Post #46 – Women’s Memoirs, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Kendra and I are pleased to publish C.J. Barbre’s story and recipe that received an honorable mention in our April Memoir Contest–KitchenScraps Category. Congratulations C.J.
Honorable Mention
COOKIE CONFESSIONS
By C.J. Barbre
Grandma cooked biscuits from scratch—no recipe—not surprising for a woman who bore ten children in the early years of the 20th century. My earliest memories are of being in the kitchen with her on the farm in Santa Ana, watching and helping as she cooked and baked, and even churned her own butter. I always got to make a “funny biscuit” with left over dough that could be shaped into a bunny’s head or a funny face, or whatever I could manage with my little fingers and imagination. I was also allowed to play with pie dough remnants (I loved their salty taste) and, best of all, to lick the bowl and spoon used to mix cake batter.
Grandma raised me for my first three and a half years, until Mama came home with a new husband, Daddy Jim. In their company was my big sister, I was told. I was no longer going to live with Grandma, the center of my existence. I was going to live upstairs in the converted barn with these strangers.
Grandma thought it was cute when I would tell her to ask Grandpa to “go up and get my bed so I can come and live with you.” When she retold the story she would look at me with a smile and say the words “wid choo,” which was apparently how I pronounced “with you.” Little children don’t say things like that to be cute. They speak from the heart, I always wanted to say, but never did.
I was five years old when Grandpa died, and in first grade when Grandma sold the farm and we had to move. We moved several times, but Grandma always came to visit, even when we moved 2,000 miles across country. And joy of joys, my sister and I got to come back with her all the way across the country on the train and to stay with her in the duplex she shared with Auntie Gail and Uncle Ben in Pasadena. It was a time of delicious home cooked meals; playing Chinese checkers, which I often won, and going to camp meetings (church services held in a tent) on the lawn of the Methodist Church nearby.
Eventually Mama and Daddy Jim came and took us to a new house near the beach. Mama was the youngest of the 10 children, born when Grandma was 40. I was the youngest of the grand-babies born when Grandma was 60. Having eight older sisters, I suspected was why Mama took a no-frills approach to cooking, a chore in which she had little interest. When TV dinners came out we got a deep freezer full. We got store-bought cupcakes for our school lunches. The only cookies I recall were those big bags of gingersnaps, which I never liked.
Grandma’s visits were a little bit of heaven coming into the house. Even Daddy Jim was nice. She kept a small notebook full of recipes that she brought with her. I would stand by for a taste of batter or pie dough when Grandma made his favorites, applesauce cake or lemon meringue pie.
Not only would she bake a pie or cake, she would clean the house, a task delegated to me and my sister since we were like eight and ten years old and never done satisfactorily, at least not by me. Mom and Daddy Jim worked in an aircraft factory. When Grandma cooked and cleaned, she would sing hymns. Grandpa had been a preacher as well as a farmer.
As we got older, Grandma did not come to visit very often. But when she did, she was back to sweeping and dusting, cooking and baking. It was wonderful to arrive home from junior high to the sound of hymns being sung and wonderful smells coming from the kitchen.
I was at an age where I didn’t tell my parents a lot of what I did. My sister didn’t either. She seemed to get caught more, but then she was the one who started smoking, ditching school and hanging out with other high school “juvenile delinquents,” to quote our parents. My crimes were going places I shouldn’t with my girlfriend, like construction sites and sneaking rides on a horse corralled near the old cement plant. A couple of times we played spin the bottle with boys from school in her garage. I confessed to none of these activities.
But when Grandma told me to stay out of the fresh baked oatmeal cookies she had put in a brown paper bag in the cupboard, until after dinner, the temptation was more than I could bear. I snuck one and ate it with guilty pleasure. This soon turned to pure guilt. I could secretly misbehave with impunity with my mom and step-dad, but could not do the tiniest thing that might cause my grandmother to think poorly of me. I loved her too dearly. I weakly confessed my guilty pleasure, the stolen cookie. Grandma forgave me, “as Jesus does,” she said. The sun broke forth, the birds sang, all was right with the world. That evening we had Grandma’s delicious meatloaf with baked yams and iced tea.
The adults had lemon meringue pie for dessert while my sister and I had Grandma’s oatmeal cookies, possibly the best batch ever.
I inherited this cast iron squirrel nutcracker from my grandmother. (Quarter in its open mouth for scale.) I used to pinch my fingers on this squirrel while cracking walnuts for these cookies.
GRANDMA’S OATMEAL COOKIES
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Cream together:
½ cup of brown sugar, firmly packed
½ cup of granulated sugar with
½ cup of butter (no substitutions)
Combine and beat until smooth then add to above:
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon milk
Sift together and add:
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Last: 1 cup old fashioned oats (no quick cooking oats)
½ cup raisins (or chocolate chips)
½ cup chopped walnuts
Drop dough on prepared cookie sheet by rounded spoonfuls and bake until brown around edges, about 10 or 12 minutes.
I still miss my grandmother. Stories help keep her memory alive. I invite your comments below.
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