Tag Archives: grandma

The Flavor Of Good Memories

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When I was a kid, my grandma had a seemingly endless supply of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum in her pocketbook. A stick of Juicy Fruit has a refreshing fruity flavor that lasts for approximately 22.5 seconds. Nonetheless, I enjoyed being offered a piece and did my best to make the flavor last before blowing bubbles until it was too stiff to chew.

I’ve been thinking a lot about her lately. My purse is about as disorganized as her pocketbook always was and there’s usually some gum lurking in there. Although, mine is always something minty and never Juicy Fruit.

Grandma didn’t drive so my mother typically took her to the grocery store when I was small. I often was offered a stick of gum while I hung out in the back seat of their car or slid around on the backseat of our family station wagon. This was back before seat belts were a big deal, of course. That leather seat was blazing hot in the summer and slick as could be the rest of the year, leaving me bouncing off the seat when we hit a bump and holding on tight as we took the curves.

We always went to a nearby town to hit a couple of grocery stores, a local bakery and a few other places. She liked going to more than one grocery store to get the buys and to find the products she wanted. I do that too.

Lunch often came from the Dairy Queen where we would get a Full Meal Deal – a sandwich, fries, drink AND sundae! That was a bargain and a treat. Now we call it the DQ. I drive by often but never think to go there. After all, they serve your Blizzard upside down but they don’t have the Full Meal Deal anymore.

Earlier this week I made boiled potatoes for dinner. These were a staple on her table and, as it turns out, a taste of my childhood. Every time I make them I simultaneously wonder why I don’t do it more often and why they taste so amazing. Really, if you want to eat a potato that tastes like the most potatoe-y of all the potatoes, just drop it in a pot of boiling water. I have vivid memories of my grandpa smashing a potato on his plate so that it was fluffy and soft. Now I take my time doing the same and enjoying the heat and the delectable smell of such a simple pleasure.

Last night I had to stop at the store to pick up something for my parents and was delighted to see Juicy Fruit flavored bubble gum on the rack at the check out. I bought a pack, tore it open and enjoyed popping bubbles as I headed down memory lane. I’ll put the pack in my purse and maybe pull out a piece and think of her the next time I go for a drive. While the flavor may not last long, the memories are forever.

Crispy Cookies And Memories Of Grandma

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My Grandma Betts was one of the best cooks I’ve ever known. A country cook, she could whip up a meal for a dozen people as long as she had flour, eggs and a cellar packed with mason jars full of veggies from their garden.  She kept a jar of bacon grease on the stove and the freezer was well stocked with meat and basically anything you could possibly want. There was rarely a recipe in sight as she cooked from memory and from instinct. 

My mother likes to talk about how her kitchen was stocked like a grocery store and how easily I could manipulate that sweet lady into getting me whatever I wanted. Anything your heart desired was either available or could be made faster than you could say “Grandma, I want a peanut butter sandwich.”

She was known for her pies and for the Mandarin Orange Cake that I still make for Easter. She once taught me how to make berry pie after I spent the day out picking berries with Grandpa. I was about twelve and badly wish I could remember more of what she showed me. 

It was at her table everyone would gather for homemade noodles, mashed potatoes and pickles she canned herself. It was at this table that she would start talking about the next meal before the dishes were cleared from that meal. It was at this table my aunts and uncles would pass around old black and white photos, telling tall tales and laughing about days gone by. 

I wish I remembered more of that too. 

Grandma was a master pie and cake baker who made sure everyone’s favorite dessert was represented on the holidays. And when my Uncle Randy began bringing home the woman he would eventually marry, we suddenly had fish and macaroni and cheese on the table because Donna is pescatarian and Grandma wanted her to feel welcome. 

For all the oodles of noodles she cut and the dozens of desserts that cooled on her kitchen counter, there was one thing Garnet Betts could not do. She couldn’t make a decent cookie to save her life. 

My dad remembers her making great cookies when he was young but says her skills deteriorated over time.

