The old bread grinder, ancient by today’s standards, simultaneously screeches and groans as it crushes the grain between two stones. It’s hard to hear what Granny is saying: it’s bread day, and she’s grinding Hard Red Winter wheat. The Hard Red has higher protein content.

“That’s what you need for bread making.” She says, as she greases the blackened round yeast cans she uses for bread molds. “The higher the protein the less likely a split in the bread, nothings worse than split bread.”
                                                               *****
     Granny’s full name is Jennie Fay Hancock Crockett; she is 79 years old. Her people call her Het. We started calling her Granny when she became one at the birth of our son, Josh. The first time I met her happened after my boyfriend Alan invited me to Arizona to meet the family.

 “Mom, this is Julie,” Alan said, as we entered the back door of the house into the bright chartreuse green kitchen. I squint back the color.

 

“You must be hungry,” she said as she greeted us with a hug, “sit down.” We sat at the round kitchen table located close to the back door. Jenny went to the refrigerator and pulled out potato salad, Jell-O salad, deviled eggs, and three layered pimiento and cheese sandwiches. When we were stuffed she pulled out a Pyrex dish layered with cookie crust, crème cheese, vanilla pudding, chocolate pudding topped with whipped cream and pecans. These foods were exotic to me. I grew up with Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup, or Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, with hot dogs. When I commented on how delicious the food was, she smiled and said, as she cleared my plate. “Well here let me get you a pen and paper, I will give you the recipe.” I spent the next hour or so looking at her recipes, wondering what a pimento was. That was almost thirty years ago. Anything I know about food has come from my mother-in-law’s kitchen.                                                                  
            Over the years, the kitchen has gone from eye-blinking green, to country blue, and today is Tuscany tan. The pristine glass-fronted cupboard holds generations of treasured dishes, each with a story. Every drawer has been organized and reorganized in order to achieve the greatest efficiency.

Granny has been using the same old yeast cans for bread molds for as long as I can remember. When she is finished with the shortening she uses to grease the cans, she rubs the residue on her hands like lotion. The grinder belches, and a puff of flour escapes from the drawer located at the bottom of the contraption signaling that the tiny kernels of wheat have been pulverized. The result: a tawny tinted substance, soft and warm— the major source of sustenance for a large part of the world.                                                                    
          Jennie grew up in the country: Lizard Bump, Arizona, in the Gila Valley surrounded by cotton fields protected by the Graham Mountains. Her father “Mev” was one of the first farmers to bring in Egyptian cotton to the Valley, and at one time owned a large part of Arizona. Her mother Blanche never took her apron off. Blanche was up before dawn getting the fire ready and the pans hot for breakfast.  After breakfast she put on a pot of beans and would start making the bread for dinner. Grandma Hancock (Blanche) had a gift for healing, and helped the sick, brought new babies into the world, and “cooked for men.” The cooking for men is a distinction that Jennie brought up a lot those first few years after I married her son. At the birth of my second son, she re-emphasized the gender make up of my family: one husband, two sons— men.

Granny is a composite of her mother and the grandmothers before her. The last generation of American homemakers to know what it is to skim the cream off a steamy pail of fresh milk. She makes cakes from scratch, cranberry sauce from real fruit, and bread from home ground Red Winter Wheat.
                                                                   *****
        A faint layer of flour dust floats through the air and settles on Jenny’s oversized sweatshirt. When she was younger she filled it out, now, it emphasizes her shrinkage. She wears her faded red hair cropped short in an effort to minimize the thinning due to medications. She has small intense eyes set deep into freckled skin wrinkled and folded through years of hard work. Granny takes the palm of her hand and measures “about this much” flour and places it into a glass-measuring cup that has warm water and yeast in it. She stirs in the flour until it becomes a paste and within a minute, the paste has morphed, bubbling and rising like something from a science fiction movie “It’s those cold winters they have in the Midwest that does it.” She counsels me, willing me to learn as she scoops the flour from the grinder to a bowl as big as she is.” The colder the weather, the harder the kernel has to work to stay alive; it creates more protein— makes the wheat hardy.”
                                                                  *****
      The year is 1984 and I am at my mother-in-laws house.  I start feeling the labor cramps that will bring our third child Ashley into the world. This baby will make three children in as many years, and at age 25, I am young and overwhelmed.

