The Body/Nanny's (Mother, May I?)

As a young woman, Nanny was the epitome of glam. Willowy but not thin- you know what I mean? She looked tall and long but healthy and curved, in such an effortless way. Her hair was always coiffed, her beautiful smile painted right in the lines. She worked at Mullers (the department store on the corner of Ryan and Division) until she married Papa and had my uncle Joe. I imagine her every customer fell in love with her, with her gentle, friendly demeanor and that megawatt smile.

She grew up poor and never went to college, but always she proved that real class and deep beauty and true grace aren’t things you can pay for anyway. She made everyone feel good. Loved, heard, spotlighted, cared for. She made me feel that way always.

Her meals were legendary. When I think of her as a young mother with four little ones (including the twins who came last and as a surprise; two instead of one?), I conjure a vision of a woman still glam, a cigarette between her slender fingers, pots bubbling on the stove, pantyhose a pretty nuisance. She made all of her children’s clothes and all the cheesecakes for Papa’s restaurant too. I can't see how she did it.

When I came to know Nanny, she was rounder, perhaps a bit less glam, saggier. She’d stopped smoking, thank goodness. Her hair was always colored just the right shade of Nanny-brown, and her skin still smelled of the Oil of Olay she massaged into each night, and her smile still shone as painted and bright as ever. She still seemed so fabulous and glam.

I used to call her “Foxy” or “You Fox!” and tease her about going out for nights on the town. She’d laugh so hard, happy tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. I loved how her short-sleeve button down shirt was always tucked neatly into her elastic-waisted pants with a wadded up tissue stowed between two fastened button holes. You could never be too sure about needing a Kleenex at some point during the day.

We’d sit at her ancient kitchen table, black Formica with gold and black legs, and I’d wriggle her engagement and wedding bands from her increasingly gnarled finger and plunge them into that toxic jewelry cleaner you can buy at the drug store. That stuff made the included brush fall apart, for pete’s sakes! Papa’s name was Pete. I like that coincidence.

Anyway, I’d shimmy out from the white gold prongs the accumulated pie crust and bacon drippings and green bean strings and whatever else had gotten stuck, and once again, her yellow diamond would shine, and she’d tell me about Papa or Mullers or the restaurant days. The veins in her hands were ever more pronounced, and her fingernails became more and more ridged over the years. Sometimes, she’d let me file and shape her nails, the ones painted red in so many old pictures.

I thought her hands were beautiful, the veins and ridges like memory paths to the past. Her skin was so silky soft smooth, like the thinnest, most fine cloth a silkworm could weave. No party of my body has ever felt like that.

Sometimes I’d check the back of her hair for “holes,” the ones that come after naps. Cathy colored Nanny’s hair for years and always did just the right shade. She did it for Nanny’s funeral I think? I hope. It seems right that she would have. But maybe not. I don't remember.

Nanny was an old-fashioned lady to the end. I have never in my life worn a camisole, but she wore one every day. Over her bra and under her shirt. I detest undergarments like camisoles and slips, but I think to her they were a sort of feminine uniform. And she was always so lovely.

Towards the end, when she couldn’t go to the beauty parlor, and her arm didn’t work, and her eyes and hearing were failing too; when her hands were curled in and she spent most of every day in her trusty recliner, I remember thinking she was still so beautiful. And how I missed her before she was even gone.

That body couldn’t last forever, and at the end, I didn’t want it to. It wasn’t a good life, but selfishly, I want her back. I want to file her nails and watch her lips curl into a smile, want to sit in her kitchen and feel that everything will be good and OK.

People tell me I have her smile, and I couldn’t wish for more. 

Edible Memory Day 1: Comfort

I'm so happy to be participating in a Winter Joy Writing Retreat from now through December 14. It's an online "class" hosted by Jena Schwartz and Cigdem Kobu of The Inky Path, and this year's theme is edible memories. It's a lovely way to carve out a bit of space each day for two weeks, a tremendous gift to self during such a hectic time of year. 

