Milwaukee-area chefs still dream of these nostalgic dishes from Mom (and Grandma)

They’ve toiled through culinary school, spent weeks crafting menus, and stood for hours in kitchens to perfect their craft. But even professional chefs will tell you: You can’t beat Mom’s cooking. 

Sichanh Volp of Mekong Cafe knows it — that's why she cooks right alongside her mom, Banh Phongsavat, creating Lao, Thai and Vietnamese food that ties their family’s heritage from their native Laos to Milwaukee. 

“Top Chef” finalist Dan Jacobs will tell you the same. His grandmother’s home cooking inspired him so much he’s put his fine-dining touch on her best dishes and added them to his menu. He and EsterEv co-owner Dan Van Rite are so reverent of their matriarchs’ cooking that they named their restaurant after their great-grandmothers, Ester and Evelyn. 

And Shane Rowe Sr. fell in love with cooking as an adult, under the guidance of his mother, Wilma Jo Abercrombie. After she died in 2018, he kept her memory alive in his West Allis bakery by re-creating the recipes she taught him by heart. 

Here, these chefs and more recall the smells, tastes and love felt in every bite of their mothers’ and grandmothers’ most comforting dishes.  

Shane Rowe Sr., Bishop's Sweets & Catering 

Shane Rowe Sr., owner of Bishop’s Sweets bakery in West Allis, is shown with his mother, Wilma Jo Abercrombie, in this undated photo. Rowe said Abercrombie, who died in 2018, was the reason he opened the bakery in 2020, saying that most of his desserts were inspired by his mother's recipes.

“My mom made the best sweet potato pie, hands down," Rowe said. “She was known for it.” 

His mom, Wilma Jo Abercrombie, would make her famous pie for new neighbors, as a comfort for those going through a difficult time, and always at Christmas. 

Abercrombie had eight children and around 56 grandchildren. 

“That’s too many to buy for at Christmas,” Rowe said. So after a while, her sweet potato pie became the go-to gift for everyone for the holiday — a prized gift better than anything from Santa’s sack. 

“If a sibling would be out of town, trust me, they would send a message saying, ‘Don’t mess with my sweet potato pie that Mama has for me until I get back in town!” Rowe said. “And nobody would touch the pie.” 

The siblings waited until Christmas to eat their sweet potato pie, but Mom knew the temptation was too strong. 

“She always made an extra pie we could have early, because we couldn’t just wait for the holiday,” Rowe said.  

He sells the pie now at his bakery, Bishop’s Sweets, under the name Grandma Wilma’s Sweet Potato Pie. It’s one of many of his mother's recipes that he uses at his shop.  

About 85% of the recipes are hers, including the carrot cake, which was Abercrombie’s favorite.  

The only difference? “Mama didn’t like raisins, but I do, so I added raisins to her recipe,” he said. “Otherwise it’s 100% hers.” 

Rowe never baked on his own until his mother’s final two years of life, when he was her live-in caregiver while she battled cancer.  

“When she was no longer able to go in the kitchen and make certain things, but still had a taste for it, she would ask me to make it,” Rowe said. “I said, ‘I don’t know how to make that!’, and she said: ‘I’ll tell you what to do. Just follow what I tell you.’” 

There were no measuring cups or spoons. “She just knew how to make it all from memory,” Rowe said. 

He’d do his best and she would give her approval. As his mom's health declined, Rowe always made sure to have something sweet in the house.  

She passed away in 2018, and after, Rowe went into a deep depression. To help pull him out, a friend pointed out how happy he’d always seemed when he was baking, and suggested he get back in the kitchen. 

He listened, and he soon began sharing photos of his baked goods on Facebook. The requests came flooding in. 

“I’d have strangers coming to the house to pick up the things I made,” Rowe Sr. said. 

He opened his own bakery in 2020. 

Now he gets to share his mother’s recipes with the community and pass on her gift to those who never knew her, including his own grandchildren, who have started helping him bake, too. 

“My mom never got to see me and my grandchildren or her great grandchildren, but now they’re working on the recipes that she worked with,” he said. “It brings me so much joy to know that they have some part of my mom.” 

