In the spirit of Dylan Thomas’ line, “There are always Uncles at Christmas,” this Thanksgiving season, I’m speaking up for Aunts. Specifically, my two Aunt Betty’s and my Aunt Ellen Braithwaite, who have been on my mind as I’ve lived the days leading to this Thanksgiving of 2025, though not always in relation to formal or traditional food. 

Two of them, I was born to know, the third came via my mother’s long friendship.  I’m related to my father’s sister Betty Luther, Aunt Betty in California, and to my mother’s sister-in-law, Ellen Braithwaite. Then there was Aunt Betty Worley, my mother’s Navy WAVE friend from World II; their relationship lasted over fifty years. All three fine, yet unspectacular American women, the Bettys rather brunette Betty Crockers in appearance, and Ellen more casual, with short hair and a crisp manner.

I actually shared Thanksgiving dinner only with Aunt Betty, once at her home and once at my own first home; then a very inexperienced cook, I put the turkey in the oven (as instructed) at a high heat, but never turned the heat down. Everyone was a good sport about that dried-out bird, but thank goodness I managed to make extra gravy, and I think we drank a good bit of California wine, too.   

Ironically, a pro pos of this food-centered holiday, Aunt Betty was not an enthusiastic or inspired cook; she did it because she had to. Yet I owe her my introduction to California as having a cuisine. On hearing of my engagement and that I was coming to live on the west coast, she sent me Helen Brown’s West Coast Cookbook. 

Once we’d moved “out there” from Massachusetts, Andy and I saw Aunt Betty several times in our Berkeley years. She and Uncle John had retired to Carmichael, near Sacramento, where we visited them and their crazy dog Sam. 

It’s hard to convey the “flavor” of Betty, but then it’s difficult to describe the flavor of food, too. A recipe for Betty would include her soft drawl, in which she could be either matter-of-fact, or what I loved more, ironic. She’d deliver stories with introductory comments like “This is absurd!” or “You’ll have to stretch your imagination for this one, Sally.”  And she sure had what she called “a sensayuma.”  

Also, Betty loved words. A demon Scrabble player, she used a special dictionary whose authority was absolute and some of us thought, distinctly specious. I beat her only once via a seven-letter, all tiles used, word (50 point bonus); when she challenged the word, it showed right up in her dictionary and she lost her next turn! 

 Betty also spoke a “language” I could never master, whose sole ingredient was tossing in “Obble” between every syllable of every word; she’d fluently deliver sentence after sentence in this tongue, with a straight face. Sometimes I could follow her drift, but seldom did I really decipher sentences.

Getting back to food, though, where I started. (Family stories are seldom told directly and to the point.) When I first met Betty, she confessed to being tired out kitchen-wise. Cooked out. Newly-wed myself, I was flabbergasted to hear her muse over many dinners she’d cooked in her married life. “Gawd, Sally, it must number in the tens of thousands!” “

Now long married myself, I remembered Aunt Betty in another connection, on a stormy day recently. Andy and I were home together and rain was bucketing down. I said, “It’s sure indoor weather, isn’t it? A soup and popcorn day, too. Like that time with Betty and John.” 

A suburban nest of a place, their home was lived-in, mostly beige, with well-worn furnishings and a bed for Sam, their vizsla who preferred lying on the couch or better yet, people’s laps, even if he was way too large for them. Betty’s place was at the counter between kitchen and living room, where there was always a pot of coffee ready alongside the Scrabble board and ashtray. 

That rainy Saturday, Betty said, “Hope it’s OK with you, we’re going to have Our Usual.” 

Of course. And to my surprise, John (shambling around in slippers and an old flannel shirt) hauled out an old-fashioned basket corn popper and used it directly on the electric burner stove, clearly accustomed to the job. Betty opened a few cans of Campbell’s Split Pea soup and heated it, got out some Saltines, and it all tasted wonderful. 

