Sweet and Salty

February 2 would have been my grandfather's 101st birthday.  Today was a snow day.  I couldn't help remembering.  I bought a bit of peach preserves at the Amish market over the summer to save for a day like this.  I first posted this 6 years ago and reposted it again 3 years ago.  Hope you don't mind a third run. 

*image taken from http://www.all-about-dessert-sauces.com/jamsandpreserves.html

I'm back in my grandparent's tiny kitchen. It was just big enough to hold the refrigerator, sink, a small cabinet, and stove on one wall. There was no dining room so the table and four chairs were squeezed next to the opposite wall. Once the table was pulled out and everyone sat they stayed put. One had his back against the wall, one was against the cabinet opposite the stove, one was against the sink, and one had his back to the doorway. Only the one in the doorway could make an escape but no one wanted to. This was Mom-mom and Pop-pop's kitchen.

Tiny as it was, countless meals, baked goods, preserves and canned goods were made there. Mom-mom and Pop-pop both cooked. After his mother died and his stepmother kicked him out of his father's house he bounced around between other family members and eventually lived with his grandmother who was a cook at a local mansion. He learned cooking and sewing from her and whether he was producing something in the kitchen or by needle his end results were as fine or finer than that of many women.

The foods my grandparents made were very unlike what my mother served. Mom-mom made chicken potpie the Pennsylvania German way. This was no pastry covered pie dish with chicken and vegetables floating underneath. What heresy! Any Dutchie (local term for those of PA German heritage because they are often called PA Dutch) knows Chicken Pot Pie has big, square, homemade egg noodles, potato chunks, corn, and the chicken, all together and swimming in a sea of gravy. It's really more of a stew. Other dishes were fresh peas cooked in milk, apie cakes, rice pudding, a pickled bean and vegetable dish called Chow-chow, and endless jams and jellies.

The canned goods alone were astonishing. My grandparents' basement, which was clean enough for surgery, had row upon row of canned goods they had put up themselves. Everything was lined up and labeled in the most orderly fashion, a library of cans and jars indexed by date and contents. That's the meticulous Pennsylvania German way. There was an array of jams, jellies, and preserves. You could easily find the obvious and expected flavors like grape, strawberry, and peach. Amongst those fruits you'd also find crab apple jelly, elderberry jam, and whatever other interesting things they could find. I'd seen many canning sessions when Mom-mom boiled the fruits and pectins and then watched as Pop-pop squeezed it all through many layers of cheese cloth, warm juices running down his forearms, sweet aromas taunting my nose. If there was a fruit to be harvested locally it was turned into something you'd want to spread on a slice of bread. And as far as a Dutchie is concerned, dinner has not been proper unless there is buttered bread at the table and something else to smear on top of it. It's also important to keep a balance between sweet flavors and salty flavors. Seven sweets and seven salts is the official rule though some things like chow-chow pull double duty since they are both sweet and salty.

In their final years my grandparents did much less canning as Mom-mom's heart weakened and she could spend less and less time on her feet. Pop-pop also slipped into deep depression. They let a couple seasons pass by as they struggled. Mom-mom left us during the summer Diana was a baby. Pop-pop was never good for sitting still and without her to take care of he suddenly had much more time on his hands and needed activity to keep his mind off missing his wife. He decided to put up a batch of preserves by himself. One weekend at the end of summer when I came for a visit he loaded me up with jars of strawberry and peach preserves. We sat at the little table enjoying buttered bread and preserves. He smiled a smile I hadn't seen in a long time and it sweetened my soul like the jam on the bread. In November he was gone too.

It was February and my husband and I had gone through all but one last half-pint jar of peach preserves. He was at work, the baby was sleeping, and I was hungry. I toasted some bread. I reached for the final jar and found just the last remains of preserves clinging to the sides and bottom. I scraped out every last molecule, spread it slowly over the surface as if it were some ancient ritual. I think it took about 15 minutes to eat that one piece of toast. Each mouthful felt sacred. I had a hard time getting the last bite over the lump in my throat. The sweetness went to my belly as tears ran down my cheek to my lips. I half cried and half laughed because a proper Pennsylvania German meal has to have its bread and it has to taste of both sweets and salts.

Nelson Mandela

"As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison,"

"I would like to be remembered not as anyone unique or special, but as part of a great team in this country that has struggled for many years, for decades and even centuries. The greatest glory of living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall."








