues, personalities, and relationships. As we walked among the graves, people came to life for me. I hadn't thought I would cry as I have been. We cry for the living as well as the dead. We cry for what we've lost and for what we never had. Again, selfishly, I perhaps cry more for myself.