Memories of Grandma's Beef Stew

 

Take a moment, pause, put down your phone, let go of the mouse, sit still and take a few breaths. Now, visit your very earliest memories – no, not that traumatizing injury but can you remember a meal or the smell of something delicious cooking? I can think of a few but one that hits me right in the feels includes my paternal grandmother who I didn’t have enough time with to get to know very well.

I was about four or five, sitting with a coloring book and crayons at one end of her long kitchen table. I remember the room fairly clearly as only having lower cabinets along one wall that had to be ten or more feet long. I once wondered if someone could lay on top of what seemed like a never ending countertop. My grandma was at the other end of the table, transferring the contents of a large pot to a bowl.

I heard squishing.

The sound, to my post toddler yet inexperienced with life brain, translated to, “ew.”

I made the sound out loud.

“Ew.”

I immediately realized my mistake and looked down at my coloring with feigned intensity designed to convince my grandmother when she invariably brought her attention to me, that she would doubt she heard me correctly or hopefully question if she heard anything at all.

It didn’t work.

“It’s not ew,” she said. “It’s beef stew and it’s delicious.”

Damn it.

I looked up as if I were seeing what she was doing for the first time. The thick brown gravy had cooled into a pudding consistency. I could see the mixture punctuated distinctly with green peas and for me, their presence alone was a real deal breaker.

“I wasn’t talking about the food. I was talking about my coloring.”

Ah – my first memory of a clear, premeditated lie. Although an argument could be made for not only the desire to save my own ass but to spare her any bad feelings both toward me and about her cooking.

The memory becomes blurry from here but what I wouldn’t give to go back, just to that moment, and take away that, “ew.” And replace it with, “Can I try it?”

Imagine what that could have felt like instead. 

As a grandmother, I know for a fact I would stop whatever I was doing to feed my grandson or granddaughter and if they asked for something I made from scratch? Well. The world would simply stop turning while I attended to this request.

Beef Stew

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds of beef
• A possible combination of fresh carrots, celery, onions and mushrooms
• Flour, salt, pepper
• Maybe a bit of tomato sauce if the mood strikes
• Beef broth

Vague Grandma-like directions:

1. Toss all ingredients in flour to coat
2. Brown the beef in a tablespoon of vegetable oil
3. Add the onions
4. Once the onions are softened, add the remaining vegetables and stir
5. Add the rest, cover and simmer in an oven for hours – slow and low

Serve over egg noodles or rice or with large chunks of potatoes.

Hold the peas.

I only have a small handful of other memories with my grandma. Many of those are tied to the few pictures I have or stories that were handed down. She died young. After this birthday, I will have lived longer than she did and yes, I am very much aware of it. 

I absolutely know I would very much have loved to have more time with her – we would have been Fed Well.