Nelson Mandela, thank you for showing us a better way to live and the way to heal fro the wounds we have inflicted upon each other. May you rest in well-earned peace.

100 Years

My grandmother was born June 6, 1912.  She lived to be 79.  Her last six weeks were in the hospital on a trach tube after heart surgery.  For her last birthday, which was in the hospital I brought Diana to visit her.  Diana was the only great grandchild with whom she was permitted a relationship.  Diana was greatly adored by her.  It was a great distance away from where we lived and I had not gone to visit all week because Diana was a baby and she had a very bad cold I did not want to share with my grandmother.  We brought balloons.  I told my grandmother we'd stay in the area all day bit come and go as she could tolerate.  I told her when she felt tired and needed to rest she was to tell me by waving goodbye and we'd go take a walk and check back in later in the day after she'd had time for a nap.  




 She knew loss and perseverance both.  She was a child of the Depression.  She knew how to stretch a dollar and how saving little by little made a difference.  She did not waste.  She had aspired to be a teacher but the wealthy relative willing to pay for her education said the only provision would be for nursing or secretarial work.  Neither appealed.  She valued education and was proud that I wanted to be a teacher.  She and my grandfather lived and raised their two boys in a house that by today's standards would be considered uncomfortably tiny by many or fashionably "green" by some.  She could not bear talk of WW2 since my grandfather had enlisted in the Navy, leaving her and their young boys at home alone.  My grandfather supported the family driving an oil truck.  She sent their sons to the University of Chicago by working in a women's clothing store.  When my father (who as a rule does NOT reconsider his opinion once it is formed) said he had nothing to contribute toward my own college education she was livid and informed me she'd be having a word with him since she'd worked all those years standing on her feet so he could flunk out by sitting on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Two weeks later he told me he had...reconsidered...and discovered some small way to help with my expenses.    I was in awe of my grandmother's power over my father.  I wished I could have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.  


As a child, my grandmother had rheumatic fever, which damaged her physical heart, but it did not diminish her spiritual heart.  She defied the doctors by living as long as she did and by refusing to give up ice cream.  She was also the one who reassured me as a child and teen that my father did in fact love me saying,  "Sweetie, he loves you. He just doesn't know how to show it."  She showed me it is possible to survive and hold her head high in spite of the loss of people through estrangement, people she saw week in and week out and yet who refused to be reconciled.  She showed it is possible to remain in an intimate friendship when others think it's impossible (she and my mother were dear friends for all of the the nearly two decades after my parents' divorce). She taught me that it is important to respect your elders.  To this day, I cannot address people of a certain age by their first name unless they insist I do so. She showed me that faith without works is dead and gave hands and feet to her own brand of belief.  When I announced my engagement she and my grandfather sat me down to have a serious talk with me.  They loved Mr. Lime but were concerned I was too young.  They wanted to make sure I was taking marriage seriously since I had not had a great example from my parents.  They shared about their own failings because they wanted me to succeed.

So many times over the years I have wished my grandmother could see my family; see how Diana has grown, meet Calypso and Isaac, give me advice on how to endure some of the trials life has sent my way. So may times I have wished I could sit at her kitchen table in the tiny kitchen and share lunch together, see her smile across the table, help her wash up the dishes afterward and then be folded into a hug and kissed while she strokes my hair (she always said it was a treat for her to brush my hair since she only had sons).  I'm so grateful I had her as long as I did, since no one expected her to have a full life expectancy, and I am proud to be her granddaughter.  Happy 100th birthday, Mom-mom.  I love you.

When (Mom-mom's) Irish Eyes Were Smiling

You were born in 1912 to an Irish Catholic father
and a Pennsylvania German Protestant mother.
What a fateful mix! 
Lord have mercy
upon the fool or the sluggard who crossed your path.
You did not suffer either of them gladly.
You expected the best
because you gave your best.

Your smile warmed us like the sun.
Your eyes twinkled like the stars.
Your glare withered those who ought to know better.
Your presence made us want to stand up straight and mind our manners
not out of fear
but because your bearing deserved it.
We wanted to see you smile,
be worthy of how you believed in us.

You carried the loss your father felt
at being disowned for his wife,
the loss of his job
for the sake of his son,
the loss of your health at a young age,
the loss of a brother who would not be tamed,
the loss of a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren
because you would not disown your son who wounded them.
You knew loss
and public disrespect
but you
would
not
bow to it.