Jenny Lee, Kiuda  

Jenny Lee, right, pictured with her mother and grandmother on a trip to Hawaii in 1993, owns a Korean pop-up concept, Kiuda, inspired by authentic Korean dishes made her family matriarchs.

When Jenny Lee was 13, she visited South Korea for the first time with her mother for an extended trip to visit her grandparents. She went sightseeing and admired her grandmother’s elaborate needlepoints, but helping to cook the morning meals was her real highlight. 

“In the morning, my mother, grandmother and I would all help cook breakfast,” she said. “It was a big, savory meal.” 

Her grandmother would fry fish to serve with rice and banchan, vegetable side dishes served at most Korean meals. 

Lee’s fondest memory was making the dumplings. She’d sit with her mother and grandmother around the table for an hour or two, making around 100 dumplings at a time. 

“My grandmother would put pork, tofu and scallions in there to make the filling. We’d just sit at the table and press the ends of the wrappers together in half-moon shapes,” she said. “They would talk, and I just focused on the dumplings.” 

When they were done, her grandmother would fry the dumplings on the range, then they’d eat them with breakfast, dipped in soy sauce. 

The recipe Lee teaches now in her cooking classes is a slightly tweaked version of the dumplings she made on that trip. She teaches other Korean recipes, too, inspired by those made by her mother and grandmother. 

Sichanh Volp, Mekong Cafe 

Volp shared this memory in an email, writing:

Our grandma's sausage recipe was more than just a family secret — it was a labor of love that brought us closer together. Every time she visited, she'd share her expertise and passion, teaching us the art of crafting the perfect sausage. As we carried on her legacy, we discovered that the true magic lay not just in the ingredients, but in the love and care she poured into every batch. Her recipe was more than just a list of ingredients — it was a testament to the power of tradition, family, and love. She didn't skimp on spices and herbs, and the result was a juicy, aromatic and delicious sausage.  The sausage is a staple, similar to grilled or fried meats, served with sides like papaya salad, jeow (dipping sauces) and sticky rice as a daily meal. Since she passed away last year, this dish holds even more significance for me. I miss her even more. I remember asking for her permission to put her name on the menu (look for it at Mekong Cafe as Grandma Chanta’s Special), and I knew she was happy that I credited her for it. 

At Mekong Cafe, Grandma Chanta's Special includes a treasured family-recipe sausage served with papaya salad, jeow (dipping sauce) and sticky rice.

My mom, who has always been hiding and working in the kitchen her whole life, passed on to me her kalapao (steam pork buns). When I was a kid, she used to do a side hustle to support the family, selling them to family and friends. I grew up eating these because she would work two jobs, make a bunch of them, and keep them in the freezer. When we came home from school, we would just pop them in the microwave to enjoy. It was an Asian version of Hot Pockets for us. To this day, it really stuck with me, because now I'm the one crafting her recipe. All her grandkids are enjoying grandma's Hot Pockets.  

The food we offer at Mekong is comfort food that brings back many childhood memories for me. Our customers often say the same thing — that our food tastes like the dishes their grandmothers used to make, which is why they love it. 

Nadia Santaniello Bucholtz, Nadi Plates 

Nadia Santaniello Bucholtz, right, pictured with her mother, took inspiration from her family's Italian restaurant to start her own modern Italian concept, Nadi Plates.

Santaniello Bucholtz shared this memory in an email, writing: 

One of my favorite childhood memories was cooking Mom's “tutti de mare” pasta for our annual Christmas feast. My sisters, brother and I would join her in the kitchen as she walked us through how to prepare and season each type of fish separately, cooking each one perfectly, before bringing them together for the final dish. We would dance, laugh and tell stories while we worked, without rushing to get anything done by any certain time. Throughout the day, dozens of friends and family members would start to gather and join in, before we would all sit down to enjoy the meal together.  

These traditions helped instill in me the belief that cooking is an act of love, that it is always worth the extra time — not just for the flavor, but for the time spent together. It made me want to keep cooking, because I loved the food, yes, but I also loved the experience of making it. To this day, it's what I love most about my job and how I approach food in my businesses. And I'm so happy that now in my kitchen, both at home and at work, you'll find my kids and family keeping these traditions alive. 

