are in short supply this week. The first one who “adopted” me nearly 40 years ago is gone.
ML taught me how to understand a Texas accent, but most important Texas hospitality. She cooked Tex Mex foods and expanded my palate as a youngster, as did her daughter JC and my Aunt.
My mother didn’t know much about cooking when she married my father, so in the year before I was born, before Grandma H died she taught Mom all about the German foods Dad liked. That’s what we ate, plus anything with Campbell’s soup in it. It was post-war and everything to bring Rosie the Riveter back into the home was supposed to be “easy.” Canned food, frozen dinners, vacuum cleaners and real washing machines. Plus wearing dresses and pumps to clean the house and having your hair done once a week and teased to perfection. Easy!
Being exposed to Texan and Mexican flavors was incredible. All of a sudden I knew there was another world of flavor out there. There was no such thing as American Regional Cuisine back then and those who knew about cooking were all trying to be French. I had no idea that there were even more cultures in Asia and everywhere and regional breakdowns that I’m still eager to learn, even years after cooking school.
ML must have known decades ago that I’d marry a Texan, and have to decipher the language barrier (due to the War of Northern Aggression) and food differences, like chile peppers. She prepared me for it with love and grace.
When I was in college, ML’s daughter had caught the cooking bug and gave my mother a lifelong subscription to Gourmet magazine. That changed our lives. Souffles, chicken and peach salad. Mom was on fire and the bug was in me as well. No more cans. Everything from scratch.
For our first wedding anniversary we went to ML’s birthplace, San Antonio, and toasted her at the pub in the Menger Hotel which she’d told us about.
What can I say about her now? Love. Grace. She was probably obstinate at times, came from her Texas upbringing (being a nation once and holding out as a state) but I remember unconditional love for her family and friends.
We were all bathed in the light of that love. You will be missed. Love, Dee
ps Happy Birthday Nanny (my husband’s grandmother). She took me on 10 years ago, not as a replacement for ML but because one cannot have too many grandmas when one hasn’t known her own. D
Cooking with Dee 