On family reunions

My kitchen has been full. In order to dump cold coffee or to refill glasses with cold water, it has been necessary to sidle to the sink with tiny, mincing excusing steps, arms raised high.

Fresh fruit in extravagant quantities spilled out of a long basket on the expanded table.

The refrigerator has been crammed with home-made dainties, ready to bake.

Extra children have been introduced around and absorbed, put to work along with the regulars tidying, teaching us their tricks, cutting out breadsticks, cookies, candies, ornaments.

The adults, between waves of fairly riotous commotion have discussed and caught up on the composition of lives between family reunions.

All around the scene is a feeling of enclosure, of being gently stewed in a large kettle of familiar emotion and energy, waiting for dinner.

We have lived, most of our lives in separate cities, and the coming-together is always intense. Experience has taught me that along with our deep enjoyment of one another, each one of us will come to the point of melt down. It is almost a necessary part of things, being brought to the edge by the crowd, stumbling out then, going over it, and then feeling the remarkable netting of love and safety that quickly forms, bringing one back to solid ground. These are our people, our clans, our first karass, without whom our own survival would lose relevance.

These are the people with whom you used to brush your teeth, and who now expect, at the utter end of day, that you will join them in front of the mirror to compare wrinkles and dental situations.

Who else would be eager to take all the children shopping, sneaking in ice cream interludes in order to tell them, with no chance for refutation, subversive stories about your naughtiness as a child? Grandparents only.

Who but one's brother-in-law would create a lucrative, in-house light industry of back scratching by the hour?

When they go, it is so quiet. We sleep in. The thick gray sky settles in like a dome over the house, softening the horizon, blurring it, dissolving the mountains. Now, with this landmark season gone, winter will set in in earnest, digging in with its cold talons.

Stacks of bedding sit politely around where people slept short hours, giving priority to late, long conversations and card playing, with hooting and squealing.

Many newly engraved items, including my toaster, several suddenly commemorative beer and mustard bottles, a baseball bat, a large flashlight, key chains, an acorn squash and a good-sized, freshly inscribed bowling trophy evidence the attention given to our Christmas bowling tournament. A second trophy, incidentally, went home with the family matriarch who waxed both of her daughters neatly with a score of 67.

The dandy little red engraving tool stays with me.

It was a grand feeling, during all the requisite feasting, to sweep Mushroom Strudel into the oven after a long day of logistical wrangling and giddiness and general hoo-hah. Whilst my sister stirred her wonderful sweet pepper confit and her globe-trotting husband, adorned with chef's hat, prepared onion Gruyere pudding; whilst my mother and daughters polished their nails and played cutthroat gin rummy, and my large firstborn chinned himself and turned flips on the house beams -- all this amongst a small quiet flock of bookworms -- I simply flitted around in my apron, cutting out starry paper place cards for my youngest.

Prepare Mushroom Strudel ahead, wrap carefully and freeze, if you like; it is elegant and satisfying.

Thaw frozen phyllo or filo dough overnight, than allow 2 hours to reach room temperature.

In a large skillet, melt:

2 Tbsp. butter

Add and saute:

2-4 shallots, minced fine.

When shallots are translucent, remove them from the skillet, add to the butter:

2 Tbsp. butter

1 ^1/2 # fresh mushrooms, sliced (3 C. or more)

Saute for about 5 minutes. To control the moisture in the finished product, drain the mushrooms in a sieve for a few minutes now before proceeding. Be sure to save the liquid for soup or gravy; it is full of flavor.

Before the mushrooms cool, add to them:

12 oz. good cream cheese, cut into pieces

Stir until the cheese is somewhat melted, then add:

1 tsp. dill weed or caraway seeds

1 C. sour cream

^1/2 C. plain yogurt

1 C. bread crumbs

¹/3 C. chopped fresh parsley

4-5 green onions, chopped very finely

juice of 1 lemon, shallots

Set aside. Now, for the pastry melt:

^1/2 # butter

Have ready:

^1/2 C. bread crumbs

Unwrap the phyllo; place a damp towel or large, heavy plastic sheet over it.

To make the strudel, layer phyllo leaves, buttered thoroughly with a pastry brush and sprinkled with bread crumbs until you have a stack about 7 layers deep. The bread crumbs keep the pastry from packing -- I use them on about every other layer.

Spread ^1/2 the filling down the middle of the stack, lengthwise. Roll it up tightly and tuck the ends in so it won't ooze out.

Using a spatula, gently place it onto a buttered baking sheet, flaps down. Brush the top with butter and sprinkle it with herbs or poppy seeds. Slash serving marks in l-2 layers.

Make a second roll, same method. Wrap and freeze or bake.

Preheat the oven to 375 and bake 25 minutes. Allow it to cool just slightly before serving, hot, in bite-sized pieces for hors d'oeuvres, or in nice thick slices, for dinner.

You will bring happy sighs to these people who have so generously brought to you such things as fruitcakes and flowery rhambutan and electric dishwashers and tapenade; who celebrate the triumphs of your children with exuberance, who will be concerned that you get a professional haircut sometime soon, who understand that you love hats but don't wear them, who think you slipper size is still 6.

It's important, this recipe.