Nadi Plates, a modern Italian food truck and caterer, has plans to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant at 2238 N. Farwell Ave. this fall. 

Dan Jacobs, DanDan and EsterEv 

Jacobs shared this memory in an email, writing:  

New to EsterEv's menu is syrniki — an Eastern European cheese pancake inspired by my grandmother’s recipe. I used to make them with her as a kid, and every bite takes me right back to my childhood kitchen. She made hers with cottage cheese, but at EsterEv, we’re using our house-made ricotta. It’s a dish packed with nostalgia, and it perfectly captures the heart of what we do here — honoring the matriarchs who shaped us as chefs and sparked our love for cooking. 

Kristen Schwab, The Wolf and Uncle Wolfie’s Downtown 

Schwab shared her memory in an email. 

Being a chef, I'm always asked by everyone if my mom is a good cook. My mom can throw down with a charcoal grill but doesn't do much cooking outside of that.  

My grandmother on my dad's side, however, is the cook of the family. She was always the one to bring everyone together over a meal. Sadly, she passed away when I was around 12 years old, so I don't have as many kitchen memories with her as I would like. But some of her dishes are talked about and made on holidays by my dad, aunts and uncles. My Oma was born in Indonesia, so one of my most cherished snacks are Indonesian corn fritters known as bakwan jagung.  

I've grown up eating them every Christmas. My version of her corn fritters are on my Indonesian menu concept we serve on the weekends, and the base flavor of that dish is actually my very first dumpling flavor I ever developed for my dumpling pop-up concept, Phat Dumpling. My grandma's Indonesian home cooking is the deep, nostalgic kind of cooking that keeps me going and keeps me inspired daily.  

Uncle Wolfie’s Downtown is a breakfast and lunch restaurant. The Wolf is its weekend dinner concept serving elevated comfort fare with an Indonesian twist. Both are at 600 N. Broadway. 

Teresa Balistreri Warsh and Tony Balistreri, SALA 

Brother and sister Teresa and Tony opened SALA in 2001, with recipes inspired by their grandmother and great-grandmother's Sicilian cooking. Their great-grandmother, Lena, whose portrait hangs in SALA, cooked with her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren until she passed away at the age of 101. 

The big family dinner at grandma’s was the highlight of the week.  

“We have to talk about the sugo,” Balistreri Warsh said. “There was always a pot of sauce on the stove, with meatballs, pork shoulder and Italian sausages. They put it all in there and let it simmer all day long.” 

A quick sauce, lighter and fresher than the sugo, would be at the table, too. You can find both of the Balistreri family sauces at SALA today. 

There also was salad and, of course, bread — their grandfather’s favorite part of the meal. 

“He’d scoop up the sauce with the bread,” Balistreri Warsh said. “Classic Italian.” 

When Balistreri Warsh moved out from her parents’ home, her great-grandma (“Nani,” as they called her) gave her a private cooking lesson for making the sauce. 

“I made a date with Nani and went into her house and she showed me how to make it start to finish. That's one of my fondest memories of her, just the two of us in her kitchen,” she said. “I’ll never forget her hands, the way she chopped things and the way she would measure the salt with her fingers.” 

But more than just the cooking, the siblings said the best part of the weekly meals was being at the table together. It would go on for hours, and when they were younger, the kids wouldn't leave — they'd stay at their grandparents’ house for sleepovers. 

“There was nowhere to go and nothing to do but to be around the table together," Balistreri Warsh said. “Those are really precious memories.” 

Mom's best recipes from Milwaukee-area chefs  

Grandma Wilma's Sweet Potato Pie Recipe  

Provided by: Shane Rowe Sr., Bishop’s Sweets & Catering 

Makes 1 pie 

• 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (store-bought or homemade)  
• 2 cups mashed sweet potatoes (about 2 medium sweet potatoes)  
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar  
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed  
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted  
• 2 large eggs  
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract  
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt  

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).  

