Grandma's Potato Salad

I always thought my Grandmother made really good potato salad. I don’t know if it would ever win awards or become a published recipe… but everyone in my family liked it. Once, when I was just out of college I asked her if she’d show me how she made it. I drove down to her house and after a fantastic dinner of Büƒ we started boiling the potatoes. Grandma washed them off in water, but did not peel them. She just plunked them all into the hot water. We played pinochle while they cooked with my grandfather and a neighbor. Both the neighbor and I knew, without even talking, to let my grandparents win. Grandpa didn’t care, but grandma did! 

Once the potatoes were cooked and cooled we peeled them. This is done without a knife or peeler because they are so soft from cooking that the peel just peels right off by rubbing the skin with your thumb. The potatoes are then roughly cut with a butter knife with the potato held in the palm of the hand and put into a large bowl. (This feels weird and sort of tickles!) We then added diced onion, a couple diced hard-boiled eggs and her secret ingredient. This ingredient actually grossed me out… so I don’t use it. But since this is her recipe I will tell you what it was: She added very old, brownish, somewhat slimy celery.  She felt “fresh” celery gave it too much crunch. I like crunch, so I use fresh. She then added pepper, seasoning salt, celery salt and Miracle whip (not Mayonnaise) and stirred it well with a large spoon. On top she’d decorate by laying slices of hard-boiled eggs and sprinkle with paprika. Last secret…. It had to sit over night in the fridge. The next day, it was very good potato salad. J

Büƒ

November brings to my mind… food. So this month I’m going to blog about food. Dishes and meals from my childhood and adulthood that have become traditions or fond memories.

The first is reaching way, way back… to a dish called Büƒ. My Grandmother made this dish for me when I was a kid. It was my favorite thing she made. Now, a couple important details about this…. I liked very PLAIN food as a kid. In fact in college Jay gave me Big Red chewing gum for the first time and I thought I was going to die! The other fact is that my Grandmother (GG) was not a very good cook. She tried, but I don’t think it was an interest to her.

So,  Büƒ is made from ground hamburger made into fat, little patties and pan fried in onions. GG always tasted the raw meat before she bought it at the store. Many, many cashiers gave her funny looks when the package came by with a hunk missing. They told her she’d get botchelism or worms…. I am pretty sure she outlived them all. 

After the patties are cooked Grandma would make gravy with flour and cold water added to the drippings. She served the patties and gravy over potatoes that were whipped. She told me that when she was a child this was served over mashed potatoes (same as whipped but no butter or milk added to “cream” them up) but she liked whipped much better so that’s how she made them now.

I have tried to make this dish many times and it never turns out as good as when my grandmother made it for me. The times she made it were on special over night visits when I was the only grandchild that visited. A few times in high school and while I was in college I would drive over to her house and spend the evening with her and my grandfather and she’d always have this dish ready when I’d get there.  It was always fabulous. Maybe it was because she tasted that raw meat in the store and knew it was fresh and tasty. J

Funeral Discussions…

I went to my Grandmother’s funeral yesterday. Quite a few people were present considering she was 95 years old and she attended a lot of her closest friends and family’s funerals already. There were a lot of family and people I knew growing up that I probably really won’t see much anymore because she is gone. Funerals are sad. The place smelled like flowers and Leafshine (the stuff florists use to make plants look healthy) and the room was very sterile and bare with several chairs pushed up against the walls around the room. My Grandmother’s coffin was beautiful with gold and painted flowers and she looked very peaceful in her purple dress and simple wedding band.

There were lots of discussions and updates that people were sharing… including the fact that a certain speech therapist cousin of mine is pregnant (But shhh….. she doesn’t want anyone to know!) BTW… speech therapist cousin: everyone KNOWS! ;) Here were some of the best things I heard or overheard….

Aunt N has a fantastic British accent. My sister, who is in sales said she wished she had that accent because people with accents can sell anything. Aunt N. said (in her fantastic british accent) “Oh I know deary, the problem has always been that I must believe in something to be able to sell it. A long time ago I sold Mary Kay and this woman wanted to buy several hundreds of pounds worth of the stuff. I looked at her plain face and just had to tell the poor girl that it would do nothing to help her.”

