I’ve been thinking about my grandmother’s kitchen. My first grandchild is 10 weeks old. He spent the afternoon with me yesterday. For the first time, he didn’t want me to put him down. Other than during a few minutes of tummy time and a walk in the stroller, he fussed every minute he wasn’t asleep unless I carried him around.
I remember being able to do most household tasks with a baby in hand, but it’s been a long time since I used that skill. Nonetheless, we managed to water the plants, fix his bottles, and take clothes out of the dryer without benefit of a baby carrier. I didn’t attempt cooking. We´ll save that for later.
My grandmother never seemed to miss a beat whether or not we were around. She made play dough for us using flour, water, salt, and food coloring and let us use her cookie cutters to cut it into shapes at the kitchen table. If we behaved, she’d offer us an oatmeal cookie or ginger snap from her ever full cookie jar. (Speaking of, we always behaved because when she stomped her foot in irritation, we knew she meant business and stopped all shenanigans immediately.) She made lunch and dinner with us underfoot sending us to the refrigerator to fetch whatever she needed.
When I was 8 or 9, GranGran started teaching me how to cook. I was already reading recipes and baking at home, but my grandmother rarely used recipes. Or at least, she rarely pulled a recipe card out of the box. She may have had them all memorized. Her beef and noodles always tasted the same whether she used a recipe or not.
I loved being in my grandmother´s kitchen and I love reminders of it today. I recently went through the recipes in my mother’s kitchen and found recipe cards in my grandmother´s handwriting. On these cards, there’s no list of ingredients at the top. Instead, they appear as you add them to the mix. It’s like each recipe was dictated by the cook who was making the dish and someone wrote it down. I find this charming.
The recipes are much like my grandmother — simple, to the point, and easy to understand. Here´s one I found:
Porcupine Meatballs (Serves 4)
Mix 1/4 cup Campbell’s tomato soup with 1 lb. ground beef, 1/4 cup uncooked rice, 1 egg (slightly beaten), 1/4 cup minced onion, 2 tbsp minced parsley, 1 tsp salt.
Shape into balls about 1 1/2″ in diameter. Brown in 2 tbsp shortening with one small minced clove garlic in large skillet.
Blend in rest of can of soup and 1 cup water.
Simmer about 40 minutes or until rice is tender stirring now and then.
Now, I can´t vouch for the results of this recipe. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. That pipsqueak of a grandson of mine thinks I should hold him instead.
Perhaps you could try it for me and let me know what you think!
