Getting to know an old woman

My nana, my mom’s mom, has been an old woman since I was born. As far as I can remember she’s had the same hairstyle (curled, poofy, white) and the same wrinkles (thin, all over). Looking back now, I can see a little clearer how young she actually was 27 years ago.

Nana’s always played cards. That and Scrabble. Those were probably the two things I knew about her when I was a child: that she could kick my ass at Scrabble, and that I never made it through a card game with her without wanting to take a nap. The drowsiness that would come over me during a game of Hand and Foot! My little tween brain couldn’t take the slow, plodding pace of it. My sister, a little older than I, played obediently. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she dozed off during her turn more than once. My nana probably kept the house as warm as she did so that we’d fall asleep while playing cards - that way she’d always win.

I remember my nana as somebody who always cooked, but only a couple of dishes really stand out in my memory.

1. French toast fingers, sweet and crispy. I remember she’d slice them into “fingers” because I liked them better that way, and she knew it.
2. Salmon sandwiches. Canned salmon, probably mixed with a little mayonnaise, on two sliced of buttered wonder bread. Always eaten on the patio out back after a long morning of yard work with my papa.
3. Sausage and scrambled eggs. She’d make big batches in advance and freeze it. She’d crack open a Ziploc bag containing a single portion, and make it for me in the morning.

These were casual, anytime meals. I lived next door to my nana and papa until I was 16. Through those early years, I would occasionally drop by without notice and my nana would whip up a frozen bag of sausage and scrambled eggs. I felt special because there was never a skimpy amount of sausage. To this day, I still feel special when I have lots of breakfast meaty treats like bacon and sausage. I love hotel continental breakfast for this reason.

More than cooked food, I remember my nana for her sweet tooth. Or maybe my sweet tooth? Either way, she always had something sweet accessible to me whenever I was over at their house. I never was turned away from dessert.

1. Mint chocolate chip ice cream was always in the freezer. Or in the freezer in the shed. The only tax levied on me as a young child was to fetch the ice cream from the freezer in the shed. I dreaded it, but it was worth it.
2. Root beer candies in a ceramic cookie jar. The jar was cream colored with blue lines streaking around peach colored flowers.
3. A tiny glass of milk. I’d usually down two or three of these glasses, one after the other without leaving the counter or putting the milk jug away. I remember that my nana always bought whole milk while my parents always had skim in the fridge. Whole milk was luxuriously creamy in comparison.
4. Cookies. Nana always had cookies, but most importantly, she always had the holy grail of cookies: gingersnaps. These have always been my sister’s and my favorite cookie. I will carry the association between gingersnaps and my nana to my grave. There is nary a deeper groove in my brain than the one that connects these two things. Hers were usually quite small and crunchy, especially after being stored in a freezer for a whole season. They were a delight fresh out of the oven, but somehow a tooth-shattering frozen gingersnap was especially good in its own way as well. I wasn’t patient enough for them to come to room temperature.

An honorable mention that isn’t a sweet treat is Vlasic Kosher Dill spears. My sister and I would crack open a fresh jar of pickles and down them in a single sitting over the sink. The legacy of pickle loving continues to live on in both of us 🥒😋

All of these symbols of childhood have wound themselves around my heart. I act them out over and over again in my own way, in my own adulthood. I love to make breakfast for guests. An unplanned, casual egg breakfast for a friend brings me joy. Salmon sandwiches have transformed into salmon onigiri: a dollop of salmon and mayonnaise hidden inside a bundle of white rice. Still a pickle fan, especially when paired with a sharp, biting cheddar like the Dubliner cheese she shared with me as a wee lad when I hadn’t yet acquired a taste for it.

And afternoon tea. This is the tradition. The one that I accidentally carried, gently and without realizing, into my own life. A subconscious seed that bloomed into our lives after living in Berlin.

My nana and papa had a Mr Coffee machine. They loaded it up with Red Rose tea bags instead of Folgers, and had a pot of extremely strong black tea steeping all day. Around lunchtime or early afternoon, I remember finishing up yard work with my papa and we’d drink tea together, the three of us. Their house had a back porch covered by a white wooden trellis to keep out the rain. They had a few lounge chairs on the concrete pad. This patio overlooked the garden where my papa spent the majority of his retirement. On a cool, clear spring day, there was nothing more refreshing than a hot cup of black tea, tempered down with a healthy glug of whole milk.

I held onto tea into young adulthood as my primary caffeinated beverage (I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was 19 or 20). Now, Courtney and I stop almost every day around 2:30 or 3:00 to have a cup of something together. The beverage changes from time to time, but no matter what we drink - it’s our afternoon tea time. I loved it as a continuation of the slower lifestyle that we lived in Berlin. And I love it more now as a symbol of keeping time for my nana, who isn’t here to have afternoon tea anymore.

I’m gonna miss you, Nana. But I’m so happy I have all these things to keep you around, in my every day. Love you.