Uncle L was up for a visit one Christmas from Georgia to visit Grandma. As they rode up in the elevator to see her, Uncle L carried a large box wrapped in Christmas paper. Uncle R was carrying nothing. Uncle L asked, “What did you get Mom?” Quickly, Uncle R responded, “A plane ticket to Georgia.”

My cousin was telling her kids about a time she and I went camping in our Grandparents new RV. We were probably about 12 years old and my Grandmother asked us to use the RV commode for peeing only because the tanks had to be emptied and she did not want them to get dirty. (There were flush toilets in the campground she asked us to use if we needed to) At the luncheon following the funeral, my cousin confessed that it was her that used the RV bathroom for more than peeing and how terrified she was on the whole trip that Grandma would find out.

My Uncle R was talking about a visit to my Grandmother when she was feeling down. She spent about 15 minutes talking about how tired she was and useless and un-necessary. She cried and said God was punishing her by keeping her alive and in the nursing home. My uncle barely hesitated for a minute before saying, “Mom, did you ever think that maybe God was keeping you here to punish ME?!” Grandma couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

Following the funeral, we all went over to my Grandmother’s place to see if there were any items we wanted to keep. My sister got my Grandmother’s Grandfather clock and loaded it into the back of her pick up truck. Everyone left at the same time, in his or her own vehicle. Uncle L caught up to my sisters truck so he could hang out the window as they drove down the road yelling to her, “Ya got the time?!!” :)

Sometimes I am my own worst enemy...

I picked out this picture when Pepper first wanted to teach me how to cross-stitch. She seemed to enjoy cross-stitching whenever we were watching TV or hanging out with friends in college, so I thought it would be good to learn too. So we went to JoAnn Fabrics and she showed me all the available patterns and I thought this was a great picture. So we gathered all the supplies and headed home to sort the colors and start the project.

Since it was my first crafty-type project it took a LOT of time to complete. I think I started it in 1989….. and finally finished it in 1991 (keep in mind I was also in grad school at the time…. So not all my time was devoted to this picture)

Once I finished all the little’s “X’s” and then back stitched it and then washed and ironed it, we took it back to JoAnn’s to get it framed. Framing artwork is NOT really in a grad student’s budget…… it seemed to cost a great deal more than it should! But, we ate Ramen noodles and mac and cheese for a couple weeks and I got the little picture professionally framed.

That summer, Pepper and I went down to Florida to visit relatives. Pepper wanted to visit her great-grandmother (she lived in Florida swamp land…. That’s a whole other story) and I wanted to visit my grandparents. (This grandma would later be known as GG….. but we didn’t call her that yet)

I slipped my little framed picture into my suitcase so I could show my grandmother the project I completed. She was always pretty crafty….. mostly quilts and curtains and things, but I thought she would appreciate all the hard work I put into my little picture. So once we got settled in to my grandparents house I brought the picture out to show my grandparents.

I held it out and said, “Look, Grandma, I made this. Pepper taught me how to cross- stitch and then I had it framed. Didn’t it turn out nice?!”

My grandmother took it and looked at it for a minute then said me, “Thank you, I love it. I know just where I am going to hang it!”

This response left me speechless. I had not planned to give it to my grandmother…. I had planned to show it to her! Unfortunately, by the time I found the words to explain that fact to her I was already in a bear hug with her telling me how sweet I was. Pepper thought this was pretty funny and she told me so the first chance she got!

So we spent the week visiting in Florida and when we left, the little picture didn’t. I didn’t get it back for several years…. After my grandfather passed away and the house was sold. I have it now hanging in our house. It is pretty much the only cross- stitch project I ever completed, but I still like it and I am glad GG got to keep it with her in Florida. The story of my speechlessness at the situation can still make me smile, even after all these years. :)