You held your head up,
would not let me drop mine.
You felt my pain
but told me not to loose faith,
to see beyond the tears and anger,
be patient because God's not done yet.
I should not have been surprised
when you were proved right.

You did not waste words
on idle gossip.
You spoke your mind
with respect
but without apology.
Your aptly spoken words
could take the broken...
or the haughty
right where they needed to be.

Your quietly offered service
was faith made practical
because the philosophical
doesn't mean much
if a true need goes unmet.

Your confidence
in me
and gifts to me
made me
want to prove worthy
of it all
and of you.

I Remember

I don't want to look at Photoshopped pictures of the towers that once stood now painted in the stars and stripes.

I don't want to look at the spotlights replicating the fallen towers.

And dear God, I do not ever want to look again at photographs or videos of planes crashing into skyscrapers, great, billowing plumes of smoke rising, or steel and glass collapsing.

No, I don't want to look at the twisted, mangled wreckage of the Twin Towers which has become the grave for thousands.

I remember without those images bombarding me on the Internet or the television.  Those memories are seared into my mind's eye.

I can easily enough remember the phone call from my husband telling me to turn on the t.v. and watching in stunned horror as the first tower burned and a plane crashed into the second one.  I remember it all happening in real time as I stood frozen in my living room watching it unfold, thinking it couldn't get any worse....and then the first tower fell....and then the second.

I can remember that being followed by reports of the Pentagon being hit and then reports of a missing and still unaccounted for plane somewhere over my home state of Pennsylvania.

I remember standing transfixed in my living room holding Diana's lunch in my hands because she had forgotten to take it to school and I was on my way to deliver it when my husband called.

I remember wondering if I should take her lunch or bring her home from school because I wondered if one of the two sites in our area that might be considered strategic targets were where that missing plane was headed.

I remember driving in a daze and arriving to a school office that was a flurry of frantic parents and one calm secretary who asked what I wanted to do and I told her, "I don't know."  She said the teachers were under orders to keep the televisions and radios off and proceed as normal but if I wanted to take my daughter I could since so many students have parents who work in Manhattan.  I remember forcing myself to opt for normal and leaving lunch for my daughter....then crying all the way home.

I remember picking Isaac up from kindergarten and letting him play by himself upstairs while I tried to secretly watch news reports until my watching was pierced by a bloodcurdling scream.  He had shoved a bead up his nose.

I remember trying a myriad of ways to get that bead out of his nose and finally telling him we'd have to go to the doctor.  I remember the way he clung to me and cried asking, "Will they have to cut my nose off to get the bead out?"  And I remember gently reassuring him that no such horror would befall him.  I remember being grateful that my attention was redirected to my son's needs and also envious of his innocence because,  as far as he knew, a bead up the nose was the worst thing that could happen that day...though when you are five and scared of your nose being cut off that is a pretty big deal.

I remember my husband coming home and both of us spending time trying to track down news on the whereabouts of all the friends we had who worked in or around the towers.  And I remember the deep sighs of relief upon learning each of them had escaped to safety.

I remember the days that followed when we learned about friends of friends who had not been so fortunate.  I remember being angered that Calypso's 3rd grade teacher, who I adored and respected, had passed out newspapers with pictures of the burning towers to each of her students.

I remembered how Calypso carried around her copy wherever she went for weeks because she said it was important and she needed to.  I remember forcing myself to allow her to work through her own thoughts and feelings about the event in her way, talking with her frequently about her processing of 9/11, and forcing myself NOT to take that newspaper and throw it away so she wouldn't look at it every single day. 

I couldn't stand seeing the images of the moment thousands of hearts stopped beating.  I still can't.  But I remember nonetheless.

Instead of burning buildings and massive devastation I prefer what the designer of the Ground Zero Memorial has given us, an open space cultivating calm amidst the mayhem of the city, a place for peaceful reflection and hopefully some measure of healing.

May those who lost family and friends on that day find peace and healing in their lives.  May all of us work toward peace and healing in a broken world.

Sweets and Salts

I think I may have been hanging around Suldog too long because the re-post bug has bitten me.  Heck, it seems to work well for him so maybe it will for me.  February 2 is my grandfather's birthday.  Although I first posted this story 3 years ago it just seems a fitting remembrance of him on a cold day.

