Meet "Gramps"
- The Ladle of Love
- Jul 21, 2020
- 3 min read
My maternal grandpa, "Gramps", was absolutely wonderful and was also quite the gourmand. However, he rarely cooked at home, mainly because Grams ruled the kitchen (and everywhere else, to be honest!) When he did cook though, it was with an absolutely meticulously approach and was always delicious. One of my first food memories of him is a glorious technicolour one... quite literally. I was about 6 years old and was visiting Grams and Gramps for a few days. Like many children that age, I loved jelly. I loved the magic of making it, the wibbly-wobbly texture once it had set, the jewel colours and, of course, eating it. Both Grams and Gramps were highly authoritarian, but very loving, parents to their children... thankfully, by the time us grandchildren had arrived, the strictness had long since melted away and was replaced by joyful indulgence.
During this visit, Gramps took me grocery shopping and saw me eyeing up a gleaming packet of jelly as we passed it. Without hesitation, he told me I could pick out a few different flavours to make at home and so I happily did. The next day, Grams and Mama went out and Gramps and I decided this would be a good opportunity to make a jelly. What actually transpired was that we got a bit too caught up in it all and ended up making jellies of every colour. We filled up so many moulds, bowls and cups that when it came to setting them, we had to take everything else out of the fridge. Grams and Mama returned home and the two jelly chefs realised that there might soon be some undesired consequences to turning the fridge into a "jelly-only" territory. As the doorbell rang (Grams had not taken her key), I promptly chained the door from inside (with full backing of Gramps) and then opened it and told both of them that they could not come in... with Gramps giggling like the cartoon dog Muttley (google it) in the background. This gave me a blissful, but short, moment of authority over the two women that had bossed me around a lot in my first few years.
Unfortunately, with tempers rising in front of me, and giggles becoming less certain from behind me, I had to (reluctantly) open the door and let them in. Grams came in and went straight to the kitchen intending to make a cup of tea but walking into chaos instead. She looked around and saw the erstwhile contents of the fridge distributed everywhere and looked towards our optimistically smiling faces as she then opened the fridge door. She was met with the friendly and gently, undulating greeting of jewel-toned jelly upon jelly upon jelly. Unfortunately, and very perplexing to me at the time, this was not met with an equally friendly response from her... quite the opposite, in fact. Gramps and I got a telling off in absolute stereo from the two very unimpressed women. The fridge was immediately restocked correctly and some jelly was distributed to the neighbours (whether they wanted it or not)... much of the rest was eaten by us... for days. I don't recall ever having jelly at their house again after that! To fully appreciate the photo above, use a little imagination and add in a glowering Grandma to really set the tone!
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