Food writing is really how I happened upon and fell in love with the craft of writing, so this retreat marks the loveliest of returns to some of my roots.

At its best, food writing not only makes your mouth water but also transports you to a time, place, the taste sensations of certain foods. You might find yourself experiencing someone else's memory as seamlessly as if it were your own, or you might find your memory jogged, tripping you back to a time you savored the very dish or ingredient or flavor in question.

Today's prompt asked us to consider comfort foods and the places, people and memories associated with them. As is often the case, I sat down to write and was happily surprised by all that spilled out onto the page. I'm going to share it with you here and plan to do the same, during the next fortnight, for all the writes I feel moved by and inclined to publish.

I hope you enjoy.

***

I grew up in south Louisiana, a flat land speckled with Cypress trees and their woody knees, an intricate system of swamps, bayous, lakes and the mighty Gulf, swarms of mosquitos, soaring Oaks, spindly Pines, thick carpets of St. Augustine grass, gators and the sing song hum of “Hi Y’all, How are you today, Baby? Your momma’s OK? Are you hungry?”

My grandfather, Papa, was a Sicilian emigrant whose parents had come through the Port of New Orleans before settling three hours west in Lake Charles. My grandmother’s people had been in Lake Charles since, well since they arrived. I don’t know more than that. They were Louisianians with a hearty French Cajun influence that you can hear in the very specific Cajun accent of the southwest region, of the French-not-French language, in the cuisine’s piquancy as it hits your tongue.

Nanny, my grandmother, cooked daily. For Papa’s restaurant -she made the cheesecakes; thousands over the course of that restaurant’s life- and for her own family. My mother, flanked by an older brother and younger twin sisters, left Lake Charles for college and didn't plan to return, but after raising my sister and me largely on her own for the years my father was in medical school and residency, she jumped when he was offered a full practice back in her hometown. Her own parents would be just a mile down the road and could help her with us.

We all came to see the enormous gift this inadvertent return to Lake Charles was. To grow up with loving grandparents nearby, and aunts, uncles and cousins both in town and just a couple hours’ drive away made for the village that so many of us don’t have today because the world has grown so scattershot and we all blow away on its winds.

Sundays drew us to Nanny and Papa’s house for family lunch. They went to church, we didn’t, but it didn’t matter because afterwards, we all came together to sit snug around the black and gold Formica table that was in that kitchen until Nanny died two years ago. Sixty some odd years she spent in that house, outliving Papa by twenty and her sisters by much longer.

Sunday was spaghetti and roast day, a tribute to Papa’s Italian heritage but flecked with Nanny’s culinary traditions too. Allspice and a bit of sugar tinged her tomato sauce which enveloped the roast until it fell apart when a fork came near. Big French baguettes were sliced and laid into napkin-lined baskets. A crisp green salad was made in the old, brown plastic bowl that was chipped by so many clangs of the tongs as they tossed and served. I watched the vortex made by Nanny’s iced tea spoons as they stirred and dissolved Lipton iced tea mix into tall glasses filled with water and, once the whirls stopped, fat ice cubes. The hinged silver sugar bowl sat waiting for those who didn’t want the “pink” stuff (Sweet’N Low), and the white plastic rotary cheese grater stood capably alongside a big wedge of Parmesan. A pie or icebox cake surely waited on the sidelines for later.

Though so many dishes from my childhood evoke nostalgia, comfort and profoundly distinct taste memories –gumbo, tea cakes, green rice, jambalaya- my mind always goes quickly to Nanny’s Sunday lunch when I think of comfort. I suspect that’s because of how much Nanny and I loved each other, how perfectly fine I always felt in her presence.

I remember the china bowls we’d eat our pasta from, and the matching salad plates too. I remember those iced tea spoons and glasses, her garlic press sitting near the sink, the trays of ice waiting in the freezer, the couches and blankets that waited in the next room to let us rest off the food comas we'd surely have.

