Finding Patience

On a recent trip to Texas, my husband, Gene, his mother, and I were talking about old-fashioned Christmas confections made better by the addition of pecans—South Georgia pecans, to be specific. Of course, we mentioned fudge, pecan brittle and divinity.

“Christmas just doesn’t feel like Christmas without eating at least one piece of divinity,” I said, my mind lost in faraway thought. “That’s always been my favorite.”

“And Patience! I love, love, love Patience,” my husband’s mother said.

Gene and I paused for a moment, searching our memory banks for a Christmas candy named Patience, but we came up empty.

“Patience?” I finally asked. “Is that a Texas thing?”

“We made it every Christmas. I love that stuff,” she said.

And just like that, we took a mental note to look into a Christmas candy named Patience when we returned to Georgia.

In late 2022, my almost-60-yearold husband (who had been adopted as a newborn in 1963) found his biological family. It has been the joy of joys getting to know his mother (Texas Margaret), his father (Bill), his siblings, his aunts and uncles and a host of other family members. With each visit, we learn more about Gene’s tribe—their personalities, what they were like as children, their humor, their histories, their idiosyncrasies, their pet peeves, and of course, the foods that they enjoy.

Soon after Gene found his people, Texas Margaret gave him a big binder full of family recipes—a treasure trove of information and flavor. We both wondered if Patience was in the collection, though neither of us remembered seeing it. As we waited to board the Delta flight back to Atlanta, I used my phone and Googled “old-fashioned candy called Patience.” It returned only a handful of recipes.

“When we get home, let’s make her some Patience—or should I say, let’s try to make her some Patience,” I suggested.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Gene said.

And so last weekend, we prepped the kitchen for a grand candy-making experiment—measuring cups, a candy thermometer, a saucepan, a mixer, bowls of different sizes and black cast-iron skillet. The ingredients included sugar, butter, milk, vanilla extract and chopped pecans.

I nervously read and reread the recipe, trying to memorize the steps so I wouldn’t have to keep checking the instructions in the literal “heat of the moment.” Finally, I took a deep breath and turned on the burner. One of the first steps had me browning a cup of sugar in the frying pan— something I had never done before. Amazingly, it seemed to work.

In candymaking, there’s a lot of chemistry—a lot of sugar melting, stirring and checking to see if the mixture has reached a soft-ball stage (about 235 – 240 degrees F) or a hard-ball stage (250 – 265 degrees F). I’ve struggled to reach these exact stages before, but I was determined to make this old-fashioned confection work for Texas Margaret.

“Have you ever wondered … at what point in time did some woman somewhere in some kitchen say to herself, ‘I wonder what would happen if I just kept boiling this sugar?’” I asked my husband. “Also, at what point in time did some woman somewhere in some kitchen ask herself, ‘If I dropped a little of this hot, lava-like sugar concoction into a glass of cold water, would it form a soft ball or hard ball?’” We continued following the recipe instructions, slowly combining the skillet-browned sugar with the molten mixture, beating vigorously until it lost its luster, then folding in continued from page

the nuts. We poured the goo into a greased pan and waited for it to set up. We cut it into small pieces and tasted it.

“I like it a lot,” my husband said.

“It’s got a surprising butterscotch flavor,” I said. “Or caramel … And it has the consistency of fudge. That’s it—it’s blond, buttery fudge.”

But since neither of us has ever tasted this particular old-fashioned candy before, we really don’t know if it’s “right.” We shipped a Christmassy tin container layered with Patience, divinity and wax paper to Texas Margaret and will have to wait for her to try it and give us her verdict— if it tastes like the candy she remembers from her childhood. We both hope it takes her back to those days and brings a smile to her face. We sealed the tin and addressed it to Texas, and I had a thought. Making Patience required patience— standing over a hot stove, carefully monitoring temperatures, beating it for a long, long time, trusting the process even when we were uncertain. And that’s what we’ve been doing since 2022 when we found Gene’s biological family— learning to trust the process, patiently allowing family bonds to develop at their own pace, and savoring the experiences. Whether or not we nailed the recipe, we know one thing for sure: The sweetest discovery isn’t the candy itself, but the opportunity to create new memories with new family. And that was a gift worth waiting for.