food is our first language . then add words
Scroll down to read “The Carrot Lady”. It was first published two years ago - I came across it in the archives the other day and enjoyed reading it again. You will too!
I’m still traveling. One more sleep before I leave the USA. The leaving is always hard. The travel bit is always challenging. The kitchens and gardens and people are my reason for living. But the leaving is hard. We are a close family. Far-flung. I move easily amongst them.
I am worried for the children in the USA. The USA feels like it is sliding backwards - becoming nefarious and thuggish and unkind. I am worried for my adopted hometown Chicago with its wild generous artistic spirit being threatened with armed troops on the streets. And the shocked defensive quiet of the media. The children I have taught playing in those streets.
Surely this kind of take over is not happening in our beloved USA.
The American families both want me back often but I feel unsettled about what I am seeing as I travel. And about the spirit of the people. The fear they speak of. They are looking to the future feeling herded and weakened. Looking for hope and seeing little. But I suppose that is the point.
There is thunder here in Visalia this morning - I hear it roll invisibly through the garden. Dry thunder. Every day has been way over 100 and parched in that particular hell of a desert summer in suburbia. Yet the children still drag their stools into the kitchen and cut watermelons from the garden into tiny pieces then swim with abandon on the cusp of hysteria. Delight and joy as they hurl from one meal to the next.
I laughed when I saw that the carrot lady I wrote two years ago is prefaced with “I am still travelling … “ though I was in New Zealand when I wrote this one and now I am in California saying the same thing.
Sometimes I feel like a kite or possibly Mary Poppins gliding to and fro, landing with spoonfuls of sugar then poof - gone again.
The Carrot Lady.
"Tell us the story of the Carrot Lady, Grandma," they said.
They are like birds or butterflies or crickets - woodland nymphs, these children with my grandfather’s eyes and their great grandmothers curly hair: hovering, fluttering, their angels lazing in the shadows. Their wings - the children's wings - barely concealed. They skitter - multiple personalities all in a minute. Sun. Clouds. Sun.
In the old days, I begin, how did my days get old? I don't add. When Grandma was only little, not everyone had a washing machine like you do. I start this old story. I feel my age for a minute then forget how old I am again. No-one really knows their real age.
Even though this story starts with dirty washing, it is a food story. Most of the childrens Grandma stories have food in them. Food is a language children learn first. There are no words yet. Just food.
The food stories are reeled out like a cast of dubious characters in a short story that never ends. Can that even be a thing? Of course. Life does not end until it ends, right? It is the short in that sentence that might be an error.
As well as their first language, food is the love language of children, and the language of battle, so food stories are a natural progression. They'll know them. They will make them. Eat them. Discuss them. Change them. Then they will pass them on. Feed people. Nourish them. Talk food to future generations I will never meet.
“Like Grandma's World Famous in Wellington Creamy Dill Chicken Pasta”, I say.
"Did we eat that already, Grandma?"
"Yes - don't you remember, I made it for you last night."
"Oh, the Pink Pasta," they say - already there has been a discussion. The rename will last a generation, I think.
"Do you want to know how to make it?"
"No."
The tiny one is busy pasting a Pokemon tattoo on my wrist. "Can't we do that with warm water on the flannel?"
"No," he says, pressing the freezing cold wet flannel shaped like a cat's paw even harder onto my wrist, the wet towel covering the scrap of paper covering the inky cartoon character. Do they even call them cartoons anymore?
"But you could learn this recipe. Then you can make it yourself."
"I am only four."
"Four is a good time to start cooking."
"But I want to hear the Carrot Lady story."
"And you will. Just hold your horses. First pasta.
I'll be quick.
Grandma's World Famous in Wellington Chicken Pasta, now called Pink Pasta. The older child nods. I am launching ahead, I need to download this recipe into their ears before I can reach way back for the story of the Carrot Lady; though we - me and my siblings - used to call her the Washing Lady.
