cinnamon toast

It seems most memories of grandmothers include hours spent in the kitchen, secret ingredients, and recipes handed down in a hush. Having been raised by my grandparents, you'd think I’d be brimming with kitchen tales and secret techniques, but the truth is, my grandmother couldn’t cook.

The youngest of more than a dozen children, she went to college when very few girls did and studied to be an accountant when society (and her own family) told her she couldn’t. Despite having a successful husband, she was the bread-winner and wore the pants, which didn’t leave a lot of time for other grandmotherly pursuits like knitting and baking. If you needed help with your taxes, you could always count on gran, but if it was a cake in question, she was the first to grab the keys and shuffle into the car to buy one. A domestic goddess in her own right – you could literally eat off of our floors – often regaling me with stories of her own mother’s cooking in between working full time, keeping house, and the many trips and lessons involved in unexpectedly raising a granddaughter, when it came to the kitchen, it seemed she simply ran out of hours in the day.

Though Grandma was a very busy lady, she could always be counted on for ritual. One of those rituals included her pot of piping hot black coffee every morning at the crack of dawn and stacks of warm, buttery, cinnamon toast to lure me out of bed in time for the school bus. As I got older, and found myself plagued with mystery ailments to keep me home from school, the smell of cinnamon toast was enough to sway even a hostile teenager. The stacks were always hot, with dots of warm butter still settling into the thin triangles of toast and mingling with the spots of cinnamon sprinkled across the top. And the stacks were always bottomless. Somehow, grandma managed to keep the toast coming as long as I replied “Yes, please” to the offer of more. The toast was a slice of heaven. As much because she’d made it for me than anything else.

It's no surprise I still equate comfort with the smell of cinnamon. (Starbucks makes a mint off of me this time of year!). Most interestingly though, grandma's lack of time in the kitchen inspired me to learn to cook and bake.

Grandma turned 89 last month and still puts away a pot of coffee a day.