Today I want to share a recipe that is a wellspring of memories. The women, the teamwork, the heavenly aromas, the busy kitchen, the arriving family, the great big table, the special dishes, the silver. And the food. Simple recipes with amazing flavor. Here is my Grandma Rosie’s recipe for vegetarian chopped liver, which she made the way her own grandma did, with a wooden bowl and mezzaluna. If you’ll be using a food processor instead, which is probably the case, read to the very end for those instructions.

I have exceptionally fond memories of sitting at the kitchen table with the grownups while they worked to prepare the food, listening wide-eyed as they debated the relative merits of various ingredients and their provenance, chattered about errant siblings, and bragged about their above-average children and grandchildren. I remember feeling very grown up when I was finally old enough to take a place in the lineup. When my chopping arm got too tired to continue, I would pass the bowl, usually to my mother, an aunt, or one of my grandmothers.

To say that I enjoyed the ceaseless back-and-forth between my two outspoken grandmothers, one (my paternal grandmother) an unusually gifted cook and homemaker, and the other (my maternal grandmother) a daily commuter to Manhattan with a career as a compliance officer for the National Labor Relations Board, would be a vast understatement. These conversations formed me in no small way. I once had a photograph, taken by me and now misplaced, of the two of them. Shot in the mid-afternoon, after much of the cooking was done, it epitomized the way I thought about them. Rosie, all business and on break, looks proud and disheveled in a pink housecoat and bright yellow dishwashing gloves as she smokes a cigarette and leans forward on her elbows at our large kitchen table. Sylvia, right by her side, is sitting up straight wearing a white blouse edged in black trim, a huge grin, and a large pair of sunglasses with thick white frames. I cannot recall at all why Grandma Sylvia would have been wearing sunglasses indoors. The contrast between the two of them is quite striking. Though neither ever understood what made the other tick, the fact of their equally significant influences on me is indisputable, and the look of love on both their faces is unmistakable.

As with every dish made in the wooden bowl, each of us would continue to take a turn with the mezzaluna until Grandma Rosie proclaimed the chopping done. Everyone helped, but Grandma Rosie was in charge. I don’t know who was a vegetarian in her family. Perhaps she made both because her mother taught her to do it that way. Maybe there was a cousin who didn’t eat meat… In any case, she always made two kinds of chopped liver, only one of which actually contained liver (chicken only, puh-lease), and I always thought they were equally delicious.

Please remember to read the recipe to the end before you start.

1. Chop 3 medium onions, and sautè in 3 Tbsp. olive oil on low-medium heat until soft and golden.
2. Drain 1 large can of sweet peas (or 2 cups of fresh cooked peas), mash well, and add to the onions.
3. Chop up 1 ½ cups walnuts and 2 hard-boiled eggs. Add to the onion-pea mixture.
4. Chop by hand to desired consistency.
5. Season with 1/2 tsp. salt and a generous amount (approx 1 tsp.) fresh ground black pepper.

This recipe was developed probably hundreds of years before food processors. If you are planning to use a food processor instead of a wooden bowl and mezzaluna, then I recommend keeping the ingredients separate, and pulsing each ingredient individually to a slightly (barely) lumpy texture. Without question, it is better to err on the side of slightly underprocessing rather than overdoing it, so use the pulse feature instead of continuous processing. You don’t want to end up with baby food.

The peas and onions will require just a few pulses, but the walnuts will require at least 5 to 10. The eggs will take somewhere in between. There is no need to clean the bowl between ingredients. Just scrape it out and add the next ingredient. Once everything has been processed and added to the same bowl, then use a fork to gently mix it all together with the salt and pepper.

Mound in a beautiful bowl or small plate, and decorate with a sprig of parsley or half a walnut. Try to make this early in the day, or even the day before, so the flavors have time to marry.

Serves 6-8 as an appetizer.