*image taken from http://www.all-about-dessert-sauces.com/jamsandpreserves.html

I'm back in my grandparent's tiny kitchen. It was just big enough to hold the refrigerator, sink, a small cabinet, and stove on one wall. There was no dining room so the table and four chairs were squeezed next to the opposite wall. Once the table was pulled out and everyone sat they stayed put. One had their back against the wall, one against the cabinet opposite the stove, one against the sink, and one with their back to the doorway. Only the one in the doorway could make an escape but no one wanted to. This was Mom-mom and Pop-pop's kitchen.

Tiny as it was, countless meals, baked goods, preserves and canned goods were made there. Mom-mom and Pop-pop both cooked. After his mother died and his stepmother kicked him out of his father's house he bounced around between other family members and eventually lived with his grandmother who was a cook at a local mansion. He learned cooking and sewing from her and whether he was producing something in the kitchen or by needle his end results were as fine or finer than that of many women.

The foods my grandparents made were very unlike what my mother served. Mom-mom made chicken potpie the Pennsylvania German way. This was no pastry covered pie dish with chicken and vegetables floating underneath. What heresy! Any Dutchie (local term for those of PA German heritage because they are often called PA Dutch) knows Chicken Pot Pie has big, square, homemade egg noodles, potato chunks, corn, and the chicken, all together and swimming in a sea of gravy. It's really more of a stew. Other dishes were fresh peas cooked in milk, apie cakes, rice pudding, a pickled bean and vegetable dish called Chow-chow, and endless jams and jellies.

The canned goods alone were astonishing. My grandparents' basement, which was clean enough for surgery, had row upon row of canned goods they had put up themselves. Everything was lined up and labeled in the most orderly fashion, a library of cans and jars indexed by date and contents. That's the meticulous Pennsylvania German way. There was an array of jams, jellies, and preserves. You could easily find the obvious and expected flavors like grape, strawberry, and peach. Amongst those fruits you'd also find crab apple jelly, elderberry jam, and whatever other interesting things they could find. I'd seen many canning sessions when Mom-mom boiled the fruits and pectins and then watched as Pop-pop squeezed it all through many layers of cheese cloth, warm juices running down his forearms, sweet aromas taunting my nose. If there was a fruit to be harvested locally it was turned into something you'd want to spread on a slice of bread. And as far as a Dutchie is concerned, dinner has not been proper unless there is buttered bread at the table and something else to smear on top of it. It's also important to keep a balance between sweet flavors and salty flavors. Seven sweets and seven salts is the official rule though some things like chow-chow pull double duty since they are both sweet and salty.

In their final years my grandparents did much less canning as Mom-mom's heart weakened and she could spend less and less time on her feet. Pop-pop also slipped into deep depression. They let a couple seasons pass by as they struggled. Mom-mom left us during the summer Diana was a baby. Pop-pop was never good for sitting still and without her to take care of he suddenly had much more time on his hands and needed activity to keep his mind off missing his wife. He decided to put up a batch of preserves by himself. One weekend at the end of summer when I came for a visit he loaded me up with jars of strawberry and peach preserves. We sat at the little table enjoying buttered bread and preserves. He smiled a smile I hadn't seen in a long time and it sweetened my soul like the jam on the bread. In November he was gone too.

It was February and my husband and I had gone through all but one last half-pint jar of peach preserves. He was at work, the baby was sleeping, and I was hungry. I toasted some bread. I reached for the final jar and found just the last remains of preserves clinging to the sides and bottom. I scraped out every last molecule, spread it slowly over the surface as if it were some ancient ritual. I think it took about 15 minutes to eat that one piece of toast. Each mouthful felt sacred. I had a hard time getting the last bite over the lump in my throat. The sweetness went to my belly as tears ran down my cheek to my lips. I half cried and half laughed because a proper Pennsylvania German meal has to have its bread and it has to taste of both sweets and salts.

We Remember

To those men and women who have served honorably I offer my most heartfelt thanks and great respect.

To those currently serving in harm's way I pray you are soon safely in the arms of your family.

I hope we can all work toward a day when parents are not called away from spouses and children such as was the case in my family and is now the case in so many military families.

Pop-pop (paternal grandfather), Dad (younger boy), and Uncle T. Pop-pop enlisted during WW2. The story goes that when he left my grandmother's hair was brown. By the time he returned it was white. There is some photographic evidence to the story.

Grampop (maternal grandfather), Mom, Uncle J. Grampop was drafted during WW2. He returned home with half a foot blown off and more than a few emotional scars.