Andrew was about eleven at the time. He loved to be under foot in the kitchen when Grandma was cooking. One day they were making a cold cake that became a family favorite.

"Why don't you write down the recipe" I asked him. "We don't want to forget how to make this cake. It is delicious."

Next day when I came home from work, he handed me a piece of paper, that is one of my cherished posessions even today. I wish I could give it to you in his handwriting.

Here is Andrew's version of Grandma's Cold Cake.

Put one egg white in coffee. Put yolk in a stick of margerine. Put 12.5 dekagram sugar in coffee. 12.5 dekagram in butter. Cream butter until soft. add 1 tbspn. cocoa to coffee, heat to boil. Let cool. Mix 20 dekagram shredded walnuts and 20 dekagram shredded NILLA wafers. 2 spoons (wooden) rum into coffee cocoa mix.

Mix coffee and stuff into walnuts and NILLA wafers. Use Graham crackers, very little, to get junk of your hands. Spread sugar on sink tile. Flatten cocoa mix on sugar. Wet a roller and roll cocoa flat. Spread butter on top leaving 1/4 end without butter. Carefully roll, starting from end opposite un-buttered end.

I reconstructed the ingredients list including his comment: 1 stick margerine, 6 tablespoons coffee (preferably espresso) 1 tablespoon cocoa, 20 dekagram (7 oz) NILLA wafers. 12.5 dekagram (4 oz) unsalted butter, 1 egg, separated, 25 dekagram (8 oz ) sugar, 20 dekagram ( 7oz) shredded walnuts, 2 teaspoons rum, Graham cracker crumbs (sic. to clean your fingers).

Andrew just celebrated his 36th birthday.

John Gomperz is a student in my online writing personal and family history class. John emigrated to the United States in 1956 after the Hungarian revolution. In his own words 'for my waning years [I] decided to pick up writing as a hobby next to cooking.' We are all the better for his decision.

~Susan Chaffin.