April 23, 2007VOL. 45, NO. 8Oakland, CA

Centenarian offers recipes for life

Holy Family Sister Malachy Hannigan holds the reissued copy of her pastry cookbook.

By Sharon Abercrombie
Staff writer

In 1971, when the Holy Family Sisters decided to publish their favorite cook’s collection of pastry recipes, they discovered a problem -- Sister Malachy Hannigan never measured anything. “It was a pinch here and a pinch there,” recalls Sister Gladys Guenther, the congregation's vice president.

So “an army of women” followed the nun around while she was baking, said Sister Guenther. They wrote down the ingredients. They guessed at the amounts.
Talk about a test kitchen in action….the women would prepare the same recipe over and over until it tasted exactly like Sister Hannigan’s creation.

Their cooking marathons paid off. The book was a sellout. And now, 32 years later, in honor of the nun’s 100th birthday, the Sisters have issued a revised edition featuring 100 of Sister Hannigan’s “Greatest Hits.”

Until two years ago when she officially retired for the second time to live in Fremont, Sister Malachy Hannigan volunteered for many years in the kitchen of St. Anthony’s Dining Room in San Francisco and visited the sick and elderly at Laguna Honda Hospital. She first retired as a convent cook in 1986.

Born in Cottaur Raphoe, County Donegal, Northern Ireland, Sarah Mary Hannigan, “Sally,” decided at age of 11 that she wanted to be a cloistered religious.

When she and her brother sailed for America on the Queen Mary in 1929, Sally intended to enter the Poor Clares in Oakland in part because she felt her lack of education would keep her from other ministries besides prayer.

After arriving in San Francisco, she found a job as a housekeeper and cook for two retired attorneys. She began attending St. Ignatius Church. She told Jesuit Father Richard Gleeson that she was planning to join a cloistered order. He responded that he thought the Holy Family Sisters would be a better fit.

“But Father, I don’t know them. I wouldn’t know how to get there,” she replied. He wrote down the directions to the Sisters’ motherhouse at the corner of Hayes and Fillmore Streets.

She entered the community on January 6, 1934, at the age of 27. “And I haven’t regretted it one bit, not for a minute. I’d do it all over again,” she said.

Because of her cooking background, she was put in charge of the motherhouse kitchen. “It was a big job,” notes Sister Guenther. “Three meals for 120 Sisters during retreats and summer sessions were the norm.” The rest of the time, her work was a little lighter – just 80 Sisters to feed.

Holy Family Sister Marianne Smith, now a full-time social worker at Holy Family Day Home in San Francisco, used to help Sister Hannigan. “She was a doll, a little mite, even then,” said Sister Smith, who entered the community in 1944.

It was well-known that the cook spoiled her kitchen assistants. Once, when cautioned against doing so, Sister Hannigan said she intended to keep right on coddling them because she needed them. “We didn’t have paid help in those days,” she explained.

Sister Smith quickly learned what a great cook she assisted each day. A special combination called “beans, buns and benedicamus” was a Saturday night favorite.
The beans were cooked with ham, onions, parsley and garlic. There were home-made yeast rolls. “Benedicamus” was a blessing to the Sisters; it signaled that they could talk during the dinner instead of their usual silence.

Another famous Hannigan recipe is “Fiesta Cake,” a chiffon concoction with beaten egg whites added to the batter. The cake featured a whipped cream frosting with a boiled candy coffee topping made from scratch. The recipe, developed by the Sperry Flour Company, was complicated with such fearsome directions as “bring coffee mixture to a boil and cook to the hard crack stage.”

But Sister Hannigan would bake six of those cakes each year on the feast of St. Ignatius for the Jesuits at St. Ignatius Church. Asked recently if she could make a Fiesta cake now, she quickly responded, “No, not even for the Pope.”

Sister Hannigan also had an ongoing side door ministry each morning.

“After our 7 a.m. breakfast, we would start fixing food for the poor. Each person would get two beautifully wrapped sandwiches and a piece of fruit,” said Sister Smith. This hospitality to the poor and homeless predated St. Anthony’s Dining Room by several years.

She also clothed the poor, found hospital services for those who needed them, and counseled those with substance abuse problems.

When the Holy Family Sisters moved their headquarters to Fremont, Sister Hannigan resettled in a smaller convent in San Francisco. She continued to cook. After officially retiring from those duties, she helped out at St. Anthony’s on the soup line by passing out mugs. She visited the residents at Laguna Honda.

Now retired from all outside ministries, Sister Hannigan has finally realized her youthful dream of being a contemplative. She spends most of her time in prayer.
Said Trish Carney, congregation secretary, “When we need to find her, if she is not in her room, she is almost always in the chapel.”

To order a copy of Sister Hannigan’s cookbook, send a $25 check to: Malachy’s Cookbook, P.O. Box 3248, Fremont, CA. 94539, or call (510) 624-4595.

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