For a long time I believed she probably could make a better cookie but chose to make them to suit my Grandpa. Her beloved Earl liked his cookies crispy so he could dunk them in his coffee or sometimes in milk. To this day, I remember him sitting at the head of the table with his Fire King mug, dipping those rock hard cookies and smiling. 

Now I wonder if he really liked them that way or if he learned to appreciate them so he wouldn’t hurt her feelings. 

This weekend saw the start of my annual cookie baking project, something I’m reasonably good at when time allows me to slow down and enjoy it. First up Saturday night was a batch of peanut butter cookies, one of the easier cookies you can possibly make. 

And I screwed up nearly all of them.  One sheet came out overbaked and another burned on the bottom. A few were good but it was kind of demoralizing. On Sunday, I made perfect batches of sugar cookies and Pennsylvania Dutch cookies along with a sad batch of chocolate chip. To be fair, one big cookie sheet came out charred beyond recognition because I had a politician knock on my door and I forgot I was even baking. A few turned out ok but most were overdone and are hard. Not burned, just crispy and hard. 

I always think of my grandparents when I bake but they have been prominent in my thoughts since Sunday when I told Adam, the guy I have been dating, about my disastrous adventures in baking that day. 

You know what he said about the chocolate chip cookies? “Save the burned cookies for me. They’re good with oat milk.” 

I immediately stopped feeling bad about my kitchen catastrophes, at least for that day. Friends, I have found a keeper. 

Don’t worry. He’ll get plenty of good cookies too!

Grandma’s Cookie Tin

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When I was a kid in the eighties, this blue tin of little butter cookies was a staple in my paternal grandparents’ home.

My grandma was an amazing cook. She was an old fashioned Appalachian cook who was always prepared to throw together a great meal with homemade noodles, potatoes and fried meat of some kind. She made delicious pies and cakes including a Mandarin Orange Cake that I attempt to recreate every Easter.

For all her amazing qualities in the kitchen, cookies weren’t her thing. She tried but they were just never that good. Isn’t that funny? She could can a garden full of vegetables and make homemade pie crust with her eyes closed but couldn’t pull off a decent sugar cookie.

She mostly filled the cookie jar on her vinyl tablecloth clad table with store bought cookies and there was frequently a tin of these little butter cookies on hand too.

I hadn’t thought about them in years but was recently transported back to that old kitchen with the African violets in the window and a jar full of bacon grease on the stove. That’s because I found small tins of these cookies at the Dollar Tree. This package is about a fourth the size that she always bought but it was the perfect amount of cookies to make me smile.

Honestly, they aren’t that good but I enjoyed dunking them in a mug of hot chocolate. My grandpa always dunked his cookies in cup of coffee and now I understand that they taste a little better with the extra punch of flavor.

I feel no need to run out and buy more but, golly, I did enjoy this batch. And now I have the tin to remind me of those happy days!

Speak Carefully In Front Of The Plants

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My grandma always kept African Violets. She had a brilliant green thumb and her kitchen windowsill was always lined with these pretty little plants.

The leaves are velvety and the flowers are tiny and delicate in shades of pink, white, blue and purple. They are sweet little flowers and always make me think of her.

So when I found a collection of African Violets for sale at Franklin Park Conservatory Saturday, I googled them to learn that they aren’t toxic to cats. It took just a second to decide that it might be fun to take one home.

When I asked the cashier for advice on how to keep it alive, it was kind of a joke. Sadly, I’m pretty sure the poor little thing heard me and probably died a little inside right there on the counter. Plants probably don’t get humor.

She was probably wondering what incompetent monster was kidnapping her. Why would her caregivers allow this maniac to leave with her?

They told me to let the soil dry out, to water from the bottom and to keep it in a container that seems a little too small as being slightly root bound encourages bloom.

What we didn’t talk about was how to keep it healthy on the way home when the temperature was nearly 8o degrees.

Sigh.

