Irish Grandmothers Can't Cook

I had two grandmothers, imagine that! Hilda (who dares name their daughter that now?) was forgetful, but nice enough. The other, Mary, was sharp as a tack and just as amiable. I guess grandchildren can't help but elicit kindness from grandmothers.

 

I would visit each one, every Sunday, down at the Fogarty Manor. Fogarty Manor was a 15 story building full of efficiency apartments for the elderly. Thanks to President Johnson and his Great Society movement, both my grands didn't have to live with us. Phew!

 

I didn't talk much to Hilda, as she seemed not to know anything nor was interested in much else beyond the high rise she lived in.  Except...to ask me, every week, what grade I was in. “Third, Grandma!” I'd say, rolling my eyes. She had though, the biggest bowl of candy available to anyone who came in. I feasted on that much to the determent to my teeth. I spent most of the time looking out her window while my Dad went over her checkbooks, bills and what not. They'd chat about people I never knew from my Dad's old neighborhood. She had those silvered, cat shaped, fake diamond encrusted glasses. Old ladies then thought this was fashionable! After visiting her, it was on to see the other, Mary.

 

Mary's apartment was down the hall and always full of kids and relatives. She had a lot to talk about though. I'd hear stories of her thatched roof house with chickens, cows and mud back when she was a child in Athlone, Ireland. Athlone, Ireland is like living in Nebraska in the US, it's in the middle of nowhere. I'd hear her stories about the local IRA contingents and tales of shiftless Irish husbands who blew their money on booze. Hint: Her husband was a drinker, so she had first hand knowledge.

 

One day, when my brother and I were teens, my Mom comes into our room to tell us we've been invited again to Sunday dinner at Mary's. My brother and I kept nixing the idea to our own Mom once we heard it.

 

“Oh..Do we HAVE to? We see her every Sunday anyway...why can't we just visit AFTER lunch like we always do?”

 

My Mom nearly begged us to do it as it would mean a lot to Mary. We caved in just to shut our own Mom up.

After she left, my brother and I stared at one another. Finally he said, “You know how this will go, don't you?”

“Yeah...we have to eat her food...otherwise we'll look like jerks if we don't.”

 

So, the Sunday comes and off we go.

 

Mary's apartment was furnished with the cheapest furniture available. It's not a criticism. She was Irish immigrant who barely could read, worked low-skilled factory jobs all her life and managed to sock away some meager savings. So, it wasn't Ethan Allan solid cherry, inlaid with mahogany wood furniture for her.

 

Her main table, the dinner table, was about as stout as a cheezy card table from 1968. On it was nice plastic, red and white flannel pattern table “cloth” with settings in place. When we arrived, she had just finished cooking the entire meal for us so we didn't have to wait long at all. Good timing Grandma!

 

She had cooked steak, mashed potatoes and canned corn. Yum!

 

I looked at the steak she had put on my plate. I don't think she understood what rare nor medium-rare ever meant. I saw a fully cooked to death, cremated and ready for scattering bad cut of meat. OK, I'm being hyperbolic here but that steak was waaay overdone.

 

I pick up my fork and knife and start to cut a hunk off it. I had to really drive the fork down into it and start sawing away with my knife. As I was doing this, the entire wobbly table started to shake back and forth. The drinks on the table were in danger of sloshing over their rims if I didn't ease off the sawing motion.

 

My brother shot a knowing look at me and rolled his eyes.

 

I popped the steak into my mouth and bit down...with a crunch. Steak isn't supposed to go “crunch!”

 

My brother and I were good grandchildren. We bolted that horse meat down with gulps of Kilkenny beer which she always kept in her fridge. I think my brother and I finished the whole meal in seven minutes. Sometimes you have to walk into the fire and the shortest distance is a straight line, so we scarfed that steak down as fast as possible.

 

“Do you boys want more?” Mary asks

 

My brother, answered for both of us...rather quickly, “NO!...No, we'll have the pie after you two have caught up!”

 

Driving home, we asked our Mom, “C'mon...admit it..she can't cook!” My Mom agreed but said it made our grandmother happy anyway. I think we had to do this ONCE a year, and that was too much!

 

Looking back on those two grandmothers, I have to say, for their faults, they were kind people though.

 

 

 

Sorry, but that sprig of rosemary ain't going to save this!