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| Marilyn and Sheila in the kitchen. |
The Yankee Yenta Grandmothers
by Molly O'Neill
The Brass sisters and their family favorites
Marilynn and Sheila Brass became grandmothers-at-large by accident. The sisters, neither of whom ever married, have no descendents. Yet their first cookbook, Heirloom Baking With the Brass Sisters (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2006), along with their homespun humor, appeal to thousands who want to pull up a stool in the kitchen of a yenta, to bask in the aroma of chicken soup, and to smile at grandmotherly advice and little snippets of neighborhood news. The book flew out of stores and was nominated for a prestigious James Beard Award.
“People call us an ‘overnight sensation,'” says Sheila Brass, who is 70 years old.
“An overnight that took 45 years,” says Marilynn Brass, 66.
The Brass sisters, who grew up in an Orthodox home, finish each other's sentences. They did not set out to become cookbook writers. They were antique dealers. In fact, since 1976, they’ve been the go-to gals for vintage mixing bowls and kitchen tools in New England.
“It was a sideline,” says Shelia.
“The antique business,” says Marilynn.
“We kept our day jobs,” says Sheila.
In addition to their professions — Marilyn, a writer, was a publicist for a large laboratory at MIT, and Sheila, who worked as a clothing designer for ten years before becoming the executive assistant to the vice president of national programming — the sisters spent their weekends prowling flea markets and tag sales in search of merchandise. Along the way they also amassed a collection of 135 handwritten kitchen diaries and recipe boxes.
“We never paid more than a dollar,” says one.
“Usually more like 50 cents,” says the other.
Adding these volumes to the recipes they’d inherited from their mother, grandmothers and other relatives, the sisters created a library of handwritten, family recipes. It seemed less-than-Hamische not to cook from this library.
“We grew up in Winthrop, Mass., in a triple-decker, and our mother was the best cook in town” says Sheila.
“So of course our apartment was kitchen-central for this huge extended family,” says Marilynn. "There was never fewer than 12 people at the dinner table. Our mother was always cooking for somebody."
“For everybody,” says her sister. Their grandmothers and mother had the sisters working in the kitchen almost as soon as they could walk. They did not so much learn cooking as they absorbed both the knowledge of making food and the understanding of where they came from.
In virtually every way, the sisters are following their mother’s example. In addition to the thousands who read their book, they are always simmering or baking something for people in their building in Cambridge, Mass. They have just completed the pilot for their television show, The Brass Sisters: Queens of Comfort Food. They are at work on their second book.
“It is called Heirloom Cooking," says Sheila. Once again, they’re leafing through hand-written recipes, cooking the food that the journals’ authors made for their families in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.
“We are deep into soup right now,” says one.
“The ultimate comfort food and the real measure of a cook,” says the other.
They’ve found some winners, but nothing that comes close to either their mother’s chicken soup or their Aunt Rose’s hearty vegetable soup. They talk about the way the soups steamed the windows of the triple-decker, about the smell of coming home to soup. Nevertheless, the Brass sisters resist the suggestion that personal history and nostalgia help make a soup more appealing.
“The secret is homemade broth,” says Marilynn. “Nobody makes broth from scratch anymore.”
“Occasionally, when we're rushed, we use one of the good packaged broths," says Sheila. "Mama would forgive us."
“We sound like two little old ladies.”
“We are two little old ladies.”
Continue to the recipes: Aunt Rose's Hearty Vegetable Soup and Mama's Chicken Soup
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