Saturday, October 31, 2009
November - Family Stories Month
November is Family Stories Month. What a perfect time to share our life stories with our children and grandchildren. What better legacy can we leave? We encourage you to share your favorite story on our Blog. Your story may help someone remember one of their own long forgotten stories. Remember: The story of any one of us is, in part, the story of all of us. Have the patience to listen and the wisdom to learn.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
When I was a boy growing up in Columbus, Indiana, we had Sunday dinner at my grandparents. We alternated, every other week, between my maternal and paternal grandmothers. Mom's mom was a wonderfully creative cook who made complicated dishes with secretive spices and ingredients. Dad's mom specialized in baked chicken and boiled potatoes, salt was optional.
My Mother cooked like Dad's mom.
Shortly before her death, well into her 80's after a happy and productive life, I asked her why she didn't learn cooking from her mother. She acknowledged that her mom was a wonderful cook and she said that she had all of those recipes and, when first setting up housekeeping with my father, she cooked like that. But, my father would always say "That's pretty good but it's not like my mother makes it." Finally, Mom went to her mother-in-law, got all the recipes and gave up good cooking for baked chicken and boiled potatoes.
Several years later when Dad was failing, I raised the same question with him. He acknowledged that his mother-in-law was a great cook and that he always looked forward to diner at her house were the food was always so different and tasty. Then he told that my mother cooked that way at first but after a while quit being so fancy. He figured that with having kids and keeping house and all she just didn't have the time to do a good job cooking any longer.
I told him about talking to Mom and his complaint that she didn't cook like his mother.
"Complaint?" he said. "I always meant that the food wasn't plain and tasteless like my Mom's."
Post a Comment