In my other Aunt Betty’s kitchen, though, the soup would have been home-made and she (and only she) would have cooked everything. Betty Worley was a homemaker in the ideal sense of the word; her house ran “ship shape,” counterpart of husband Don’s nautical engineering precision. Always speaking in a light, rather musical voice, Betty seemed to take deep satisfaction in the beauty and order of her home. Yet it never seemed stiff and I always felt happy there when I visited.  

Bunches of herbs from Betty’s garden hung from the beams in the laundry room to dry. She wove beautiful table cloths and runners, and at meals nothing was out of place, everything hot and delicious, ready for the table at the same time, the latter something that still challenges me at Thanksgiving. 

This last week, as I’ve done many times over the years, I made Betty’s recipe for hermits. Always her personality shows through–on the index card with the recipe, her script “flies” yet is under perfect control. Hermits are a classic old New England spice cookie and I love her version, in which coffee brings out the ginger and other spices. And these cookies last; wrapped in plastic, they keep moist and fresh for a week or ten days. In her honor, you’ll find the recipe at the end of this piece. 

Of all the women I knew as a child, relatives or friends, Auntie Ellen was my favorite. Married to Mommy’s brother Dudley (Uncle Dud), she was a strong, whimsical character who seemed magical to me. Ellen found humor in just about everything. I loved her wry facial expressions, her irony, sense of history, also the detailed attention she paid to holidays and occasions; she and her sisters put on birthday parties which always sounded like blowouts to me. For them, cake decorating must have amounted to a competitive sport. 

Yet I heard the scorn in my mother’s and grandmother’s voices when they spoke of Ellen’s cakes. “Oh, she makes them with boxed mixes, they’re so dry, —and they don’t last well at all!”

Amusingly, my food memories from Ellen have mostly to do with things she didn’t cook. I loved staying overnight at her house, though my cousins Steve and Norman bickered like scrapping foxes; to this only child, it seemed sort of silly and annoying. 

But they had a TV; my family didn’t, so perhaps it’s appropriate that I first really appreciated junk food there! We ate potato chips but consumed them decorously, a small finger-pinch with sandwiches or on picnics. One overnight with them, I startled even Auntie Ellen by consuming an entire box of Cheezits. solo. Ellen had probably expected me to share, but my cousins never noticed. Oh, the salty, vaguely cheesy flavor of those Cheezits! I still love them.  

However, from a few years later, I remember a quite different food connection with Ellen. My family had moved to Cape Cod where we ran a summer cottage business. She and Uncle Dud and the boys would visit us for occasional weekends. (Ellen pitched right in, working alongside my mother, cleaning cottages.) Upon arrival, those Saturdays, she’d deposit a carton of assorted canned goods on the kitchen counter, replacements for the pantry, something I now think was kind indeed. 

Auntie Ellen also brought us presents from Hebert Candies, the store where she worked. I didn’t just eat that candy, I devoured her reports. “Oh, you just wouldn’t believe how many boxes of chocolates I’ve sold this week, Sal!” “If I never see another chocolate bunny in my life again, that’ll be fine with me!” Around Valentine’s Day, she relished telling stories about people buying extravagant candy assortments, trying to make up for quarrels or otherwise damaged relationships, stories accompanied by raised eyebrows and Ellen’s wry grins.

Of course, I remember much more about all three aunts—what I’ve told here are just a few homely stories. There are places, and always will be, at my Thanksgiving table for my memories of them. They shared not only food, but also what comes with it. Stories, recipes, connection, slices of life – and themselves, their love and personalities. All these linger on my tongue and in my heart. Thank goodness for my wonderful aunts.  

Hermits

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
Grease a large cookie sheet

1 c. sugar
½ c. butter

½ c. molasses
1 t. soda
½ c. lukewarm coffee

3 c. flour
1 t. cloves
1 t. cinnamon
½ t. salt
1 egg
1 c. raisins

Cream together butter and sugar. Dissolve soda in coffee, then add it, also molasses, and stir. Add the dry ingredients, egg, and raisins; stir until no trace of flour remains.

Spread dough over greased cookie sheet and flatten out.  Bake 20 minutes. Cool and cut into bar-shaped cookies. Makes about 4 dozen.

Download the Hermits Recipe here