My grandparent’s busy kitchen

 

Grandpa, grandma, my brother, and me

 Adults talked and children listened in my
grandparent’s kitchen.  We learned through 
watching and following directions—from how to
wash potatoes, cut carrots, peel tomatoes,
and serve fruit, to how to make
a white sauce, prepare horse chestnuts, and
roll pie crusts.  Soups, stews, and casseroles followed.
 
Grandpa was the bread maker.  I watched
him kneed the ingredients together,
including letting the dough rest and rise,
and again, after punching it down and dividing
for the pans, and then the smell of bread baking,
and thick rich slices buttered, warm and sweet.
He was also the butcher who turned goats
and chickens into meat.  That, I didn’t watch.
 
On holidays, family gathered to eat
in the dining room.  First grandma and
I cleared the vast table: her students’ art
to grade, newspapers and mail to read,
photographs and slides to sort, and ceramic
tiles to cut for her mosaics.  She answered
my questions gently as we prepared a festive
table with good China, glasses, and silver
for a feast that always tasted like love.

 

For Sherry's prompt "Grandma's Kitchen" at What's Going On? 

 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2025 Susan L. Chast