Lately I have been thinking a lot about my grandmother. She was a wry witty woman who always had a mischievous twinkle in her eye. It was this, her sense of humor, that I miss most about her during these past few years. It was something unique and special that cemented our bond. I’m sure she always had it but I don’t think many people understood it – I did, and according to her, always had.

Her favorite story to tell about me recalled a Thanksgiving event from many years ago. She said when I was five years old she had me out in the kitchen helping her bake her famous mile high apple pie, something she put together with the attention to detail of a rat in a gourmet kitchen. The recipe was simple, it basically called for a pie crust to be loaded well past the brim with apples that’d been coated with a heaping unmeasured dose of sugar and cinnamon. On this particular day she threw the cinnamon into the bowl and started to stir the chunks of crudely chopped apples until they were all sufficiently covered before piling them unceremoniously into the pie crust. This is when she realized she forgot the sugar which was still sitting there ready and waiting to be poured into the bowl. She turned to me and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me I forgot the sugar?” to which my tiny passive-aggressive five year old self replied, “I thought you knew what you were doing.”

I feel honored to have inherited her wit as well as her unique baking style. I still cream cookie batter by squishing it between my fingers. Who needs blenders or a spoon?! Not us! Love you Gram. I hope wherever you are now you know we still think of you often.