Making lentil soup and cranberry bread on a cold rainy November afternoon: a madeleine moment

Note: This post is more from the heart than I usually write for Grant Writing Confidential but seems appropriate as we approach Thanksgiving. It is, however, tangentially related to grant writing because, at its most basic level, writing a grant proposal is story telling Don’t be afraid to inform your grant writing with memories and experiences.

Anyone who’s read Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way, the first of the seven novels in his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, knows what a “madeleine moment” is. The narrator, never named but clearly Marcel, takes a bite of a freshly baked madeleine, a small scallop-shaped French cookie, and is instantly transported back to his grandmother’s kitchen as a five-year-old boy.

Faithful readers know that Jake, my oldest son and colleague, lost his battle with cancer in August 2024. About 20 years prior, he survived his first bout of cancer. While he was in treatment, he and I both read Swann’s Way. Not only because of our shared love of literature, but also because the novel, with its meandering page-long sentences, reminds the reader that memories are the only time machine we humans have (so far).

I had a madeleine moment this weekend. For decades, I’ve made lentil soup and cranberry bread around Thanksgiving. Making these two memory-laden delectables instantly sent me into my own memory reverie, back to college. My college girlfriend and later first ex-wife introduced me to both. I grew up in a poor Jewish immigrant family in Minneapolis, but unlike the great Jewish cooks that are staples in American literature and films, my mom was not a good cook. She made simple meals mostly involving meat, chicken, lots of schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) from my dad’s kosher butcher shop, canned vegies, and her version of an apple pie (more of a single-layer round apple strudel than a pie) for Friday night Shabbat dinner. For me, the combination of freshly made lentil soup and freshly baked cranberry bread was a culinary revelation.

I met my girlfriend when I was a junior during fall quarter at the University of Minnesota. She was from an upper-middle-class Episcopal family (the kind that had cocktails before dinner, went to see The Nutcracker, and attended Midnight Mass at Christmas).* We picked one another up at a memorable small music show in the Whole Coffeehouse in Caufman Student Union—Big Moma Thorton belting out her signature compositions like Hound Dog (made famous by Elvis) and Ball & Chain (covered by just about every blues singer) backed by George “Harmonica” Smith. An unforgettable blues/roots rock & roll experience in a hot smoky club for a couple of stoned 20-year-olds.

These memories flooded into my consciousness as the smell of lentil soup simmering and cranberry bread baking filled my kitchen.** I thought of the many late fall weekends over the decades when I made these two of my favorite things. The only years I can remember when I didn’t make these were the last two years following Jake’s diagnosis. Perhaps I’m healing a bit, but the sad truth is that one never gets over the pain of losing a child, no matter the age. The pain just changes in character as time goes by (maybe I’ll watch my favorite movie again this weekend, Casablanca).

* When I met her family, it wasn’t all that different from the scene in Annie Hall when he meets Annie’s family and Grammy Hall. 

** My 100-pound Golden Retriever Woolley was patrolling the kitchen—he remembered these aromas as well and knew that he’d soon get a piece of sausage from the soup and a taste of cranberry bread!