"OK. In a big heavy-bottomed frying pan, heavy-bottomed like your Grandma's." Their attention sparks, the fingers on my wrist pause - they look around hopefully to see if their Dadda, my son, heard the bottom joke. My words slide into the pause. "In the pan, sweat the onions and garlic in a little oil. When the onions start to stick to the pan, throw in a little wine from Grandma's glass, not too much Grandma needs her sustenance, then add butter and the chopped chicken until browned. Pour in a couple of cans of tomato. Once chicken is cooked down, add cooked pasta and cream. Sprinkle with dill and salt and pepper. Don't overcook."
"I don't like dill."
"You did last night."
"Oh."
"Get back to the Carrot Lady, Grandma."
"Ok. Fair point. In the old days, not everyone had a washing machine, let alone an electric washing machine."
"You said that bit already." The wet cloth is released from my wrist, and we both inspect the multicolored robot on my wrist.
"I gave you a robot one," he says.
"Huh. I thought it was going to be a Pokemon."
"I don't have any Pokemon tattoos," he says, mournful.
"Do you think I should get a real tattoo?" I ask.
"This is a real tattoo," he answers.
I continue to tell them that - in the old days - we did not have a dryer either. We did not even know anyone with a dryer. We did not even know dryers existed. Everyone hung their washing on the clothesline out the back of the wash house to dry in the sun.
My grandmother had a mangle that screwed between two tubs in her washhouse, and she would hand wash in one tub - using a big washing stick - put it through the mangle into the other tub with clean water waiting, then switch the mangle back to the other side and push the rinsed washing back through the rollers. Then she would cart the heavy load outside in a willow basket and hang it on the line. Then flip the basket over to dry too.
Later in the day, the washing was taken off the line, and it was laid back into the washing basket in a way that did not create wrinkles.
Then the next day was ironing day. So if the washing was ever so slightly damp, it made ironing the next day easier. Not exactly damp. More cold than damp - it is hard to describe. But you can imagine how that could go wrong. If you didn't get to ironing day on time.
Later in her life, my grandmother got a big round pale blue metal tub on legs that plugged in and would wash the clothes for her. We called it the wish-wish. She filled it with hot water from a hose that Pa attached to the hot tap. She added grated soap, and when she turned it on, a big paddle wished and washed back and forth to clean the washing. It even had a lid. If you forgot it, it would wash your clothes for hours. But there would be trouble if that happened. When it was done, you turned the paddle off, rolled it close to the big concrete tubs and with the trusty washing stick; hooked the clothes out one by one and stuffed them through the rollers between the tubs to wring out all the hot soapy water. When we got older and did the washing for Grandma, it was heavy work. In gumboots on the wet concrete floor. Our hair tied up out of the way of the rollers. Hands red from either hot water or cold water. Stick in hand. The washing stick was an important implement in the washing womans arsenal. It was strangely satisfying in the big wash house out the back of the house, surrounded in soapy steam, out of everyone's way. But I don't say all this to the children. It is too much information when we haven't even got to the carrots yet.
"So, we had a wish-wish like Grandma's, but my mother was not always well enough to do the washing. I think she was waiting until we grew up enough to help her. But in the meantime, we needed to have the clothes cleaned.
"What was your Mum sick of?"
"We had a car crash, and she was in bed for a long time."
"You mean the time you got found in a ditch with a scar on your face." The older child remembered this family story.
"Yes, that time. My Mum had scars on her face, too. That's why we wear seat belts now”. If ever there was a teaching moment.
"You were matching."
We all pause to think about this for a minute. I have never thought of us - my mother and I - as having matching scars. I mean, we did not match. She is long dead now, died young, a lot younger than I am now, and certainly not up to discussing matching scars moldering down there in her grave. I hate to think about dead people in their coffins with their hair and nails still growing. But I don't say this out loud either.
