I often think of my grandmother Joan when I read pretentious food blogs. I like to say the various dishes and ingredients with an exaggerated British accent, out loud and overly-loudly, and imagine some waiter’s tortured face.
I spent my childhood years watching just that scenario when at restaurants with her, most especially when she or anyone around us was ordering dessert of a certain kind.
“Say ice cream, say ice cream,” was then my silent, fervent plea.
If people ordered ice cream, she might also say ice cream. But not usually.
My grandmother preferred the Italian version of the dish. Only she pronounced it "Gelatio." With a long a.
“Young man,” she’d boom in High Weird British, “I’ll have some of that gelatio.”
She spoke with an ever-increasing English affect, having been born there a thousand years before. Since eloping with her professor, my grandfather, sometime in the late 1920s she’d lived only in Spain, Argentina and the United States, yet her accent strengthened every year.
“Do you have any tin foil, Granny?”
“There’s a-loo-MIN-ium wrap in the drawer.”
Joan and I did not enjoy a close relationship. I’d been “accidentally” given the name of her despised sister Marjorie, and I spent much of my life running from her. Her pinching, poking, tormenting, criticizing and occasional forays into pure sadism taught me many things, paramount among them being the importance of a circular floor plan when buying a house, crucial when evading lunatic relatives bent on inflicting harm.
But time is the great equalizer, I am dutiful, and by the time I’d reached my twenties she’d slowed down to the point where she could barely catch me, provided I moved fast enough. It was a working peace, and she called me one day when she was no longer able to drive.
“If you don’t mind dear, could you stop by and bring me some lime? I’d like to do some cooking.”
Joan’s kitchen skills were well known to me. I cover them at some length in this piece about her— about how, for instance, my parents would stop at a local bakery to feed us bread on the way to her house on the theory that it would soak up the toxins she was about to serve us for dinner on the last Sunday of each month.
“Sure, “ I said to my grandmother, “How many limes?”
“Not limes, lime. You know, the kind they put on the bodies. I need to make a chicken pie.”
Joan treasured a hand-typed copy of a cookbook given to her by Doña Magdalena, a lady of stature she had known while living in Argentina, and written by her cook. Before coming to the U.S. my grandparents had hobnobbed in sophisticated Buenos Aires social circles. Joan considered herself very much a gourmet.
“I’m pretty sure that kind of lime is poisonous,” I said. “How about a couple of limes from the produce section?
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, as she frequently did in her never-fading accent, “It’s quite delicious. Doña Magdalena’s cook used to make it all the time. You can get me some at the hardware store.”
I had experienced other “quite delicious” dishes produced by Joan. Her scallops wrapped in flaccid, under-cooked bacon, her guava and cracker pie with smeared cream cheese, her garlic soup with the garlic clove skins still in it, her “beef bourguignon” done in the microwave with chunks of beef you could literally bounce across the room— a little like skipping rocks, it was a challenge to see how many bounces you could get with the right twist of the wrist.
“I don’t think the stuff you put on bodies is the same stuff I can get you at the Home Depot,” I said. It was easy to find yourself down a rabbit hole in conversations with Joan.
“Well you’ll just have to get me some. The recipe calls for it. And also I’ll need some phyllo dough and an onion.”
Of her many recipes, Joan’s Spanish tortilla was legendary. At holiday gatherings, family members would step in the path of unsuspecting newcomers to the buffet table, leveling eye contact and issuing a “Do not eat that” as they continued on by. Visitors choosing to ignore the warnings soon found themselves with a mouthful of raw potato and gelatinous, undercooked egg.
“Listen,” I said, “I can’t buy you that kind of lime. How about cornstarch? Would that do?”
“Really, you’re being very difficult.” Her exasperation was ominous and clear. “The directions are quite specific. Cut the chicken breast into seven equal parts. Put the pieces into a glass jar, cover with lime, and store it in the back, left-hand side of the refrigerator for one week. Then rinse the chicken, mix with the onion and bake in a phyllo crust cover for 1 hour. Of course I can’t use cornstarch. That won’t do at all.”
It wasn’t the potential for poisoning so much as the fear of a criminal prosecution that kept me from ceding to her wishes. “Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer, Granny. That’s the best I can do.”
“Well bring it, then. I’m sure it won’t work, and I’ll just have to get the man to get me some.”
“The man” was any worker in her apartment building slow enough or stupid enough to be trapped by her in a hallway or elevator.
“I’ve got some beef liver I’ve been meaning to cook – I got it on sale last week and it’s looking a little off. Pick up some brandy when you come, and I’ll make you lunch.”
“Oh, thanks, I’ve got to get straight to an appointment. But I’ll stop and get you the brandy after the market. Sorry to miss lunch!”
Because nothing entices quite like spoiled organ meat. And of course some gelatio.
Morning Teaistisms
It is cold tonight. Fireplace cold. Even the dog thinks it’s cold, cold.
I bought too much chicken salad at the farm store on Thursday, so I made an obligation chicken sandwich for dinner that I didn’t really want. Luckily, I know a beagle willing to take one for the team and help out.
Tea Forte Apple Spice herb tea was at the front of the drawer this time. A sliced half-apple sautéed with a touch of butter, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon is rounding out this day nicely.
The beagle is willing to help with that, too. In case you were wondering.
"High Weird British" made me laugh.
Ah, that old bat is somewhere inside you, like a bacterium. On the liver issue, years ago I read in the Globe that many people at a summer family reunion fell ill after eating a family speciality that was made of chicken livers and bananas, and that had been driven in the trunk of someone's car from Philadelphia to Boston on a hot summer day. If you still have an appetite after all that, I can let you know that the chicken salad at Dave's Fresh Pasta is pretty good.