Nana’s Date Bars. Photo by Hallie Flint Gilman

At the back of the derelict 1856 farmhouse my husband Ned and I have been stewarding since 2019 is a gaping hole of an attic room, full of potential, with three broken square windows facing due east toward the Kennebec River and the sunrise. We hope to have a bedroom there one day, but in the meantime, we mostly visit it to check how badly the chimney flashing has leaked (pretty badly) and to try, as winter approaches, to close up the house to the elements. The cold wind makes our knuckles ache and the sills are a chaos of wasp remains, but I don’t ask Ned which elements, exactly, he hopes to keep out with the rough boards screwed across the cracked panes. Some logic is better left unexamined.

Witness, for example, how recently, in the more civilized (read: heated, plumbed, electrified) environs of our city kitchen in Portland, Ned did not ask why I was compelled to test a stack of date bar recipes, documenting each version with notes and photos and orchestrating a family-wide taste test.

My paternal grandmother spoke reverently of tomato aspic, which is like Bloody Mary Jell-O, I imagine, and my maternal grandma will ever be associated with circus peanuts, a spongey candy too treacly for even my sweet tooth. I’ve never felt nostalgic for either of those old-time treats. But I have pined for the legendary date bars we heard were made by Nana, the prior owner of our farmhouse, in her wood-fired cookstove, to be snacked on with tea, to be offered to anyone who showed up to sit at the kitchen counter. As best we can tell, she was everyone’s Nana in this tiny farming town, up the river from Skowhegan; when any of her descendants drive past the house, they honk sweetly from the road at the bottom of the sloping front yard. The honks are not for us. We feel encouraged anyway.

The winner of the taste test, in case you’re looking for some sustenance at tea time or hoping for someone to show up at your counter, was inspired by the Smitten Kitchen version, and goes like this:

Nana’s Date Bars

Melt 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter and allow to cool.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Line an 8 x 8 square baking pan with parchment paper.

In a small saucepan, mix 1½ cups chopped pitted dates, 3/4 cup water, and the zest of one orange. Simmer over low-medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the dates have absorbed the liquid and the mixture has thickened a bit. Remove pan from heat and set fruit mixture aside to cool while preparing the bar crumble.

In a large bowl, mix together with a spatula or wooden spoon:

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1/4 cup raw sugar

The melted, cooled butter

3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

A few gratings of fresh nutmeg

A pinch of ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Stir until you have a lumpy crumble and enjoy the smell.

Dump half the crumble mixture into the prepared pan and press it gently into a layer to cover the bottom, relatively evenly but it doesn’t need to be perfect. Spread the date mixture in a relatively even layer over the crumble base. Sprinkle the remaining crumble over the date mixture, press gently with the back of the spoon or spatula, but don’t fret if some date mixture is peeking through.

Bake for 25 minutes, until edges are starting to brown, and set the pan on a wire rack to cool. Cut into bars and store, at room temperature is fine.

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When Ned was done boarding up broken windows, we headed to our neighbor Bonnie’s to drop off some date bars. She’s the one who told us about the cookies, made by Nana, her mother. Our farmhouse was Bonnie’s childhood home. Can you come in for a visit? she asks at the dooryard, with neighborly instinct and chickens underfoot, hiding from the wind. Someday we can! we promise, worrying about the heat lost through her open door, before driving away and discussing, with the seat warmers on high, how we can keep making slow headway on the renovations, even in the biting months ahead.

Someday we can: broken windows mended; cookie jar full; plumbed, electrified, heated; friends seated at the kitchen counter.

Hallie Flint Gilman and her husband Ned in front of the farmhouse they are renovating in the Kennebec River Valley. Photo by Tenley Flint

MEET THE COOK, Hallie Flint Gilman

I work and live in Portland. On the weekends, my husband Ned and I are *very* slowly renovating a dear old farmhouse in the Kennebec River valley (in a tiny town, we’re still new there, so I’d rather not name it). We call the project the Tiller Project, and it has inspired us in innumerable ways, including to: invest in a nail gun, bake date bars, explore linseed oil paint, try to be good neighbors, float in the river and write a newsletter, which you should totally subscribe to (it’s free, and so worth it): tillerproject.substack.com.