Prepare the sweet potatoes by baking them until fork-tender. Mash until smooth.  

In a large mixing bowl, combine mashed sweet potatoes, granulated sugar, brown sugar, melted butter, eggs, evaporated milk, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Mix until fully incorporated.  

Pour the sweet potato mixture into the pie crust, smoothing the top evenly.  

Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the center is set (a slight jiggle is fine).  

Let the pie cool completely before slicing. 

Korean Dumplings (beef or vegetarian)   

Makes about 40 dumplings 

Dumpling ingredients

• 1 package round dumpling wrappers, Shanghai-style, off-white color* 
• 6 ounces zucchini or 1 medium-sized zucchini 
• 6 ounces green cabbage, finely chopped 
• 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped 
• 2 scallions, finely chopped 
• 6 cloves garlic, grated or minced 
• 1 tablespoon finely grated ginger  
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce, more if needed 
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil 
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt or 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 
• 8 ounces ground beef or 8 ounces tofu (to make vegetarian)
• 2 ounces firm tofu, crumbled 
• More salt and pepper to taste 
• Canola oil as needed 
• Water as needed: 1/4 cup for 8-inch pan, 1/2 cup for 10-inch pan, or 3/4 cup for 12-inch pan 

*Do not buy Hong Kong-style yellow dumpling wrappers. They are very thin and hard to mold into dumplings. Look for white/off-white dumpling wrappers. 

Dipping sauce ingredients  

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar (unseasoned) 
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar or white sugar 
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds 
• Pinch of Korean red pepper flakes or red chili flakes (optional) 

For dumplings: Finely chop zucchini. Generously sprinkle salt over the zucchini. Set aside. Prepare other ingredients.  

Heat a sauté pan on high. Add 1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil. When the oil shimmers in the pan, add the onion and scallions. Season with a pinch of salt and a pinch of ground black pepper. Cook onion until translucent, about 4 minutes. (If your onions turn golden brown, that’s OK.)

Season mushrooms with a pinch of salt and pepper before adding to the pan. Cook mushrooms for 4 minutes.

Season cabbage with a pinch of salt and pepper before adding to the pan. Cook for 4 minutes.

Add the garlic and ginger. Cook for 1 minute.

Sautéing these ingredients allows water to evaporate, so your dumplings are less soggy. Take off heat. With a spatula, push cooked vegetables into a large bowl.  

Squeeze water out of the zucchini. Place zucchini in the large bowl with the cooked vegetables. Crumble 2 ounces tofu with your hands. Put in the same bowl.  

Add ground beef. (Or, if making vegan dumplings, add extra 8 ounces of tofu.) Add soy sauce, sesame oil, salt and black pepper. Mix.  

Fill a small bowl with water. Place a tablespoon of filling on a dumpling wrapper. Wet the edges with water. As you press the edges together, make sure you are pushing air out of the dumpling. Make a half-moon shape. Repeat process.  

To cook dumplings, heat a nonstick frying pan with just enough canola oil to coat the bottom. You can cook frozen dumplings even when frozen. Add just enough dumplings so that they are not overcrowded and don’t touch. Brown the dumplings on their bottoms, about a minute for fresh and slightly longer for frozen.  

To steam, add 1/2 cup water to a 10-inch pan or 3/4 cup water to a 12-inch pan. Have water ready in one hand and the pan cover in the other hand. Pour the water into the pan and quickly cover. Steam the dumplings until nearly all the water evaporates, about 2 minutes for fresh dumplings and 4 minutes for frozen dumplings. Remove the cover and let the dumplings dry out. You want to re-crisp them. Then serve immediately with the dipping sauce. 

Save fresh dumplings for dinner. Freeze the rest of the dumplings on parchment paper in one layer in the freezer. Wait one hour, then store dumplings in a plastic bag. Wrap any leftover dumpling wrappers in plastic wrap and freeze. Keep in the freezer for up to 1 year. 

For sauce: In a small pot, bring soy sauce, vinegar and sugar to a boil in order for the sugar to dissolve. Remove from heat. Before serving, add sesame seeds and Korean red pepper flakes (optional).