Grandma's Platter

This morning I was still doing the last of the New Year's dinner dishes. The ones that had had to soak overnight (that's what I told myself, anyway).

The first thing I washed was the serving paltter that had belonged to my Grandmother. It's a lovely, old plate decorated with tiny little roses and a bit of gold vining around the edge. It's not valuable in the least, except to me. I'm always very anxious to make sure it gets carefully washed and put away before it comes to harm.

My Grandmother, Helen, died on April 21, 1999. She was just a few short months away from her 100th birthday. Unlike most of my other relatives, she played a huge role in my life from my start, to her finish. But one of the most enduring legacies my Grandmother left to me was my love of cooking.

I remember all the foods she made when, as a child, I spent summers with her in Pennsylvania. My Grandfather taught me to fish with a tree branch and a worm on a hook. But oh, the delicacy that resulted as we fried those perch in butter for our breakfast!

I made my very first pie under my Grandmother's watchful eye as I used the fresh blackberries I'd picked from alongside the road at the cottage. I helped her make the potato salad that was always our contribution at the Coxton Lake annual celebration each August. I even learned to love prunes - which she served every morning.

As an adult, however, my life was filled with other things and it wasn't until I returned to the home in which I grew up - in part because my Mother needed help caring for my Grandmother, who'd lost her ability to live alone and had been brought down to live with us - that a desire to cook again took hold.

Before the cooking came the gardening. Gram and my Grandfather had always had a vegetable garden at their home and a smaller version at the cottage. So canning, fresh vegetables and herbs were always being used. When Gram was spending her first summer here, I planted a vegetable garden for her and, I hoped, my Mother to share. Tomatoes, cucumbers, salad greens, eggplant, herbs, radishes and green beans.

That was the summer I made my very first attempt at tomato sauce from scratch, using the fresh tomatoes. It was a revelation and the "inciting incident" on my way to becoming a serious cook.

Gram died 9 years after that summer. As distressing as it was, she'd lived a long life and had taken care of herself until nearly the end. A strong, proud woman, she left me with a love for knitting, country summers, gardening - and cooking.

I do almost all the cooking for my family now - which at this point consists usually of just my Mother and myself. But on holidays my baby brother returns home. He is in a group home for the mentally retarded in a nearby town. And the three of us are the small group that celebrates, whether it is a summer barbecue on Memorial Day, the traditional odd collection of food choices that he demands for his birthday in October (including steak, spaghetti and brussel sprouts) Most memorable, however, is the holiday season when he comes home for the big feasts.

We just finished the last of the turkey soup that had been the last gasp of our Thanskgiving dinner. Christmas, of roast beef and vegetables, will also leave beef with barley soup in our freezer as a reminder of the gentle celebration, our gorgeous tree, and our family gathering. For New Year's we chose a roasted chicken with carrots as our main course. There was, of course, stuffing and gravy and broccoli because we all love green vegetables. But my gorgeous chicken - stuffed with fresh parsley and dill and a halved lemon - and the deliciously carmelized carrots - was perfection. Browned, moist and very flavorful, it was placed on my Grandmother's platter for carving.

The plate had been with my Grandmother all of her adult life. The many other dishes and utensils of hers that I salvaged when her house was sold and she moved in are gone. Broken, or misplaced. This is the last piece that I have left. the last link to the memory of the woman who so lovingly cooked for her family and for me, as long as she could.

The joy of preparing food and serving it to my family is something that I greatly relish. And serving my roast chicken from my Grandmother's plate connects me to the spirit of the woman who loved her family and is now gone from us, but not from our memories.