Cooking with Estelle

My Granny cooked for her family three times a day, seven days a week.  Fried eggs, sausage, had homemade strawberry jam & apple butter on handmade biscuits for breakfast.  Spam & tomato sandwiches for lunch. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, another round of handmade biscuits at dinner.  She always had a tin full of brownies and a lemon pound cake or yellow cake with chocolate icing on the table.  She was in the kitchen 90% of her day, always wore an apron over her house dress, her long grey hair neatly wrapped into a bun, secured with hair net.  She was advanced in age when I was a child, as my father was her baby of eight children.  I loved visiting her.  She did not overindulge with words, though she would tell a story from her younger days from time to time.  I would sit at the table and watch her, for what seemed like hours.  She seemed to work nonstop, effortlessly. 

I can't recall if I always ate all her lemon pound cake, which forced her to make another, or if she just always waited until I was there with her to make one.  But that is a process that I remember and cherish with all my heart.  She had a certain pan she baked it in and she had a small baking tin for me. I loved that little tin.  She would have me grease it with Crisco and flour it.  She would leave just enough batter for me to fill up my little tin.  I would patiently sit and watch those little cakes rise and bake to sweetened perfection.  She always dabbed a little bit of icing on them for me.  It was pure magic. 

When the time came for our family to sort & divide her belongings,  I hadn't stepped foot in her house for far too long.  I was in my early twenties then and hadn't baked anything in that kitchen, regretfully, for several years.  I had no idea if I would be able to find that little tin.  The fear of being disappointed was nearly overwhelming.  I remember walking into the kitchen that smelled & looked the same, although the heart of that kitchen was gone.  I nervously walked over to the stove, pulled open the bottom drawer, and there it was waiting there just for me.  My heart smiled. 

I've had that tin in my kitchen for years now.  Last week, I made cupcakes for my son's class and I pulled out that tin and handed it to him.  I have been setting him on the counter top beside me since he could sit up on his own while I prepared the meals for my family.  He saw that little baking tin and said "Is this for me?"  I smiled at his smile.  We sprayed Pam on it, rather than greasing it up with Crisco, he held the mixer and spooned out enough batter to fill those little cups.  He watched as those little cakes bake into that sweetened perfection, just as I did many years before.  I pulled them out of the oven, popped the little cakes out, dabbed a little bit of icing and we gobbled them up as fast as we could! 

I told Brody of the story behind that tin and he grinned.  I knew my Granny was in the kitchen with us that day.  She always is.  So many memories made in a kitchen, past and present.  So thankful to share something like that with my son.  I don't have an expensive house or jewelry but that little tin is worth more to me than any of those things.  That is my childhood, some of the warmest, happiest times I shared with my Granny in her kitchen, now I am sharing with my own child in ours.