Aunt Chris' Pasties

Saturday we arrived in Mackinaw City, Michigan with three other Looper boats.  While checking-in at the marina, Doug from Moonstruck saw a flyer for a small restaurant nearby that made homemade pasties.  He immediately got on a mission to eat there.  It didn’t take any convincing to get me bought in.

My Italian grandmother (Nonie) had a good friend we all grew up knowing as “Aunt Christina”.  She wasn’t really related, but she and her mother had worked with my grandmother for many years at my grandparents’ boarding house in Sutter Creek, California in the 1930’s.  She and her sons Wally and Ray and their families have always been a part of our family.  These old Italian ladies were the best of friends, and boy could they cook!  The boarders, mostly miners working in the California gold mines near there, were fed very, very well.

Well, somewhere along the line, Aunt Chris had learned to make Cornish Pasties.  These were popular with the miners, who carried these crust filled meat and potato pies inside their vests to keep themselves (and the pasties) warm in the mines where they worked.  Aunt Chris used to serve them with beans…and an invitation to her house for a dinner of pasties and beans was a coveted invitation, indeed.  She would sometimes call it “a feed”, and invite a bunch of us.  Wally, Ray, Gary (another of her nephews), my dad and I would eat pasties until we were stuffed.  Aunt Chris would scold us on one hand while serving us with the other…a true Italian mama.

The pasties we had in Mackinaw were very good; but not quite like Aunt Chris made.  They served them with gravy and cole slaw.  Nevertheless, they were the best ones I have had in many years, and I bought a half dozen to take back to Once Around.  Today Carrie and I bought some beans.  So, next time we serve them, we’ll raise a glass of wine in memory of Aunt Chris…and call it “a feed”.

Salute’ Aunt Christina.