Meatloaf, Family Recipes, & Memory Lane

I was taken on a sentimental journey by reading Queenie's blog again. Of course, I'm also digging through my deep freeze for hamburger now too so I can quench my taste for meatloaf. Thanks, Queenie! Oh well, maybe it'll turn out this time. Any way, it made me remember my gramma's cooking (especially meatloaf). She could cook anything. Couldn't get a recipe from her though. Nope. Like all great chefs, it was "well, I used a scoop of this" or "a pinch of that". Yeah. That helps, Gramma. Unlike you, I cannot cook without explicit directions. Not if people are gonna eat it, anyway. I can bake, usually, and well. Other than that, if it can't go in a crock pot or microwave or Foreman grill, forget it and order take out...it's safer, trust me. I even have a sign in my kitchen that says "Hundreds of people have eaten in this kitchen and gone on to lead perfectly normal lives". It's a lie. 1) I have not yet fed over 50 people in my lifetime...total, not in one sitting. 2) No one I know is normal or leading a normal life whether they've eaten in my kitchen or not, but those who know me well enough to eat my food are doubly cursed and Wendy can testify to that, too. But I am digressing. (Ah ha! Found the hamburger!) Thinking of all the times my gramma fed the army that was my family brought back tons of memories. Making mints with her, learning how to make frosting roses -- I was so proud that she let me and that several of the ones I made went on someone else's wedding cake --her Forgotten cookies and fudge, and calling her in a panic from my first apartment during my first marriage because my in-laws were coming and I had forgotten how to make a roast and what to serve with it. I remember being in 7th grade Home Ec. and having to turn in like 10 recipe cards each week from outside sources and going through her recipe box and cook books. She was always willing to try something new or to play around with old recipes. I remember when a house I lived in had a grape vine in the back yard and her and Ruth (an old family friend) making homemade wine that year. I was like 9 or 10, and they'd let me taste it every now and then to see if it was ready. I know, I know, that was a horrible crime...bite me, I loved it...being considered 'old' enough to try it and giving my opinion. We found 4 bottles of the stuff in her basement four years ago after she died. It was awful, vinegary stuff. I'm almost 35, do the math and you'll see why. Even today, I still find myself dialing her number occasionally, when I miss her terribly or have some kind of sewing or cooking emergency. It doesn't go past the third or fourth number though and I remember she's gone and won't be the one to answer the phone. I know, because I called it once last year in a crying fit and some stranger answered. I hung up immediately of course, but it jarred me out of the bawling jag. I do know that there are some things that never taste the same now that she's not the one to make them: her stuffing, her meatloaf, salmon soup, homemade ice cream, mints. I have all her mint molds and cake decorating stuff now. I can't find the damn mint recipe though. I'm sure it's in her old recipe book or box in my uncle's attic or at my mom's. I take the mint molds down every now and then...I can still smell the mint dough on many of them. When I do, I know she's checking in, making sure I haven't forgotten her and all the stuff she did for all of us, and telling me how proud she is of what I've done with myself. I wish I could find that mint recipe, it was so much fun to make them with her. My own kids can remember making mints with her just like I did, and they ask me now and then if we can. I'll start digging for it again. It isn't often my older two want to do anything with me any more, and they miss her too. Maybe a trip down memory lane is something they need as much as I do. I'll just have to be careful not to cry into the dough too much.

Now, off to thaw my hamburger. I wonder if I'll find her meatloaf recipe anywhere? Probably not. She usually just threw that together. Even if I did, it wouldn't taste the same as hers. Grammas had too many secret ingredients and too much love to put into the things they fed their families...I can't compete...yet.