Such a Sweet Interview!

Such a Sweet Interview

            There is just something about the smell of grandma’s house that is so comforting to the heart and soul.  Every time I go to my grandma and grandpa’s house, I smell peanut butter balls and chocolate chip cookies.  It’s almost as if grandma knows that the grandkids are coming and she throws together her very best goodies.  If anyone knows a little something about cooking a variety of foods and for a crowd at that, it would be grandma!  That is why I chose to interview my grandma with a few quirky comments from my grandpa as he sat by her during this heart felt interview.

            I started off the interview with a broad statement.  “Let’s just start from the beginning,” I said.  I wanted to know all about my grandma’s childhood and more specifically what the cooking experience was like growing up in her household.  My grandma started off with tears welling up in her eyes, “At my house, as a child, we did not eat.” At first I was shocked because this was a side of my grandma’s history that was untold.  I listened closely as she began to tell her story.  I asked for her to discuss further into her childhood story more but she was extremely hesitant.  She told me the basics of how things were in the 1940’s and how it was rough growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  

            Grandma went on for twenty minutes describing how there were five children between her mother and father.  Her father decided to stray from his family and started on an adventure with another woman.  Soon this woman was pregnant and had his child.  My grandma said with a saddened voice, “He did not care about us kids. He didn’t care if we ate, if we had clothes on our backs, or if we went to school.”  Eventually my grandma’s father had four more children with the mistress and moved her into the home that my grandma and her siblings lived in.  I started to cry with my grandma.

            She went on about how they didn’t have much food.  They each had a slice of bread and jam every day, and on Sunday’s her grandmother would come over and cook them a big supper.  Grandma said the usual Sunday evening supper would consist of a roast, potatoes, bread and vegetables.  Her grandmother knew that the kids were starving but couldn’t do much to help, except bring them supper once a week and make sure they ate very well that day.  As a child, my grandma sat in the kitchen watching her grandmother fix supper and always was curious about cooking.  This sparked her general interest in wanting to work at a restaurant.

            When my grandmother turned 17, she had gotten a job at the local car hop.  First she started off by serving customers on her roller-skates, but then she took an interest in cooking.  By this time, grandma was eating better because she could take leftover food home from work for free.  They put grandma on the grill for a few days, and realized she wasn’t cut out for the work.  She always wanted to learn how to cook, but didn’t know where she would acquire these skills from.

            At the age of 21, my grandma met the man of her dreams, at the very same car hop she once tried to learn how to cook in.  My grandpa, fresh out of the army, was looking to settle down and get married.  Within three months my grandparents were married.  My grandpa, a man from Iowa, had to take a slick talking Pittsburgh girl to a little old farm.  “I was terrified to know what my grandparents were going to think! For heaven sake; I barely knew the girl but we were in love,” my grandpa stated.

            After a month on the small farm in Iowa, my grandma was going stir crazy.  She thought that she married the man of her dreams, and everything was falling into place but my grandpa was very upset with her.  My grandma did not know how to cook or clean.  Those are two very major things that a farm wife must know how to do.  So it began.  My grandpa had to teach my grandma how to cook.  Although my grandpa knew a lot, he asked his grandmother for some guidance and advice.  After all, she was a farm wife for 50 plus years.

            Grandma told me stories of food turning out absolutely awful and my grandpa with his snide remarks always had to put his two cents in.  In the end, my grandma turned out to be an excellent cook for her grandkids.  I feel sorry for my mom and her siblings who had to endure the time when she was just an average cook.  Grandma tells me, “Cooking is a learning process just like anything else. If you don’t know about something, ask.”

            It surely took my grandma many years to learn how to cook all kinds of different food.  Now that she has the skills necessary, she could cook an eight course meal for an army!  Italian night is my favorite. I’m so very lucky to have such a diverse grandma who was open and willing to learn how to cook different kinds of food for different occasions.  I unfortunately, never learned how to cook.  Hopefully one day my house will smell just as sweet as grandma’s when my grandkids come over.