Grandma

My sister called. She wanted to let me know that our cousin was in touch with her to update us on our Grandmother. The message was: "If you want to see Grandma again, do it now." My Grandmother is 93 years old. She will be 94 in April. She has had minor health issues all her life, but this time my cousin thinks she will not pull thru. My sister is planning on visiting her this week. From her house, the drive is about an hour or so to her nursing home. My sister feels the need to touch base with our Grandmother one more time. She wants to try again to get her to say she misses our Mom, that she loved all her kids, that she is proud of her grandkids and thinks great-grandkids are a blessing. I hope my Grandmother comes thru for her. I debated about going down to see her too. Pepper thinks I should. From my home to hers it is about a 3 hour drive…. Not really far at all. I go farther to take Pete hunting or the family on a weekend camping trip. I’ve driven farther to watch a football game. But it isn’t the miles that make me think I do not want to go. It is the time. The time in years. If I could drive down and reverse the years as I go-- I would not even hesitate. I want to drive down and see the Grandma that came to our house on Christmas morning early enough so she’d be there when we opened our gifts. I want the one that took me sled riding in the park on a black garbage bag because we forgot to bring our sleds when we stayed over night at her house. I want the Grandmother that let me ride her three-wheeled bike through her Florida neighborhood with my sister in the basket screaming as I took corners on just two wheels. I want the grandma who laughed when I ran into her garbage cans in her garage when I was first learning to drive…. And jokingly told my grandfather they almost had a drive-thru kitchen. I want the Grandmother that attended all my birthday parties, graduations and bought more Girl Scout cookies than she ever wanted. If I could drive down to meet THAT Grandmother I would not hesitate. I wish as I drove down toward her nursing home I could drive back thru time. Erasing years as I drove. I would drive down through the memories of the petty arguments she had with my mother. The frustration of feeling like I had to choose a side between them and her frustration when I ‘sided’ with my mom. I would drive away from the sadness and the hurt and misunderstandings that I had with her. I would completely forget the anger I felt at her for not coming to my mother’s funeral and at her refusing to talk about her only daughter when I desperately needed her to. I would not even try to explain my reasoning or the rationale for why I made the choices I did. I would not be mad or sad or hurt. I would just be that 10 year-old girl that only sees her as the best grandma in the world. She would look at me and see the little kid that she nicknamed “Pixie” when I was still in diapers. A name that I’ve almost shaken. It is soon to fade away completely. I have decided not to drive down. It would be too much like the drive I did years ago to say good-bye to my mother. I really did want to be there at the end of my mom’s life. It was pretty much the same 3-hour drive. I never got to say good-bye to my Mom, she had died by the time I got to her. I did visit my grandmother last year at Christmas and ‘fixed’ things… as much as they could be fixed. And when I saw her this Christmas I knew it was close to the end. We had a good visit. There was a picture of my mother on her wall from when she was a baby. I hadn’t seen it in a long time. I asked about it and my Grandmother even told me the story of who took it. As we left her room I said to Pepper I thought that would be the last time. Even the kids knew that “GG” (for Great-Grandmother) was not doing well. I am so thankful that I got to have a grandma like her as a kid. I’ve been grieving the loss of that relationship for years. I am grateful that I got the chance to fix things and talk to her as an adult. I am glad she got to meet my kids and see me grow up to be a halfway decent person. I hope when she gets to heaven she tells my mom how we are all doing- and I hope they work things out too. That’s how I want to think it will be.

Humor in the nursing home...

While we were visiting GG she was telling us about friends that she had in the nursing home. One of the hazards of being in a nursing home seems to be that saying "good bye" to someone could be more permanent than a person would expect. Since GG's friends are all well into their 90's they take saying good bye to each other quite seriously. On Christmas GG went for the day to my cousin's house. Her good friend of many years had family visit the night before and was staying in the home to rest. Before GG left she said good bye to her friend.... the friend said, "If I get to the pearlie gate before you I will leave the key under the mat for you". GG told me that her friend died on Christmas while she was gone. These kinds of situations make me uncomfortable because I never know the "right" thing to say. I said, "Well Grandma, after you pick up that key make sure to feel the door to see how hot it is before you open it!" GG couldn't help but laugh.

GG was telling us about another woman in the nursing home. Her goal was to live to be 100 years old. I asked how old she was now, GG answered, "She is 99... she will be 100 next month, but she is as spry as a 70 year old!!" :)

For Old Time Sake...

