I’ll be attending my grandma’s funeral today. In addition to being an exceptional, loving woman, Ethel Bloom was a major inspiration for this blog. That’s why I thought it only fitting that I share a few things about her here.
From my Grandma Bloom, I learned:
- When life gives you bruised apples, you make apple sauce. (And hers was always the best–courtesy of a Foley Food Mill, I’m told.)
- When your kids pick a pint or two of wild blueberries, you make a blueberry pie. (Especially when you’ve sent them out to collect the berries.)
- On the rare occasions you treat yourself to a lobster (usually her New Year’s Eve party with two adoring grandchildren), you darn well better get all the meat out of that crustacean–even the legs.
- And, as I wrote in the introduction to my book, eating a chicken drumstick meant finishing with a clean bone.
Based on the above, it came as no surprise when my aunt told me today that my grandma used to make her own pickled watermelon rinds. The idea of finding a use for watermelon rinds is beautifully sensible, but pickling your own takes it one step further.
We had it good with Grandma Bloom. She expressed love through food–often Toll House Cookies–but also through words, hugs and kisses. Her fridge was always filled with leftovers (because nothing was too small to save), but her heart was ever more full.
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