In June of 2015 I received an email from a woman named Marilyn who had found out I was gathering recipes from the downtown tea rooms for an upcoming book. She wrote that she had a Nutmeg Sauce recipe that the McAlpin’s Tea Room had served on their Apple Dumplings. She asked if I already had it or if I would like for her to send it to me. She added that it was probably 60 or 70 years ago that she asked them for it, meaning it was served in the late 1940s or 1950s.
I wrote back that I did not have that recipe and that I would very much like to include it in the book. I also inquired whether she had the recipe for the Apple Dumplings as well.
Marilyn wrote back that she did not have the Apple Dumpling recipe from the Tea Room and that someone in the house had moved her Nutmeg Sauce recipe! With an apology for the delay, she assured me, however, that the recipe was in her house and that as soon as it turned up, she would send it to me.
A couple of months later I checked in with Marilyn to see if she’d had any luck finding the Nutmeg Sauce recipe because I was still hoping to include it in the book.
She wrote back saying that she thought the time for being hopeful had passed us by. She and her daughter had moved and/or looked under the furniture, moved the refrigerator, and she had even looked through an old recipe box that had belonged to her mother, hoping she had copied the recipe, but no luck.
More time went by and I checked in once more. Marilyn hadn’t given up either. “Whenever I open something I haven’t been in for a while, I look for the Nutmeg Sauce recipe. I wish I could remember the ingredients, but it was so long ago that I last made it. I feel so bad about telling you I had the recipe and then losing it.”
I thanked her for her efforts and said I’d let her know as soon as I knew the book’s publication date, adding, “I bet you’ll find it after that!”
That prediction almost came true. In late August 2016, 14 months after first hearing from Marilyn and approximately 2 months before the November 7th publication release date (but past the time that any additions or edits could be made to the manuscript), Marilyn wrote to me. “I can’t believe this, but my son was looking for something in a file drawer in the den and pulled the drawer all the way out, and behold the Nutmeg Sauce recipe was stuck under the file drawer. I know it is much too late for your cookbook but I thought you might like a copy of it anyhow.”
And I did! Here’s the elusive recipe – enjoy it over your favorite apple dumplings.
