More of My Grandma’s House

The Kitchen

Everything about it was yellow: the bright formica counter tops, the patterned wallpaper, the cupboards, the gauzy curtains, the aging refrigerator. It reeked of the sixties, when my mother was still a child, when it was still common to have a bright yellow kitchen. My grandma attached colored pencil drawings I had done as a child to the refrigerator and back door: little red foxes and caves and sunsets. The cupboards were always stocked with familiar plastic cups in the shape of rabbits or bears, ears protruding from the lids, and a canister of grape Kool-Aid mix to fill them with, the sugar never quite dissolving at the bottom of the finished product, straws wading in the sweet purple sludge.

Here is where most of the magic happened–the popcorn my grandma used to make, the rattle of kernels filling the old-fashioned popcorn maker, white fluff spilling out the chute at the top, some bits missing the bowl entirely. Mason jars full of pears and peaches she’d bring from some dark place in the basement, the syrupy sweetness in white china bowls, the clink of spoons against porcelain. My grandma had a habit of bringing us snacks of all kinds–ice cream in sturdy, ornate wine glasses, cheddar cheese and crackers and salami, bags of pre-shelled sunflower seeds, barbecue peanuts, carrots from her garden with dill-flavored dip, the sweetest pickled beets I’d ever taste, homemade donuts, raspberries with sugar and milk. The latter was my favorite.

Everything regarding that kitchen was always pleasant–the color, the smells of cooking, the drawings, the doilies, the perpetual cleanness, the milkmaid figurines atop the refrigerator. I loved everything it represented: its tastes, its kindness, the desire and happiness it created.

Once (I think I was around eight years old), she was making me breakfast, the way she knew I loved it–bacon, toast with the crusts cut off, an abundance of scrambled eggs (cooked in the bacon grease, the yolk and whites still somewhat separate, the way I cook them now). It was beautiful, the way she would lay it out, orange slices on the side, a glass of milk, the toast cut into buttery rectangles. I was impatient this time, waiting in the dining room, and expressing it outwardly (out of character for me)–mimicking some cartoon I’d seen, fork in hand, pounding my fists on the table, chanting for my food.

After a minute, my grandma had had enough. She appeared in the doorway, face flushed, spatula in hand, and yelled, “It will just be a few more minutes! You will wait.”

I was silenced immediately, stunned and instantly regretting my behavior. Those moments of tension between us were a blip amidst all the good memories of that kitchen, but I would never forget them.

Tell Me

An exercise from Old Friend From Far Away by Natalie Goldberg.

Tell me everything you know about Jell-O.

Jell-O is always different, depending on the source. I remember quite clearly my first time standing at a Chinese buffet, delighted, wrestling those little red cubes onto my porcelain plate, only later to spit one out and claim adamantly, “That is not Jell-O.”

I will forever be spoiled by the Jell-O my mother made–the real stuff, the kind Bill Cosby sold so you knew it was good: the little white box, bright image, flavor printed clearly across the front. To this day I am 95% certain that Raspberry–the kind mom always made–is the best flavor. It is the richest, the best to slosh around in the mouth–like a fine Merlot in a wine glass–to bring out the flavor. Not quite the raspberries in my grandma’s back yard, but a different kind of raspberry–the kind that brews in beakers in Bill Cosby’s basement (or so you imagine). Then again, if you wanted anything but that jiggly, artificial fruit, you wouldn’t be standing in the baking aisle.

In my youth I did dabble from time to time in other flavors, though nothing compared to Raspberry. I could usually find Orange and Lime in plastic cups at the craft fair for seventy-five cents apiece–and they were okay. Better than Strawberry, which I (perhaps alone) have always felt with certainty is a flavor best applied to nothing. The only time I ever had Grape was when we made Jell-O Jigglers, once or twice–a bunch of egg-sized grapes with human expressions (just slightly less creepy than the California Raisins) in a purple plastic mold. I eventually grew fond of Peach, along with Lemon–which I avoided until I realized, hey, a gelatinous lemon blob isn’t as sour as the real deal. Not bad.

Still, Raspberry has always won the war. It was better, even, than the Cherry my grandmother made–a surprise to me. She served the stuff in plastic cups like the ones at the fair, while my mother served it in punch glasses around Christmas. Cherry was always a little bit smoother, firmer, unnatural–slick as a skating rink beneath my finger, a little bit of fog on the side of the cup like condensation on the plexiglass at the arena. We’d eat it when we visited on holidays or came for dinner, dropping a scoop of frozen Cool Whip on top and calling it good before going back for more roast beef.

Now, I try to mimic this oh-so-complicated recipe in my apartment kitchen. Speed-Set Method, lots of ice, because I never have the patience for anything else. What I get is a large, lovely bowl of lava-lamp-consistency goop, just wobbly enough for structure and giggles and the juiciest flavor–but by morning, it’s little more than Jell-O soup.

Still, I crave it. It’s better, I’m sure, than whatever’s in the plastic containers with hand-penned labels I eye suspiciously through food court cooler glass. It’s hard for me to admit (believe me, I drool regretfully) that even now I only trust the pre-packaged box, the brand, the powder–its rosy, blinding, slow-settling cloud.