So Jay will not be surprised to learn that I sent my Grandmother another birthday card this week. She is my oldest living relative.... turning 93. She is the only member of my family that has lived to a 'ripe old' age... so she gives me a little hope that maybe I will too. My Grandparents were the GREATEST Grandparents in the world when I was a kid. My Grandfather did cool things like let us walk on the roof of his barn and sit in his lap and drive the tractor around the yard when I was very young. He had a deep laugh that sounded like Santa and he always seemed happy to be around us. My sisters, cousins and I always got to take turns spending the night at their house. (They always only wanted us one at a time.... extra spoil time!) My Grandmother would take me to the dime store and would let me pick out what I wanted. (I always choose a rubber bouncy ball.... drove her crazy that she couldn't talk me into anything else!) She would make whatever I wanted for dinner. Usually 'Buf'... a danish dish that had ground meat, gravy and mashed potatoes. After dinner we would walk around the yard and my Grandfather would push me on the tire swing that hung from a huge tree that he had planted before my mother was born. There was a bedroom that was set up for us grandkids, but I never slept in it. I preferred to sleep in the extra twin bed in my grandfathers room. I loved listening to him snore. It always made me feel safe and loved.

They sold their farm when I got a bit older but still took us for over night trips. They had an RV that they would use most of the summer and I loved spending time around the fire and playing bingo in the pavilion with them. My Grandmother always had several bingo cards in front of her... and I had 1 or 2. She always looked at mine first and told me when to cover a number up, before I could look for myself.... she probably was just getting even for all the bouncy balls! When I was a teenager they moved to Florida so I spent every Christmas and New Years Eve running around barefoot and in shorts at their house. My Grandmother tried to teach me to drive too, when I was about 13. Unfortunately, her garbage cans got smashed when I didn't brake fast enough, but she told my Grandpa that at least I stopped before they had a drive thru kitchen!

They were there for my graduations, birthdays, award ceremonies, swim meets, ball games.... they really were great. They visited me at college and when I was ready to buy my first house I asked to borrow $5000 for the down payment. My Grandfather was very serious about money, and I really felt like a grown-up when he discussed the 'terms' of how I was to pay him back. Six months after we had the house, I drove to Florida for a visit and had the first installment of his loan to pay back. I handed my Grandfather the envelope (I think it was $100) and he told me that he was proud that I came to him to pay him when I said I would. He hugged me, handed me the $100 back and said he considered the loan fully paid off.

He died the same year my Dad did. It was very hard for both my Mom and my Grandmother. They decided to move in together and it did not go well. I knew my Mother was very sick and neither of them were very tolerant of each other. When my Mother passed away, my Grandmother refused to go to her funeral. It hurt that she was not there for me when I really needed her.

A couple of years later I gave her a memory book that I asked her to fill out. It had questions in it like: "Describe your childhood home" and had places to put your fondest memories, first love, best day ever... things like that. She worked very hard on the book. I could tell when she gave it back. I read through it the night she gave it to me. My sisters were there and we talked about some of the things she wrote and laughed together about things we could remember or imagine. Then I flipped to the page that said, "The biggest regret I have had in my life was ________" And in my grandmothers handwriting, it simply said "My daughter". I was stunned. She knew this book was for me and my kids. My mother was already gone and it was pointless to be angry anymore. I wrote her a letter telling her how much I loved the book but was disappointed that she wrote that my Mother was the biggest disappointment in her life. I asked her to explain why she felt that way. I wrote that I wished she had said that her biggest regret was not working things out with my mother or her mother dying too young like mine did. That year she cancelled the Christmas celebration. A few years later when she turned 90 and I turned 40 I sent her a letter. I said, I wanted to be a part of her life. I said, just send me a birthday card for my 40th birthday and I will just know that things between us are ok. I never got a card.

I keep sending Christmas cards and birthday cards. I don't ever hear from her, but I would bet all those bouncy balls she reads them. Jay thinks I should give up on her.... stop letting her pour salt in the wounds. But my Grandfather and my mother wouldn't want me to give up on her... no matter how stubborn she decides to be. I'll keep sending the cards to her if only for old times sake. :)