Food for Mourning

[Jaymes]

Such a loss. Such a sad, sweet reminder of the passage of time -- and of one's own mortality, one's own place in the slowly moving parade of life.

Please accept my condolences as well.

[Stephanie]

My sympathies as well, Suvir. Grandmas are some of the most treasured and honored people on the planet, as well they should be. Nothing is warmer than a grandma's hug. I miss mine still, even 15 years after her passing. Those of us who knew our grandmas are the luckiest people on earth.

Unless you had mine, which is a whole 'nother story.

Neither of them were/are particularly good cooks either.

[IsItSoupYet?]

Your grandmother sounds like a wonderful woman, Suvir. May her journey to the next stage be peaceful.

[stellabella]

both my maternal grandparents died in the last four years, and previous to that my husband's first cousin passed away from lung cancer, so we had a spate of attending funerals together and marveling at the bizarre and in some odd way funny similarities in our families' food cultures.

M's cousin's funeral was followed by a supper in the basement of a Presbyterian church in rural Western PA. we sat at long tables and passed plastic cafeteria bowls of boiled potatoes, green beans, baked chicken, served family-style. afterwards we swarmed around the pie table--dozens of plates of individual slices of pies--fruit and cream pies, mostly.

after my pop-pop's and then my mom-mom's funerals, we gathered in the fellowship hall of the Frankford United Methodist Church in Frankford, DE, for a pot-luck luncheon: fried chicken, baked ham, macaroni and cheese, green beans, lima beans, squash casserole, cole slaw, pretzel salad [a profoundly repulsive dish which deserves its own thread], and dozens of other dishes, laid out along two end-to-end folding tables. we, too, had a dessert table, but ours was laid mostly with slices of cakes and puddings, and only the occasional slice of pie. back at the farm afterwards, we ate more cake, and potato biscuits with ham and chicken salad. we drank several cases of beer. a few of my cousins meandered aimlessly from room to room, mumbling bitterly about the affront to my grandmother's memory of bringing beer into her house. to which i muttered in response, under my breath--Well, I suppose we could go stand out in the barn and drink it, like Pop-pop used to do.....

now my husband and I keep pictures of the pie and cake tables on our fridge--they remind us as much of his cousin and my grandparents as they remind us who we are and where we came from.

[sparrowgrass]

Suvir, you know my heart is with you. It is so hard to lose someone special, and there are really no words that help.

[Suvir Saran]

Suvir, you know my heart is with you.  It is so hard to lose someone special, and there are really no words that help.

Thanks! The image of Purple Passion was a nice distraction.