It is especially during the holiday season, when I can't help but think about Grandma aka. Hinda Czernick z"l. She died in 1995 when I was in Israel. I am dedicating this blog entry to her, as I try to find a 'home' for her and all the memories of her. In "Soup Memories," I describe her habit and predictability of cooking and how important that element is in parenting our own children..
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She was a short woman who needed some heights. So she cooked in high heeled pumps, back to us in a dark housedress. She hardly talked.
Grandma served the soup in white porcelain bowls always with one thick big matzah ball and heavy chicken broth. We all sipped the soup with gusto. When I wanted to break the heavy silence, I slurped. This irritated my mom and she would say firmly: “Dorit, stop that.” My brother giggled. When my mother collected the soup plates, she would always say: “Ma, this soup is out of the world.”
Sometimes Grandma would add plain white rice to the soup. The broth always left us so full. We could never understand why there were so many meat and chicken courses afterwards.
We never bothered Grandma when she was cooking. The kitchen was her space. When our cousins, aunts and uncles left, we went to the broom closet, then headed afterwards to the bedroom with our magic brooms.
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2 comments:
There's just something about a grandmother's chicken soup. It must be all the love that went in...
Chicken soup is so universal. My grandmother made it from a recipe in her head and never wrote it down. So sad.
When all four my children came down with chicken pox in the middle of an upstate New York winter, and my husband was on a business trip in Italy, a neighbor lady brought a huge stockpot of chicken rice soup from a recipe she learned while serving as a missionary in the interior of Vietnam during the war. As she turned to leave she paused and added, "in case you're wondering, I always leave the feet out." I didn't know I should wonder; but was a lifesaver.
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