Operation Pantry

My son and I just cleaned up the dinner dishes after toiling away together on a couple of new recipes today. At 14, he really has great instincts in the kitchen and is genuinely curious about diverse flavor profiles. He takes instruction well and we have really bonded over the creation of new dishes and inventive menus. My hope is that we are building some fond memories to call upon--him as a young man or with his own children someday; me as an old lady who still possesses memory!

I have many sweet and stark accounts involving food from my past. I suppose we all do, whether the recollections be of cooking, eating or foraging. Food is so basic to our existence. In American culture, too, we have so many rich, multi-cultural influences.

My earliest food flashbacks involve my maternal grandmother. English-Irish Mildred and her husband, Paul Francis lived in Massachusetts all of their 30-some-year marriage (he died young at 55), first in the city and then just outside of Boston. They were a pretty traditional, working class family of their generation.

My grandmother would drop everything at 3 PM to get the meat-potatoes-side-of-white-bread dinner out and on the little round table in the kitchen of their upstairs 2-flat. At 8 or 9 years old, I thought it quite odd that my grandfather ate his dinner so early; funny as well that he went to bed at 8 PM--right around the same time I was relegated to sleep. Looking back, I'm sure the man was up at 3 in the morning to make his 5 AM shift as a welder in the city!

Recalling visits to Grandma's house are still the sweetest, purest memories I have of my childhood. Always upbeat and rather silly, Grandma sported a roguish grin and a playful personality when in the presence of her grandchildren.

The most delightful--albeit curiously mysterious--part of Grandma's kitchen was her pantry. I'm not talking California pantry here (a couple of tall cabinets that open to a few shelves). No, no. This was a whole room off of the kitchen and in my little mind back then, was as big as a bedroom! The windowless space was complete with multiple shelves and covered cabinets, an overhead light and even curtains on the framed glass door. Oh what sweet surprises did spring from that darkened leeway!

Grandma's famous fudge rested, sweet and warm, inch-squares wrapped in wax paper inside of pretty tins: a most coveted reward. A platter of cookies, freshly formed, awaited chubby fingers. Cello-wrapped hard candy, jellies, mints sat in pretty porcelain like jewels, and bags of chips begged my bulging eyes an opening.

The pantry seemed the answer to all my girlhood woes: bullying by three brothers, a bump after a clumsy misstep, being left out by the bigger kids, or even just a winter cold. Grandma would pat my head and take my hand, lean down into me and wink. "I's OK," she'd hearten, "know it?" (Her signature phrase.) Grandma's alliance instantly soothed and her smile signaled the launch of operation pantry.

Like hallowed ground, I never dared enter the pantry on my own.  Mostly, I would simply wait upon the threshold for the pantry-keeper to offer up a sweet token of affection. Again, she'd lean down and pass into my palm a sweet thrill that mended all affliction. And not once, not ever, did I look down and feel the slightest disappointment.

Grandma's just seem to know.