Cooking Like My Grandmother, An Anthology Project, and Ink Blood Sister Scribe
Did we ever leave the Great Depression?
My grandmother was a nurse, a mom of three girls, a Methodist choir singer and a bona fide woman of the big West. I remember her best for bestowing grandma kisses — a rapid series of machine gun pecks on my cheek — which I would squirm away from after one and a half seconds.
I hated grandma’s kisses. But just today, I found myself popping off a hundred kisses on my son’s cheek while he tried to wiggle out of my arms.
Ever since she passed away last summer, I linger on our similarities. I hear her voice in my own audio recordings. I walk the house locking my doors even though it’s mid-day and I live in a rural community with almost no crime, like she did.
The feature she was most ribbed for among our family was her pathological inability to throw food away. During the Great Depression, my grandfather lived on a farm in Iowa and their family stayed relatively well fed. My grandmother, in contrast, lived in an urban community and her parents relied heavily on ration stamps to feed their many children.
I’ve heard it said you never forget hunger. My grandmother certainly never did. If I drank only half of my skim milk at the breakfast table she would put the rest in the fridge for lunch. And dinner. The unfinished milk would return with each meal until I drank it down. Often, I opted for water which, less rarified in her eyes, I could reasonably count on getting a fresh glass of each meal.
I have no explanation for how it happened, but I too have become a pathological food saver. Epigenetics maybe. Rising food costs. The mind boggling carbon footprint associated with each item discarded from my fridge. The mix of tears and rage I feel when my son leaves most of his scratch cooked meal untouched on his plate.
How can I express the joy I feel when I spot half an onion I saved in the fridge? Or seeing a recipe that requires the freezer bag full of shrimp shells I’ve meticulously peeled and saved? Or making a list of what’s in my fridge and connecting ingredients with lines like I’m hunting a serial killer?
I wish my grandmother had been well enough to see me attempt the phase of life I most closely associate with her. Mom and homemaker and professional. I think she would be proud of what I’ve learned.
A Recipe for Actually Free Chicken Stock
Using a freezer safe ziplock bag, collect the ends of onions, the peels of onions, the green bits of green onions, the ends of garlic, the peels of garlic, unused parsely stems, the tough bits of celery, the leaves of celery (which you should be using as a delicious garnish on almost anything), the ends and peels of spring and summer harvested carrots, chicken bones (cooked and uncooked are fine), cooked chicken skin discard (Why aren’t you eating the skin? It’s the best part.), chicken giblets/neck EXCEPT the liver. Sometimes I save ginger skin/leftover ginger bits for a chicken ginger soup. Collect whatever you want. It’s fun to experiment. Keep bag in freezer until full.
When your bag is full, add it to a pot with some peppercorns, possibly a bay leaf or two and a generous handful of salt. If your bag this go-round is light on any of your favorite flavors you can add some fresh ingredients in to bolster the flavor.
Cover with water. Let simmer over low to medium heat, not letting it boil for a couple of hours. Strain and you have the beginning of a delicious chicken soup or several quarts of chicken stock you can freeze or keep in the fridge for use over the next week.
I don’t have words to describe how honored I am to be in this upcoming anthology, “New Year, New You” edited by Chris Campbell. It will go live on Kickstarter on the 31st of January. If you want to read my fantasy story about a girl sent to live in a new, mystical town who struggles to find her place, please pledge to the Kickstarter and get a copy!
I’m reading Ink Blood Sister Scribe and it is excellent. Think Dark Academia meets complicated sister relationships meets modern witches. Thanks to my sister in everything but blood, Mia, for gifting it to me for Christmas.