Even now I see her driving, sitting up straight with both hands on the upper steering wheel, her chin lifted as she gazes at the road ahead. She’s from New England, so if she stops, it will only be to use the restroom because buying food on the road is wasteful, so she’s packed a roast beef sandwich, saltines, and carrots in an old green metal cooler, and she’ll stop in Herkimer, New York, about halfway between our houses, to eat in the Howard Johnson’s parking lot.
When I was a girl, I’d look for her out my bedroom window. Grammy lived six hours away, so if she left at eight, she’d arrive around two, but if she left at ten, the possibility of waiting for her until four seemed unbearable. I’d wander into my brother’s room. “She’d better hurry up,” he’d say. We couldn’t wait to get our hands on her Swedish thumb cookies, those buttery shortbread pillows filled with frosting and sprinkles. She was the only person in the world who made them. They were how we knew Grammy was Grammy, and that we belonged to her and she to us. All afternoon we trained our ears on the front door. She had her own sounds, like knocking the snow from her boot heels against the stoop, and we’d go flying down the stairs, not to throw our arms around her—Grammy would not be mauled—no, we halted before her in our tracks, ready for appraisal. Grammy laughed. “Well, how’s my Jim? And how’s my Erica?” We were bashful little gremlins eager for the cookie tins, the cookie tins! Where were the cookie tins? We would never be so rude, though we could barely contain ourselves from hurtling straight out to her car to hurry them in.
This is an excerpt. The full essay is featured in What’s Cooking, Mom? Narratives about Food and Family, Demeter Press, 2015.