"So, the lady down the road did our washing for us. We would take the big willow basket of laundry down to her house on the corner. My sisters and I would put the washing basket in our red wagon and tow it down there, and she would return our clothes a few days later; washed, dried, ironed, and wrapped in brown butcher's paper with string, to keep the whites clean.
"We were not rich or anything - it was more about women helping other women. We would come home from school, and the Washing Lady was sitting under the window beside Mum's bed - the teapot cooling on the side table - chatting about this and that and listening to the sea breezes whisper in through the doors.
"The kitchen would be all cleaned up; she would have the next load of washing in the red wagon for us and always a glass jar of freshly cut carrots (they were like long orange sticks) on the table. They sparkled. All bright in our empty kitchen. They were a golden edible bouquet - to welcome us home. It was special - with our Mum in her bed most of the time.
"I don't remember the laundry lady very well - I remember her apron and brown shoes in stockings. She would gather up the afternoon tea dishes and run them under water and upside down on a towel, untie her apron, lift her coat onto her shoulders before snapping out her scarf and whisking it up high to cover her head and tie under her chin. She would clip out the door in her brown shoes - we would grab another carrot stick, my sister and I, and prepare to tow the wagon of clothes after her."
The children are watching me - I must have stopped talking at some point.
"Shall we make some carrot sticks? Who can find the best jar to put them in? What about that big tomato sauce jar from last night's Pink Pasta? Let's take off the label and clean it up. Reusing jars is cool, you know."
"We know, Grandma."
"Put an ice cube in the bottom of the jar, then fill it with water. I will cut them with the sharp knife then you can arrange them in the jar like flowers.
"Now, just a slight sprinkle of salt. Just a little."
"Why?"
"Why is not a question, you know."
"Why do you sprinkle just a little salt?"
"To give us sweet and salty. Sweet and salty is tasty. It's like life - sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is salty. Both work."
To hear it read by me aloud go ⬇️
I fly out to Australia tomorrow. Flying is a feast of reading and resting and movies. Without interruption. Have you read anything good lately? I am reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. It is a stunner.
I am looking forward to getting back to cooking for you and reading to you and gardening with you. I especially love our Lounge of Comments so do leave a comment.
And let me know if you would like me to read more of my posts aloud. And what’s on your mind today.
Take care and talk soon.
Celi
Interesting how easily you move around going such long distances. I am definitely NOT a traveler and an upcoming trip (via an airplane-----imagine that!) is already making me anxious. My son is going with me which increases the anxiety since he has unstable type 1 diabetes and recently lots of yo-yo's of blood sugar highs and lows. The trip is doable, providing a much quicker pace of getting there, a couple of hours vs a 13 hour drive. But also worrying about the time with my sister and family. It sounds as though she is coming down with altzheimer and I haven't seen her for about 4 years and not seen her family (who now all live nearby) in probably 10 or so years. So I don't really "know" most of them all that well. Anxiety on many fronts. It will be better once I get down there and see how the land lies.
TMI I know, but it's good to get some of this out of my head and onto paper. Makes it seem not so daunting somehow.
Victoria
That laundry description kicked my memory into gear. We had a twin tub washing machine with hoses that plugged onto the taps and another to let the dirty water out. My Ma had polio as a child and didn't walk well and wasn't strong. So we were deputised to take over some of the heavier domestic labour as soon as we were up to the job. Mine was laundry. We were six in the house, clean shirts, underwear and socks all round every day. We had no drier, just the UK (inferior) equivalent of a Hill's Hoist for drying everything, and collapsible wooden drying racks on castors to put by the fire when it was wet. And then I got to do all the ironing as well. I think the word you need for the not-damp, not-wet, but chilly sensation is clammy! 42 shirts, table linen, handkerchiefs. People don't realise just how much labour it truly is without mod cons. But I still hate using a dryer, and hang my laundry in the garage, in the shade so our strong sun doesn't bleach everything I don't want bleached.