I had a Grandma. We called her Grandma. She lived around the corner from the house I grew up in. She babysat us overnight sometimes. She was famous for her chocolate fudge and had bizarre theories on things like “why Elvis was so fat” (his fans crowded so close to him that he never had any exercise). She came to our house for holiday meals and while I know she was a good cook I don’t remember her as being known for her gourmet cooking. She could make an awesome piecrust and mincemeat from scratch, not that I ever ate mincemeat pie due to the fact that it is a dessert made with suet. Towards the end of her life she was known for making a chocolate mix-chocolate chips-walnuts-cool whip extravaganza of a birthday cake. That was Elsie; she was my Dad’s Mom.
I had another Grandma but I have almost no memories of my own of her. I think we called her Oma, because we called my Grandfather Opa (a German thing although none of us are German). I do know for sure however that she was an amazing cook, a gourmet before her time. She subscribed to Gourmet magazine probably more than 50 years ago. She always had emergency canapé ingredients in the cupboard and I like to imagine that she was known for chic cocktail parties where artistic and creative people held interesting and edgy conversations (I’m projecting the last part). My Mom once told me about a time Oma made strudel and demonstrated to my Mother that the dough is thin enough only when you can read a newspaper through it. It was an all day event and it feels like something I would definitely do.
My Mom recently let me have a notebook that her Mom had kept. It is a simple, classic, black and white composition notebook. It is not a record of her life, loves, and adventures, its more revealing. It is her grocery lists - the ones she used to check off the items when the groceries were delivered.
It is because of this notebook that I know we are kindred spirits. Looking at the lists, planned in 2 week increments, you can see if there was a party planned or a holiday dinner to serve. It is a guide to “how to feed 7 children and a demanding husband without going bankrupt”. Most of time the handwriting is neat and perfect, classic “palmer method” but sometimes I notice the handwriting gets messy and the lists are disorganized, no longer categorized, and you can tell there are no parties planned. After that you would see my Mom’s young handwriting taking over or my Grandfather’s handwriting - nothing interesting, no joy in the planning of food. Dry chipped beef is ordered. That would be the time my Oma would be gone, in a hospital, getting rest. Often more cigarettes are included in those lists. I use to hear about those times when I was little but I didn’t know what it meant to be getting rest. Time would pass, menus grey and bland and then suddenly her handwriting is back! Prime Rib, ingredients for Yorkshire pudding, the fun stuff like plum pudding when it’s not even Christmas - the list comes back to life.
But being a stellar cook isn’t the only thing I think I inherited from her, though I never had to go to a hospital to get rest. I have doses of Lamictal, and Seroquel instead andI get to always be with my family and always make the list. And though I choose graph paper over the black and white composition notebook but my lists are just as telling. Individual beef Wellington for Christmas dinner, Mimosas and Eggs Benedict for breakfast, it’s all there, all in my handwriting, in the grocery list. I think she would be proud, I think we could have hung out together, making strudel or something.
She was my other Grandma. The one I didn’t know at all but the one who gave me the gift of being confident, creative, and daunted by nothing in the kitchen, and also probably the gift of the “bipolar” on my medical charts. But that’s OK, I know in my heart, should I ever have a need to make strudel dough from scratch, it won’t be a problem. And you’ll be damn sure you can read the newspaper through it…
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