“ I know it’s hard,” she says, as she cuts the crust off the tuna salad sandwiches she makes for my three year old and toddler sons.
      “ You just feel like your going to be dipping those diapers forever.” She sits in the recliner and looks at the pictures of her six children on the family room wall. Her eyes linger on the black and white photo of a chubby cheeked, sparkling eyed baby with dimples and blonde curly hair. Her name was Carolyn, Granny’s second baby, first daughter, and one of the many children who died during the polio epidemic in the 50s.
          “Her dying made me a better mother.” Granny says, as she reached for the laundry waiting to be folded. “ I was really strict with Gary; he was the first and I wanted to do it right.” She shrugs chagrinned. “See that mirror? Carolyn had just started to toddle and climb. It use to drive me crazy: her climbing on the couch and putting her finger prints all over the mirror.”

 Granny shakes out a towel, smoothes the wrinkles, stops and looks at me.

“It happened so fast, we went to church; she was in the nursery. After church we came home, I noticed she had a little runny nose when she went down for her nap. It was a nice day, and I saw Ova, my neighbor, outside hanging her laundry. I didn’t think there would be any harm if I went out and visited a bit. A few minutes later, I went in to check on the baby; she was burnin with fever. We drove her up to the hospital in Chandler—By morning, she was gone. Driving home, my arms aching for our little girl, I saw people out walking the street, laughing and smiling. My teeth were chattering, and I thought how could they be laughing? Don’t they know the world has ended?

When we walked in the house I saw Carolyn’s chubby little fingerprints on the mirror.” Granny stops— her longing for Carolyn still present after 30 years.  She sighs, “It took me a long time before I was able to wipe off that print.”
      Granny and I spent that afternoon together timing my contractions and reminiscing about Carolyn and what her death taught her.

      “They aren’t really ours Julie. God trusts us to take care and love them, but they are not ours. You think you will never ever have another minute to yourself, but believe me it will happen sooner than you think and they’ll be gone. You don’t want regrets. You need to have more fun, work hard, but have fun doing it.”
                                                                     *****
      The bread is almost complete; Granny adds the rest of the ingredients: oil, honey and salt to the huge chipped enamel bowl. She builds a mound, and pours both the yeast and honey mixtures. She oils her hands and then begins. At first the flour is resistant to the oil and water, honey and yeast, but she coaxes the goop, stirring it with her fingers, moving her hands around the bowl, squishing, and scrapping, and bringing the elements together: protein made hardy with adversity, oil and honey— sweet lubrication, warm water and yeast—life— leaven. “The higher the protein,” Jenny huffs, as she uses her forearm to wipe her forehead, “the stronger the gluten. It’s the gluten that binds the bread; without strong gluten the bread just crumbles.”
                                                                    *****
      “Julie, If you think you are going to teach them everything they need to know before they turn 18 then you are just plain simple. What have you learned about life since you were 18? I mean, what did any of us know at 18?”
Alan’s mom has always been my children’s greatest advocate. When Josh was in third grade I received a phone call from the school.

        “ Mrs. Crockett?” the teacher asked. My experience with phone calls from teachers usually meant a dose of self-recrimination: surely if I were a good parent… This phone call was different.

