waking up in my gramma’s house

imagesCAAX5X2E One of the most joyous memories I cherish is waking up in the morning at my gramma’s house. I was an “only child” for the first 6 years of my life, in the years 1948 to 1954, and stayed at her house a lot. As I look back at it, those were the absolute happiest days of my childhood. Gramma would come in and raise the blinds, sit on the bed and always asked me, “did you say good morning to Jesus?”
I could hear the birds singing wildly in the sycamore trees that lined the street. Gramma would then escort me to the kitchen where I had my choice of anything she had the ingredients to cook. One of my faves was buckwheat pancakes, with butter and syrup. She always had warm milk with molasses, and cut up fruit in season. Sometimes she would make crepes for me, thin, egg-ey, sheets of deliciousness filled with fruit jam or jelly, sprinkled with powdered sugar, and devoured quickly! Sometimes she would spread sour cream on them, and drizzle apricot preserves on top, and then call them “cheese blintzes”. I’ve seen these in the freezer section of Giant Eagle, but can’t bring myself to buy them since gramma didn’t make them.

Sometimes gramma would make me homemade donuts,

which she cut with a metal cookie-cutter looking thing, cooked in a skillet full of grease, and then cooled on a wire rack. Later we would sprinkle sugar on them, oh my were they ever good! “Twistas” were another fried favorite, that was more of a hard, crunchy dough, rolled out and cut into oblong strips, then sliced down the middle a little bit, and then the two ends were pulled through the center and back out like a bow. These were so crunchy and delicious when sprinkled with powdered sugar! Oh boy, was I a lucky kid! Sometimes gram would make me potato pancakes which were so wonderful, shredded potatoes and slight bit of onion, then fried. We put applesauce on top of these delicious morsels.