Years ago I used to entertain quite a bit. Back in those days, the word entertain was reserved for society people. No one I knew used the word entertain. We just “had people over.�

Anyway, there was a time when I used to have quite a few people over, for brunches and such.

I’ve said elsewhere that my mother was able to express her love through cooking. She expressed it magnificently. I don’t think anyone ever enjoyed cooking more than my mother. Would that I had written down her recipes.

Just recently I wanted to have my daughter and her soon-to-be-husband come over, and I wanted to make cheese blintzes. Everybody loves blintzes. Although I had not made them in about thirty years and had really forgotten how, I thought I would be able to find good recipes on the internet and get back my ability to make blintzes the way my mother did.

To my horror, I saw that recipes passed off as authentic were not. They could not possibly have been. The recipe site might have been called Bubbe’s or Tante Reba’s or Uncle Moishe’s, but they were far from the blintzes that I knew. They were so inauthentic that I was surprised they didn’t say to use some kind of prepared mix.

For example, who ever heard of putting baking powder in the wrapper that the cottage cheese filling goes into? Who ever heard of putting in lemon zest? Or vanilla? Or milk even? No, not in my family.

Who ever heard of mixing everything in a blender so it would be perfectly smooth? Absolutely not. Everything was done by hand, and you wouldn’t want it smooth anyway.

Blintzes are not supposed to look like an illustration on the cover of an expensive cookbook. Not at all.

And they’re supposed to be fried in an old frying pan that is definitely not Teflon and may stick unless you overdo the butter. And, you won’t believe this, some recipes even said to BAKE blintzes in an oven instead of frying them on top of the stove! No, never.

Be advised. No two blintzes in the same batch are supposed to look alike. Some are supposed to look as if they fell on the floor and you quietly sloshed them back together. Of course there is no need to drop them to get that effect. You can get that effect simply by moving the blintzes from the frying pan to the plate. Blintzes are supposed to be homemade, taste homemade and look homemade.

When my mother made blintzes, blintzes were blintzes. In those days, no one was trying to imitate French crepes.

Well, after much to-do and a few false starts (like the filling too liquidy at first, etc.) I got the knack back.

To make the wrapper (called blatt-leh):

About a cup of flour sifted (I use half whole wheat pastry flour and half unbleached white flour). I don’t think my mother ever sifted the flour, but I can’t swear.

About a cup of water.

A pinch of salt.

2 whole eggs well-beaten with a fork. I repeat, a fork.

You may want to add the flour little by little, but don’t have to.

Stir it all. It’s easy.

The new recipes say to keep the batter in the refrigerator for a half hour up to one hour. My mother never did.

Meanwhile, you have a smallish cast iron frying pan heating up on a low-medium flame. Rub the pan lightly with one swipe of a cube of butter. Only the slightest amount of butter here. Before you finish making the wrappers, if they start sticking to the pan, do one more swipe.

The pan has to be the “right� temperature. There is no way to know until you actually try it. A few wasted wrappers are okay.

The batter is supposed to be very thin.

I use a big wooden spoon or a ladle and pour the batter into the frying pan.

Immediately lift up the pan and tip it so the batter covers the bottom of the pan, and pour any excess back into the batter bowl. The batter is supposed to be very thin, almost see-through. You will get the hang of it.

The batter doesn’t fry really. It just gets heated through for about a minute, maybe two.

Then you invert the pan over a cloth or just on a cutting board. Bang the frying pan down, or bang the back of it with a knife or spoon, and the wrapper will come out of the pan.

Keep doing this. If you’re agile enough, you can put the filling on the center of the wrapper and wrap it up before the next wrapper is ready to come out.

By the way, once the filling was plopped onto the blatt-leh, my mother just rolled it up. Recipes will tell you to fold the ends and all, but my mother never did.

Now you have all the blintzes filled and ready to fry in lots of butter on top of the stove.

Here is the authentic recipe for the filling:

A pound or so of cottage cheese. Drain all you want, but the cottage cheese will still be runny. You can add in cream cheese if you want.

Add sugar to taste. You can’t use brown sugar. It doesn’t work right.

Add lots of ground cinnamon. Lots.

Mix well.

This is important. Add a little flour to the filling. This will thicken the filling so it doesn’t leak out when you fry the blintzes.

Now you are ready to fry the blintzes. Remember only in butter, and lots of it.

You just want to brown both sides lightly.

End of recipe.

I served Lauren and Keith the blintzes on the Gloria china. Didn’t know I was going to write a blog about this and so didn’t think to take pictures.

Because of the fattening value, probably once in thirty years is often enough for blintzes.

Okay, what are some of your favorite authentic recipes passed down in your family?