On Baking

     If you have spent any significant amount of time with me you will know that I love to bake.  I love cooking in general, but baking is my favorite.  The only thing I love more than baking is cooking or baking for people I love.  I like to think that is something I got from my grandma Ruth.  She was a phenomenal cook.  Dinners at grandma's always consisted of: a meat, two veggies, a starch and dessert.  Even if the dessert was as simple as cottage cheese with peaches, there was always dessert. 
     Now, not knowing my grandma you may wonder just how having dinner equates to love so I shall attempt to explain.  My grandmother was never an overly 'huggy' grandma.  While you may have gotten a short hug or a pat on the head now and again, cuddling was not something that happened often....if ever.  Cuddles were grandpa's domain and he did plenty of it.  Grandma was always the voice of propriety almost to the point of being straight laced.  Everything was in it's proper order all of the time including children. If I were to stop right here you may get the impression my grandmother was a hard nosed and cold person, but I can never lead someone to believe that.  You see, there was another side to my grandmother, one that was best seen when in the kitchen. 
     Most days when my brothers and I came home from school we went straight to grandma's for the afternoon/evening.  As soon as I walked in the door my senses were immediately overwhelmed with the odor of hot cocoa and fresh baked cookies.  Grandma always had them waiting on the kitchen table for us.  Even now the thought of those chewy perfect peanut butter cookies makes me miss her.  She would always stand at the counter watching as we ate.  I remember wondering why she felt the need to watch us...did she think we would make a horrible mess?
     Growing up on a 300+ acre farm we had plenty of woods to roam and in those woods were the tastiest gooseberries I have ever had.  I remember in the summer time grandma would send us out to pick them (probably hoping for some peace and quiet) and when we would return she would bake the best gooseberry tarts you can imagine.  The perfect blend of sweet and sour curled up in a flaky pastry shell, it was heaven itself dancing on your tongue.  I would set up the step stool by the counter and watch while she mixed the dough and stirred the gooseberries and sugar on the stove.  The house minute by minute filled with the warmth of the oven and the odor of spices and sugars mixing.  When they were finally cooled (it felt like an eternity) we enjoyed them right on the spot with grandma, as ever, watching from her perch at the counter.
     Sunday dinners were the biggest affair with grandma.  Honey baked ham with cloves, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, carrots....the works were all on display on the dining table in her best blue and white china.  I remember the smells and sounds of family gathered together, talking and eating and laughing.  Almost always grandma was the last to eat.  She was up and down getting this or that out of the kitchen, then when things would settle and the needs dissipated I would see her sitting in her chair with the food on her plate barely touched as she sat and watched us after a few moments her face would relax and she would begin eating in earnest.
     Throughout my youth and adolescence I often wondered about grandma and her 'watching'.  Knowing the strict side of her personality I chalked it up to her waiting for someone to make a mess or need something fixed.  An inability to just relax and let the moment happen, but I now believe I was entirely wrong in that estimation.
      I don't know exactly when it happened or how, but as my teenage years went on I discovered I loved cooking and baking.  I enjoyed the process of combining ingredients that individually weren't so special but combined became something new and delicious.  But more than that I began to realize I enjoyed the pleasure people had from eating what I made.  I began to think of the people I was cooking for while I made the food.  How much this person would enjoy this dish and what if I added this spice...so and so would love that flavor.  The creation of the food became a process of putting my care for that person into the product.  I found myself holding my breath just a bit waiting to see if those I had made something for enjoyed it.  Is it too sweet?  Need more spice? Should I bake it a touch longer?  Those simple questions became a quest to find just the perfect combination that would bring them the greatest pleasure possible from my effort.
     One evening while sitting around the dinner table with a new casserole I had invented (Cheesy Asparagus and Potatoes)  I found myself sitting in my grandmothers position.  My plate was full of food that was barely touched and I sat focused, not on my meal or the conversation but on the people I loved who were eating my offering.  Did they enjoy it?  Did they know I thought of them and prayed for them while I made it?  Could they taste my love for them with every bite?
      All at once the light bulb went off in my mind.  That's what grandma was doing! She wasn't waiting for a mess to be made or making sure things were 'just so'.  She wasn't unable to enjoy the moment, she was watching us to see how well she had done.  She was waiting to make sure her offering of love had been accepted and enjoyed!  She was telling us with every stir of a pot and each scrape of a pan that she loved us.
     I am not like my grandmother in many ways.  Where she had things 'just so' I tend to have chaos.  While she was always perfectly put together, I many times am a shambles.  That being said when I am in the kitchen I feel very much a part of who she was.  When I am in the kitchen I am never alone, for in my mind I am standing by her side cooking away and thinking of and praying for those who would eat my small gifts of love.