pole beans, from Peacock Modern's flickr stream
My grandmother died on Sunday. It’s ok, she was ninety-four. She was the last of her generation in my family. In her long life, she massacred food as no other before or since. Her signature dish was a chicken thigh that had been frozen, reheated, frozen, reheated, frozen, coated with paprika, and reheated again. She was stingier with food than anyone I have ever met. My parents are generous with food. My other grandmother was generous with food. I am generous with food. I have traveled among people who had nothing, and they were generous with their food. She was not like them. She stole the desserts from my bar mitzvah, directing the caterer to load them into her car, and doled them out to me until I was eighteen. She once offered my dad a roll left over from his own mother’s memorial, more than a year after the event. It was overgrown with mold. Whether or not he made this up, I don’t know, but it is emblematic.
