Two weeks ago, I took a chance peek at airfares and saw really cheap tickets back to New Jersey. I called up my grandmother, got my yearly bonus from her (she was contractually obligated) and flew home five days later.
Since she lives alone, my grandmother barely cooks anymore and eats mostly packaged, frozen vegetables and soups. I thought it could be nice to come over and cook with her and fill her fridge with some freshly made options. As we cooked I realized we were enacting the reverse of what I would imagine cooking with a grandmother to be.
The meal would be sweet potato soup and vegetable quiche. After hitting the supermarket, we got to work. My grandma played Beta cook; I told her to peel sweet potatoes, wash mushrooms, sautee onions and mash cheese. In the meantime, I roasted a pepper and finely sliced zucchini.
Recently widowed, my grandmother spent 59 years married to a man who despised most spices and made an art form out of a daily dinner of steak and chips. Old habits die hard, and she doesn't even have black pepper in the house. As we cooked, she asked what spices to use and how much; I took them down from the racks that have become too high for her because each year she shrinks a little. She fried the onions, and asked me along the way if there was too much or not enough oil and if they were brown enough. Toward the end, as I blended our sweet potato soup and chopped parsley, she washed most of the dishes. The meal was a simple but tasty success, and my grandmother mused as we ate that "this is really gourmet food!"
I guess it's a sign of the times. Three generations after the first Cheslow (formerly Chavslavsky) crossed the Atlantic, the Eastern European cooking of our ancestors has been lost. Instead, I teach my grandmother how to cook in the pan-Western style I have picked up largely by working as a chef in an Italian restaurant in Israel.
