Spokane Valley’s Sandra Bechtold makes recipes ‘with heart’ of growing up in the South

The memories consumed her.

Dinner at the fish camps on the way to Grandmother’s house.

The first roast she tried to cook for her mom.

Shelling pecans with her daddy and the delicious pie that would follow.

Sandra Bechtold was born in Tennessee, but her dad was in the Navy, so the family moved frequently.

“I went to three schools in sixth grade,” she said. “I had so many varied experiences as a child, but my two granddaughters were born and raised in Spokane. Our lives have been so different.”

Bechtold decided to write her memories to share with her granddaughters, and as she wrote, she realized many of her fondest memories involved food.

She created a Facebook group, Southern Ladies Cook … Recipes and Memories to foster connection with other foodies and cooks. And she published “Recipes & Memories: Southern Recipes with Heart of Growing Up in the South” (Dorrance Publishing, 2022).

Despite her family’s many moves, one thing remained constant – every summer Bechtold would go stay with her grandmother in North Carolina. She reveled in the undivided attention and in the delicious meals her grandmother prepared.

“It wasn’t like the food we had at home. My mom worked, but my grandmother stayed home.”

Recipes for Southern favorites like boiled peanuts, hushpuppies and chess pie, pepper the book.

Baking pecan pie brings warm memories of her father.

“My grandparents would pick the pecans from their trees and my daddy and I would sit at the Formica kitchen table and shell them until we had enough for grandmother to make a pie,” Bechtold recalled.

Despite her recipe-rich heritage, she didn’t cook much while growing up. Her book recounts the time her mother asked the teen to put a roast in the oven for family dinner. Bechtold did as instructed, and as the beef cooked, she drained off all the pan juices. The result was a tough, dry piece of meat.

“Mom told me the juices were for gravy and she told me to always salt meat before baking it. So, when she asked me to put a ham in the oven, I salted it.”

When Bechtold married a Vietnam veteran with three young sons and moved to Spokane, she still didn’t know how to cook. Following the birth of her son, she had four boys plus a husband to feed.

“I marched through the Betty Crocker and Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks,” she said. “I was free to try things with no one to tell me it was too hard.”

The first thing she made was pie crust.

“It turned out perfectly and I brought the pies for every holiday and family dinner.”

A friend taught her to make chicken and noodles with homemade noodles.

“It was so good!” she said. “You couldn’t buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts back then. You went to the butcher and got a roaster, a fryer, or an old hen (stewing chicken).”

As her confidence grew, she recreated childhood favorites like her grandmother’s Parker House Rolls, liver mush (scrapple) and her mother’s fruit cocktail cake.

The self-taught cook and gardener never took a cooking class, but while working full-time as a mental health therapist, she became a Master Food Preserver with the WSU Spokane County Extension program.

Her Spokane Valley backyard garden is bursting with tomatoes, squash, and peppers that she’ll preserve to last through the winter months and beyond.

Writing a book filled with memories and recipes allowed her to revisit magical summers in Hamlet, North Carolina.

“I love eating hushpuppies,” she said. “It reminds me of all the meals we had at fish camps on the way to grandmother’s house.”

Her dad would pull over and she and her siblings would scramble out to picnic tables covered with red-checked cloths. Then they’d feast on freshly caught fish, hushpuppies, coleslaw and all the sweet tea they could drink.

Bechtold’s recollections of a slower-paced life filled with family and food are her gift to her granddaughters. She’s saddened that today’s consumers have grown used to processed food and hopes her granddaughters will discover the joy she found in preparing fresh, wholesome meals.

“Scratch-cooking is much easier than people think it is,” she said. “It’s healthier and tastes so much better!”

Chess Pie

(Her dad’s favorite.)

½ cup butter

2 cups white sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs

1 tablespoon cornmeal

¼ cup evaporated milk

1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

1 (9-inch) unbaked pie shell

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In large bowl, mix butter, sugar and vanilla. Mix in the eggs, then stir in the cornmeal, evaporated milk and vinegar until smooth.

Bake for 10 minutes in preheated oven, then reduce heat to 300 degrees and bake for 40 minutes. Let cool. Cut and top servings with whipped cream.

Hushpuppies

1 cup yellow cornmeal

¼ cup all-purpose flour

1½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 egg, lightly beaten

¾ cup whole milk

1 small onion, finely chopped

Oil for deep fat frying

In a large bowl combine the cornmeal, flour, baking powder and salt. Whish the egg, milk and onion. Add to dry ingredients. Stir until just combined.

In a deep fat fryer or electric skillet, heat oil to 365 degrees. Drop batter by tablespoons into oil.

Fry for 2-2½ minutes or until golden brown.

Drain on paper towels. Serve warm.

Yield: 8 servings

”Recipes & Memories: Southern Recipes with Heart of Growing Up in the South” can be found on Amazon and at bookstore.dorrancepublishing.com/products/recipes-memories-southern-recipes-with-heart-of-growing-up-in-the-south.

Contact Cindy Hval at dchval@juno.com