I remember loving to twirl spaghetti and roast onto my fork with the help of a big spoon that refused to let the slippery noodles escape the tines. I remember liking to slide a big, saucy twirl between two slices of baguette; the original carb heaven. Mom often chastised me for this but Nanny always said, “Sharon, just let her be.”

I remember Papa’s big belly and balding pate, how he’d tuck his napkin into the front of his shirt and boom, “More cheese!” I remember my Dad enjoying every bite and that on his birthday, Nanny always made him cherry cheesecake. I remember that when she stopped doing that, it broke my heart a little because it meant she really was getting old. I remember that I asked her to teach me then, so that I could make it, so that I’d know it when she was gone.

After we stuffed ourselves silly, we’d retire to that next room and all fall asleep, Nanny and Papa in their recliners, my sister and I under the best plaid fleece blanket in the world, Dad always on the floor. Mom was a floater. Sometimes she returned to her childhood bed, other times she joined Dad on the floor or us on the couch.

And finally we’d awake, return home and bid Sunday adieu. I imagine I was already looking forward to the next weekend, to being back in Nanny’s kitchen as the roast bubbled away on the stove and I could stir the tea once more. 

Pulling teeth

I am thinking of Nanny right now. It's the time of year when, once I left home, I knew I'd get to see her more regularly than usual. Thanksgiving and then Christmas and then her birthday. Three months of Nanny really.

She hated cold and/or rainy weather. Just hated them. She'd bundle up in roughly 32 layers when the temperature dropped south of 65 and set her heater on thermal blast. I used to stagger backwards when I walked into her house during a winter month, as if I'd ventured into a broiling oven.

Despite the incongruence of her favorite holidays and birthday falling during her least-favorite time of year, she always had her glorious smile at the ready. And her cooking mitts on.

This was prime Nanny-as-culinary-matriarch season. Cranberry sauce, rice and cornbread dressings, blackberry pies. She'd whip them all out, full of flavor and just perfect.

Anyway, all this is not really the point of this story but will be a good one for later. Why, you might ask? 

Because other than teaching me how to cook all this goodness, Nanny also taught me to pull teeth. It was an inadvertent lesson; really, I just remember how she pulled mine and Elia's. Teeth gross my  mother out. Loose teeth? The ones that go horizontal in a light wind? She'd rather die than look at them. So pulling them? Forget it.

Nanny would soak a thin washcloth in cold water, wring it out, grip the loose tooth with her strong fingers and the cloth, and twist quickly up to one side. I don't ever remember it hurting.

The cold wet cloth was the key, in my opinion. It ensured that the tooth wouldn't slip the way it can between naked fingers. It also provided a slight distraction, for you felt and initially focused on the cold. During that moment, Nanny did the upward twist move, and once you noticed, the job was done. Finally, a gum that's just been liberated of a tooth is wont to bleed, and so that wet washcloth was right there, just waiting to absorb whatever drool and blood pooled in the fresh hole.

Tom is rather like Mom. The very idea of pulling a tooth sends him for the hills. And so I have donned the mantle of Resident Tooth Puller.

Each time I wet and wring the cloth, I tell the kids the story of how Nanny once did the same. I tell them about the upward twist, how quickly and painlessly it snaps the last of the connective roots.

Before they know it, they're sticking their tongues into the space that only seconds before wasn't there.

Last night, it was Ol's turn. For the first time! He was so nervous but also desperate: to lose a tooth and to get that puppy out. It was hanging every which way and his gum was swollen. "I am scared, Mama, but also I want this tooth out. I feel small because I think I am the only one who hasn't lost a tooth."

"Well buddy, you have to come to the right place."

He was beyond thrilled, said that the tooth fairy could not, under any circumstance, take his tooth* (probably because of his hoarding tendencies) and fell asleep happily.

Thank you for the tried and true method, Nanny. I miss you.

*Conversation about said ordinance:
Oliver: "I do NOT want the tooth fairy to take my tooth."
Jack: "Why not? Don't you want a gold dollar coin like she always leaves me?"
Oliver: "No. I want my tooth."
Jack: "You are weird."
Oliver: "It's not all about the money, Jack."