I once told my kids that their taste buds change with every shoe size, in an effort to explain to them that their food tastes will change as they grow. They've always taken it very literally, and try foods they've hated in the past with curiosity every time they get new shoes.

Gretchen Ronnevik

Quotes from my kids, this balmy Sunday morning of 29°F: “Why do I have to wear a coat? It’s above zero!” “I just want to feel the sun on my skin. It’s amazing.” “I hope it’s this warm on Easter this year.” “Can we drive home with the windows down?”  Gretchen Ronnevik

 

My husband’s late grandmother, who kept her house so clean that a wild pheasant once flew into her porch window and broke its neck, took one look at that pheasant and decided to pluck it and gut it and cook it up for dinner. And she and her husband even voted in different political parties. I remember seeing them holding hands on the way to the voting booth saying, “We’re off to cancel out each other’s vote!” Gretchen Ronnevik

 

A home is where we rest and receive care, can be vulnerable, and find intimacy.

Gretchen Ronnevik

It’s an old story. A woman cuts off the ends of her ham before she sets it in the pan to bake it, just like her mother taught her. Her mother cut off the ends of her ham before she set it in the pan to bake it, just as the grandmother did. When asked why she cut off the ends of the ham before baking it, the grandmother replied, “Because my pan was too small.”

Traditions are often born out of necessity, and in moments of deep distress or overwork, it’s easy to seek comfort in nostalgia. As we often ask ourselves: How did the previous generations survive? How did they get everything done?

Everything is supposedly quick and easy now. The invention of “TV dinners” and the microwave revolutionized homemaking. When women aren’t spending hours a day preparing food, they have time to do many other things.

My grandmother was a working mother of seven. She worked as a psychiatric nurse to help support the family since my grandfather’s wages were modest as a church planter/pastor. She loved instant anything. To her, it was the helping hand she needed. She fully embraced the technology of food you could just buy and heat up.

My mom shared a similar attitude. After her divorce with my dad, she was sling-shotted into the workforce, and quickly worked to finish her degree so she could support our family. A latchkey kid of the 80s, I did my fair share of heating up a pound of ground beef to be ready for her to make Hamburger Helper when she got home from work.

As for me, I married a farmer. I have a garden. I had always wanted to be a homemaker. But once I became one, I had no idea what I was doing.

***

There was one conversation when my mother-in-law took me to the local farm supply store to get seeds for my garden. She was going to show me the ropes. She told me to buy the Green Arrow variety of peas. I asked what made the Green Arrow variety better than other varieties. She looked stunned by the question. “Because it’s what my mother-in-law told me to get.”

Thinking it was like the story of cutting off the ends of the ham, I said, “Are they more disease-resistant? Do they produce more pods? Are the peas bigger?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “It’s just what I was told to get. And it’s what I’m telling you to get. This is the best seed.”

I’m a curious, mischievous person, so I bought some of each variety of pea seeds. I would plant them all, take notes, and decide which pea I liked the best. It would be my little experiment. My mother-in-law was not amused. Why would I waste garden space like that? Just do as you’re told.

I spent the whole summer on my experiment. My conclusion: Green Arrow peas were totally the best for our soil. They produced longer pods, and were less work when it came to shelling. This saved me time in the kitchen. She was right. I had just wanted to know why.

Gretchen Ronnevik