My Grandma’s Kitchen

A reworking of a scene I posted earlier.

Everything about it is yellow: the bright formica counter tops, the floral wallpaper, the cupboards, the gauzy curtains, the aging refrigerator. It reeks of the sixties, when my mother was still a child, when it was still common to have a bright yellow kitchen. But at nine years old, I know nothing of that decade–only that I am here now, that this kitchen is bright as sunshine and butter, that it will surely always be this way.

I close the back door and set an old ice cream bucket full of raspberries on the yellow counter top. They are from the backyard bush, and are my favorite: some as large as my big toe, ripe, reddish-purple like bruises. I kick off my shoes and take in the yellow around me, my colored pencil drawings of foxes and sunsets magneted to the refrigerator and back door. My grandma comes into the room in her pink knit sweater, marvels at the fullness of the bucket. We wash the raspberries in a spaghetti strainer, then partition most of them into old cottage cheese containers to mark and place in a corner of the basement freezer. A small handful, though, are tumbled into a small white china bowl, then mixed with milk and three tablespoons of sugar. The result is a thick pink mixture, raspberries still huddling whole in the center: something I probably couldn’t turn down if my life depended on it.

My grandma’s kitchen was a lab for food. I’ll never know what she did in there to produce such wonderful concoctions–whether it was truly science or if fairies blessed the treats and meals with colorful dust. All I knew was sitting at the dining room table or on the living room sofa while she brought me snacks–sometimes without even asking if I wanted anything, or what, as if she knew intuitively when and what to bring me. I loved all of it: rainbow ice cream (white, pink and minty green) in sturdy, ornate wine glasses, cheddar cheese with crackers and salami, bags of pre-shelled sunflower seeds and barbecue peanuts, carrots from her garden with dill-flavored dip, the world’s sweetest pickled beets, homemade donuts, and of course, raspberries with sugar and milk. Her signature drink was grape Kool-Aid, which she’d always bring to me in a plastic, rabbit-shaped cup with ears protruding from the lid, the sugar never quite dissolving at the bottom: a sweet purple sludge ready to be carefully poured onto my tongue once I’d finished the liquid.

Some nights, my grandma would invite me and my parents over for a roast beef dinner, which to this day is my favorite meal: the smoothest mashed potatoes, the most savory, salty beef roast, fresh vegetables, and beef gravy–which tasted even better when she burnt it. When we had sleepovers, she would sometimes make popcorn–the kernels rattling into an old-fashioned popcorn maker, white fluff spilling out the chute. And of course, she canned: mason jars full of pears and peaches she’d bring from some dark, magic place in the basement. Almost as good as the raspberries, that syrupy sweetness in her white china bowls, the clink of spoons against porcelain.

Once, when I was seven years old, she was making me breakfast while I sat at the dining room table, kicking my feet, fidgeting with my silverware, waiting. She always made breakfast the same, and she knew I loved it–bacon cooked just right, toast with the crusts cut off, an abundance of scrambled eggs. Years later I would adopt her technique, cooking the eggs straight from the shell in the bacon grease, yolk and whites still somewhat separate. It was beautiful, the way she would lay it all out: orange slices on the side, a glass of milk, the toast cut into buttery rectangles. Her smile.

This time, however, I was impatient. Maybe some of it was out of boredom, but I found myself mimicking some cartoon I’d seen: fork in one hand and butter knife in the other, pounding my fists on the table, chanting repeatedly for my food.

After a minute, my grandma had had quite enough. She came to the doorway, her face flushed, brown curls grazing her neck. With spatula in hand, she yelled, “It will just be a few more minutes! You will wait.”

I was silenced immediately. She retreated back to the stove, and I laid my fork and knife back down on my napkin, quietly, stunned and instantly regretting my behavior.

I admit, I was spoiled. It wasn’t something I asked for, but it was the truth–tingling on my taste buds. Those moments of tension between my grandma and me were a blip amidst all the good memories of that kitchen: the color, the smells of cooking, the drawings, the doilies, the milkmaid figurines atop the refrigerator. But I would never forget those moments–the pull from warmth and light to a place of cold and quiet, like the corner of a basement freezer, the dark red sting of anger.

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.

My Grandma’s House: Scene One, Take One

The Front Yard

It was the brownest house on Fifth Avenue–the wood panels, the flaking paint, the roof. Chocolate brown, brown of coffee grounds, of bears and pine cones in the surrounding woods. It sat near the edge of a row of houses on an incline leading up to Mount Dickenson, lawn stretching green over the curve of the hill toward the ditch and the pavement, gravel drive climbing back up the side. It took me two minutes to approach on foot from my house on Fourth Avenue, one street away–that hill unfurling like a scroll at my five-year-old feet. In the summer (or what we called summer in Fort St. James) I’d lie flat on my back on the grass, then roll–arms outstretched–from top to bottom, eyes shut to the bright, unfathomable daylight.

At the top of that hill there was nothing but flowers, bedded on either side of the wrought-iron rails and cemented steps leading up to the front door, which was only used as a novelty–when the metal crash of the screen door seemed just right and the longing to brave the winter ice surpassed the intimidation. But in summer, there were roses–always toilet-seat pink–and forget-me-nots blazing blue, and pansies. The pansies were unstoppable–sprouting fluttering armies in hundreds, thousands, spilling every color. But the ones that stood out were those deep purple and yellow–the ones that popped up at random, that begged for attention, that spread to the edges of the driveway, braving the vehicles, and poked through the cracks in the concrete walkway. When I was a child I’d stoop to examine them, these vibrant strays, quiet but bright as toothy grins, dropped coins, the sun. Sometimes I was afraid to touch them.