Callie Mae
After Pappy died my brothers, Will and Tom, left for Kansas on
their own. Granny didn’t think she could make the trip, so I stayed with her on
Mr. Sullivan’s land. As long as one of us cooked, we could keep our cabin.
Granny taught me all she knew about cooking; I was getting pretty good. Because
she was now sick most of the time, I worked in Granny’s place.
I came from the big house one evening and found Granny had passed
away while I was gone. She had told me earlier if something happened to her I
was to live with some of Pappy’s friends on the plantation. She had made the
arrangements. Although my heart was broken over Granny dying, I didn’t want to
live with another family. I needed to make a plan. Only what would that plan
be? I’ll tell you more about it later.
Grandma’s Cooking
by Judy
Like Callie’s granny, my grandma was a good cook.
She never owned a cookbook, and I never saw a recipe card in her house. Grandma
had seven sisters, and they shared recipes written on the backs of envelopes or
whatever pieces of scrap paper were available. She didn’t use a measuring cup
either. Yet she baked cakes, that if entered, would have won first place at the
county fair.She was a hard cook to follow.
I finally managed to make potato salad which tasted
like Grandma’s. I, too, made it by guessing how much of each ingredient and
going by looks and taste. A little dab of each ingredient was added until when
I tasted it, I felt as if Grandma was standing at her counter, and I was
sitting at her kitchen table telling her what happened at school that day. Recently
one of my daughters called and said she, too, had made Grandma’s potato salad.
“Hurry,” I said. “Write down the ingredients and proportions.”
Fifteen years after Grandma’s death I sat in my
mother’s kitchen and ate warm peanut butter cookies as they came out of the
oven. One bite and I was back in
Grandma’s kitchen. “I want that recipe,” I said.
“Oh, it’s not written down anywhere,”
my mother answered. I got her a pencil and a recipe card.
