Weekend Meditation

My Father’s Fudge Recipe

Dana Velden
Dana Velden
Dana Velden's first book, Finding Yourself in the Kitchen: Kitchen Meditations and Inspired Recipes from a Mindful Cook (Rodale Books) is available where ever books are sold. She lives in Oakland, CA.
published Jun 21, 2009
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(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

This is my father’s recipe for fudge, written and illustrated in his own hand. I have many fond memories of standing on a chair next to the stove, stirring up batches of this fudge in our Revere-ware pot with the copper bottom. I was one of the lucky ones whose father did a little cooking and didn’t seem to mind having me and my brother around to help.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

He would always make us smell the vanilla -mmmmm- and then taste a drop straight from the bottle -yuck!- so we wouldn’t drink it and get drunk, I guess. I remember how the fudge smelled while cooking, so sweet and rich and chocolatey. When it was done, it was all plopped into a clear glass pyrex dish that we had buttered up and left to cool. For about 30 seconds.

Of the many things my father gave me, our time together in the kitchen is the most precious. I have to believe that I was imprinted with a love of food and the ability to find creative expression in cooking from those early years with him. I haven’t made this fudge in decades, but maybe I’ll give it a try today.

What are your memories of your father in the kitchen? Are you a father and do you let your kids ‘help’ you?