          “Mrs. Crockett, I just thought you should know that Josh has improved substantially since we had our last visit, so much so, that we are making him Student of the Month.” I stutter my thanks—my gratitude. I call my friends, and family. My self-esteem as a mother starts to revive: my child is going to make it, he will get through third grade… he won’t be homeless… I am a good mom, I am, I am. Josh comes home. I greet him with a big hug and kiss, and offer him an Otter Pop.
        “Josh, Josh, I am so proud of you. Your teacher called, and you are doing so well that they are going to make you Student of the Month.”
        “ Yeah,” Josh says sucking on his treat. “Granny says that I need to do good in school so that I can be smart and go to college.”
Blessed is the little boy or little girl who has a grandmother that has lived long enough to know when to worry, and knows when to wait— who understands the notion of process and patience.
                                                                      *****
       Granny’s practiced hands move around the bowl of ingredients. The rhythm has changed; no longer a swishing movement, the concoction has evolved, transformed, it clings together, loose but malleable. She lifts the mound from the bowl, and throws it to the counter, and with the heel of her hands kneads around and through it; folding, kneading, turning, kneading, pinching the bubbles, and making it smooth .

                                                                      ****
         “You are too busy. You need to slow down. When do you have time to cook?” she asked me one day when my children were still in elementary school.
        “I cook.” I said a little confused. (I could mix crème of mushroom soup with anything and it tasted good to me).
     “Food is love; cooking is how you show your family you love them.” She said.
      “Food is good; I reply defensively, “I show my children I love them by talking to them, singing to them, hugging them. I volunteer at their schools, I teach them who they are.”
     “ I am trying to help you avoid a mistake” she said.” You’ve got to stay home to make a home; everyone is always in a hurry. It isn’t good for kids being dragged here and there. Kids need peace, kids need good food.”

     I didn’t understand, my kids were happy, and healthy. True, we were a busy family, but I wanted my children to get out, and be involved.
        “I guess you need to let me make my own mistakes” I said.

 

Granny has never changed her mind on the “proper role” of mothers. Granny didn’t always agree with my priorities, but I know she loves me, and now that my children are grown, and good, I think she is starting to understand that there are all different kinds of nourishment.
                                                                 *****
         Granny’s dough is almost finished, small stream of sweat trickles down the back of her neck onto her stooped shoulders, matting her hair. “This is the tricky part,” she warns, “you stop too soon, and the gluten won’t fully develop. The bread won’t hold strong.” She works the dough for five minutes more, then with one last turn, pinches off sections and molds them to loaves, slides them into their cans, and puts them in the oven.
                                                                   *****
           Next week is Thanksgiving. Jennie tells me it is the last one where she will be the main cook; she’s been saying this for the last few years.

        “We can have it at my house this year.” I offer.
         “No, I already have the deep freeze cleaned out, and ready to go.” She counters.
          She starts preparing for the holiday in October when she gets the deep freeze and refrigerator ready for the cakes, pies, dressing, and sauces that she will be making for the next few weeks. She makes it all from scratch in honor of her mother who always laid a beautiful table and cooked for men. Her home will have autumn leaves, and cornucopias. When you enter the kitchen you will see a woman’s pilgrim’s bonnet and apron hanging from the coat rack. A table will have three different types of homemade pies, chocolate cake, red cake and pineapple filled cookies. The counter will have turkey, potatoes, stringed beans, candied yams, and three types of stuffing, and the homemade bread. We will eat, and we will laugh, and Granny will make jokes, and say that she can’t eat after all the cooking. After dinner, we will get up and wash dishes, and pans. Then we will eat pie, cookies, and cake…

This Thanksgiving is extra special. Brent Hayden Crockett will join the family as the first great grandson— my grandson. Jennie is so excited.

           “Oh Julie, there is nothing like a grandbaby. You have been so busy; I am so glad you’ll be with finished with school so you will have time to be a grandma.
                                                                       *****
      The small galley kitchen fills with the aroma of the fresh baked bread. We wash up the dishes and clean out the grinder while we wait for the crust to brown to a dark umber. When the timer rings, Granny opens the door and pulls out the result of her labor. “And that” she sighs, “is how it’s done.”