Bowl of Bliss

Families are made and not born.

The smell of oil and vinegar always reminds me of Grandma Elda because no matter what was for dinner we always had salad with oil and vinegar served in a wooden salad bowl. Some days the salad was leaf lettuce with tomatoes and other day’s dandelion greens but the dressing was always oil and vinegar with garlic and oregano thrown in for good measure. I loved helping fix the salad. I’d pull the bowl down from the shelf and inhale deeply to catch the faint smell of salads past.

Elda was my grandmother by love and not by blood. My mother and her daughter in-law were friends and she became my babysitter when I was six months old. She diapered my bottom, dried my tears, and taught me to love homemade spaghetti sauce and tomatoes. Grandma lived about six blocks from our house and some days when I was supposed to go home, I managed to “forget” and wangled an invitation to Grandma’s house for dinner. There was always room for one more around her dinner table and I ate countless meals with Grandma Elda, Grandpa Tony, their son George, his wife Joan, and their two daughters Vicki and Joyce who considered themselves my big sisters.

Summer was the best times to be at Grandma’s because during the summer her beautiful gardens were in full bloom and all manners of goodies came from her garden. At Grandma’s I learned to love fresh lettuce, tomatoes straight from the vine, and green beans. During the fall, marathon-canning sessions would take place when Grandma made homemade spaghetti sauce and all manners of jams and jellies.

From the time I could eat cake until my sophomore year of college when Grandma got too sick to bake, I’d always have an angel food cake for my birthday. Nothing ever tasted as good as that cake I watched her painstakingly bake and turn upside down on a soda bottle to cool. When it was ready to be frosted, she’d cut off the crusty parts of the bottom and let me have a taste and then she’d frost it with buttercream icing.

I’ll never forget Grandpa Tony’s funeral. I was ten and I didn’t exactly understand what it was like for Grandma to lose the love of her life but I do remember that after coming home from Grandpa’s burial, Grandma cooked a huge turkey dinner and made sure that everyone was served and satisfied.

Grandma died ten years ago and not a day goes by that I don’t think about her. I inherited the yellow tupperware juice glasses that I drank orange juice out of as a child and serving my two children orange juice out of them makes me think of Grandma. I think of her every time I start to complain about how menial housework is because she always did the most menial of tasks cheerfully. From her example, I know that being loved and loving others is more important than how much money you make or what you do for a living.