My wife’s step-bubbie passed away this week, and the whole family is abuzz trying to get to frozen Milwaukee in time for the funeral. Ali’s Bubbie Gittel was a tried and true Wisconsinite and raised a wonderful family of whom she could be proud.
While I only met Gittel in the latter part of her life, the thing that always stood out for me was the pride she took in cooking up some of her famous traditional Jewish holiday foods. Sometimes it was pound cake, or gefilte fish, or apple cake. Sometimes it was lemon meringue pie, or tongue. It didn’t matter what the dish was – Bubbie Gittel made it, with her two hands, with pride and care.
I was always so amazed at the nachas she would get sitting back and watching her extended family gorge themselves on her dish du jour. She’d tell you every step she took to make it, while her son Jerry would chime in that “Nobody makes this dish as well as my mother Gittel. Nobody!”.
I always tried to make sure I’d take an extra serving of whatever Gittel made, just so I could her hear fawn over me and tell me how glad she is that Ali married someone who wasn’t afraid to eat. As Gittel got older her hearing and her eyesight began to fail her. Occassionally she would get confused in the kitchen and put a little bit too much of this or a little too much of that into whatever she was cooking. It didn’t matter. We ate it anyway. It wasn’t about the taste or the flavours. It was about a wonderful lady who took pride in cooking for her family and loved to watch others eat what she’d made for them.
I always try and carry that same pride with me whenever I cook up a dish for my friends or family. Good food is so much better when you can watch someone you care about enjoy the results of your hard work. I’ll miss Bubbie Gittel holding my arm, patting me on the shoulder before she’d leave at the end of the night, telling me how much she loved cooking for me, and I hope she knows how much we all loved to share those meals with her.
What a beautiful tribute to a wonderful lady. Lots of love to you and yours.
What a beautiful way to remember her. I’m so sorry for your family’s loss.
Awwww… shucks, Gav. Sorry to hear this sad news. Happy you have such wonderful memories of what sounds like a wonderful woman. This is good. 🙂
I feel the same way about my 89 year old mother-in-law. I’m sorry for your loss.