N is for Noodle Nostalgia

Grandma was a great cook. I remember Sunday meals and holidays at her house: turkey, ham, pork and beef roasts, mashed potatoes and gravy, lemon meringue and pumpkin pies--everything delicious and made from scratch.

Photo by Donna Cosmato
Courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

I think more than anything else, I loved the noodles she would make at the old, blue-topped table in her kitchen. They were the best tasting noodles I've ever eaten, and the memories I have of helping her make them are some of the most precious ones I have.

I would watch, spellbound, as she sifted flour and mounded it on the table, then made a hollow and added eggs, a little oil, a pinch of salt. My awkward child-hands would help beat the eggs, gradually mixing them with the flour, and then I would watch as she started kneading the dough, working it for a while before stepping back and letting me take a turn--pushing and folding, pushing and folding for what seemed like years but was probably no more than ten minutes. My arms would ache--a good ache--and I'd ask Grandma to take over, knowing that soon it would be time for my favorite part of noodle making: cutting the dough with the little pasty wheel.

Grandma would flour the table, then roll out the dough before handing me the wheel. She'd watch as I cut, letting me know if my noodles were too thick or too thin. Sometimes they were just right! When I'd finish cutting, she'd help me pick up the noodles and hang them over the backs of her toweled-covered orange kitchen chairs to dry. Later there would be homemade chicken soup simmering on the stove, and those noodles would always be the best part.

Grandma died on September 16, 2010. She was 95 years old. My kids didn't really have the chance to get to know her, but I hope that one day I can show them what she taught me and tell them just how special their great-grandma was.


Do you have any beloved memories of time you shared with someone who's no longer living?

One year ago

This morning's 100 words:

 

Today is the first anniversary of my grandma's death. It doesn't seem possible that she's been gone so long. She cared for me and my siblings often as we were growing up, and I have so many memories of the times we shared. I try to write them down so that my feeble mind never forgets them.

I wasn't able to attend her funeral, but I visited her grave when I went home this past summer. Seeing her name carved into stone--and touching it--was difficult, emotional. I sat and talked to her for a long time.

My dog ate my homework!

I'm having a hard time writing my post tonight, but only because I can't get my mind off my WIP. Thank you all again for your suggestions about how to make a cheating wife seem sympathetic. I've been brainstorming directions for each of your points and have been coming up with a lot of good possibilities.

In lieu of a blog post, I'd like to post another snippet about my grandma. I wrote this one this morning as my 100-word writing warm-up. It's something I remembered while I was thinking about the children who hang around in this neighborhood:

The neighborhood kids called her a witch. They'd ride their bikes up and down her street, making wide sweeps past her driveway, advising each other to "Watch out. The witch lives there." I don't remember if I witnessed this happen or if I was merely told about it later, about these kids who bestowed upon her such a thoughtless title, but what I do know is that I could never understand why. There was nothing witchy about my kind grandma, a woman who always helped out the neighborhood kids, bought what they were selling, gave them prime chocolate every Halloween...

An old woman

My grandma died about seven months ago. I was thinking about her today--about how she was sometimes lonely and afraid during the last years of her life--and this extremely rough little scene (long sentence, really) came to mind. It's not about her so much as it is inspired by her. I'm not sure what, if anything, I'll do with it, but maybe someday I'll build a short story around it--or a poem:

An old woman sits alone in a dark living room, the glow from the television illuminating her face, the remote in her hand, clicking idly from channel to channel, life flashing by in bursts of color and sound, frightened, not knowing, not understanding--how did I end up this way?--forgotten and alone in days that pass by too quickly, in nights that linger too long.