First I blasted the AC while driving. Then I abandoned the poor little thing in the hot car while I shopped. Then AC, then the greenhouse effect. This process was repeated a few times.

It was looking pekid by the time we made it home. I gave her some water in a saucer and said nice things. Maybe some kind, welcoming words will do her some good.

Some studies say that talking to plants will encourage them to grow faster – something about sound and vibrations. It’s not about the words so much as the sounds. It seems worth a shot.

If you need me, I’ll be speaking gently to my new friend and trying to reassure her that I won’t kill her. You know, lying to my plant.

Snuggle

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I recently stepped outside to find an aroma from my childhood wafting through the air. It smelled like my grandparents’ house.

It was a cold, dreary day. The snow had melted but it was frigid and there was a slight breeze that carried the aroma of fried beef, something musty and fabric softener. I spent the walk down my hill to the mailbox trying to coax my brain back to her laundry room and remember which fabric softener it was. 

And then it hit me. 

Snuggle.

I remember because I was a kid and liked the little bear on their commercials.

In my house, there are few brands that actually inspire loyalty. I use the expensive toothpaste that my dentist recommended. There’s a local Mennonite store that sells some pickles that have ruined my opinion of all other pickles forever. Silk almond yogurt is the only kind of yogurt worth buying by my estimation. 

But I tend to bounce back and forth between a couple of detergents and buy whatever dryer sheets are on sale. Perhaps this is why my actions were so surprising but I scurried home and ordered a year’s supply of Snuggle dryer sheets. 

We have five senses and each one can easily transport us to another time and place. The smell of Elmer’s glue will always remind me of the day I fell asleep on a swing at recess my Kindergarten year. No one even noticed me out there or that I was missing until I wandered back into the classroom.

Those were the eighties for you!

The sight of a Mountain Dew bottle takes me back to my newspaper years when I guzzled the stuff to stay alert on long days. I no longer drink this sugar bomb in a bottle but its presence reminds me of how grateful I am to have survived those days.

And now I have my Snuggle to take me back to my grandma’s laundry room. 

Brand loyalty can be a good thing. It’s a small price to pay for a happy memory. 

Experimenting In the Kitchen

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I always marveled at my Grandma’s ability to throw together ingredients without the use of a measuring cup or recipe and have a meal turn out great. Her cooking was meat heavy – bacon grease in the green beans, lots of fried foods, homemade chicken noodles and beautiful, scrumptious pies.

My eating style is much different now than it was when she was living but it seems I inherited her talent for instinctive cooking. It sounds arrogant to say that because she was as much better cook than I will ever be but I did at least inherit a fraction of that skill.

The problem is that I can never recreate a dish.

Ever.

Even my breakfast smoothie is different every day. The only thing I bother to measure is the almond milk and then just toss in random amounts of other ingredients. I made a great bean soup last week but I’ll never taste it again since I just diced carrots, celery and onion until it looked like I had enough and tossed in minced garlic until I panicked because it seemed like too much.

This is partly because I’m often adapting recipes to make them vegan so there’s a lot of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants experimentation happening. Other than that, I have no good excuse but I have had some really good meals.

The other day, I made some maple peanut butter granola that was divine. I used oats, almond slivers and pecan pieces with a pinch of salt. Then melted peanut butter, agave nectar and pure maple syrup in the microwave and mixed it all together with those dry ingredients. When it just started to toast, I pulled it from the oven and added a small sprinkling of vegan chocolate chips and some golden raisins. Amounts? No clue. Temperature? I think it was 350 degrees. Time? Not sure. About fifteen minutes, maybe.

I let it rest on the cookie sheet for over an hour to finish roasting and then to cool for storage. That, I remember.

While the results were fabulous, I clearly won’t be writing a cookbook anytime soon. That’s ok. This, luckily, isn’t a cooking blog and I have fun in the kitchen so that’s all that really matters!

What meals can you cook without a recipe? We all have a collection of dishes that we toss together this way so tell me all about yours!