I was having a lovely mid-afternoon Spanish-style lunch yesterday afternoon with a wonderful Spanish-Japanese family we know, when my grandfather "entered" the conversation.
In between the olive oil-drenched tomatoes, green olives, sauted clams, prociutto & cream pasta and grilled prawns (did I mention the chilled white Spanish wine?), the conversation turned to finding a "foothold" in the world. One of the lunch guests, now stationed in Japan for the U.S. Navy, remarked that after his tour was finished his plan was to enroll in a culinary school. And that's when beloved Grampa sprang to mind. I told my hosts and other attendees, that my grandfather used to always say, "Everyone's gotta' eat and everyone needs to have a ditch dug, so you might as well learn to cook". I am paraphrasing, of course, but you get the idea. He would always imply, when given the opportunity, that the 1 constant in this world is the fact that everyone has to eat, and it sure as hell beats digging ditches! He and his wife, my grandmother, were die-hard, Vermont bakers for 50+ years.
Here's to your morning doughnut Grampa and Grammy Cote.
2 comments:
I am imagining that scene, TJ, and getting very hungry. Would like that lunch and for dessert, one of Grampa and Grammy's oookies. Thanks for the memory- I do think of them often.
That very same, and wise, topic was brought up just the other night, on this side of the world. Perhaps we were having identical moments...I think we included teaching to that list of jobs that never go out of style.
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