Grandma's secret

Grandma always said her secret ingredient was hiding in her recipe box, but I never saw it. Her box was a perfect cube with a gold latch on the front. Mostly orange, yellow and green, it showed a woman smiling down at a bowl in her arms while she stirred with a wooden spoon. Grandma said she was smiling because she knew the secret ingredient, but she was sworn to secrecy never to tell a soul.

Just being in her kitchen was a treat for me in my younger years, but peeking in that box whenever grandma wasn’t looking was my little secret. I was sure one day the woman would reveal herself and I would be the new secret keeper.

Sunday’s were always family dinner at grandma and papa’s farm. The dirt of the driveway swirls behind my car now, bringing a heady scent of dirt and manure. The same potholes in the same place, I try to avoid them by swerving, but I’d just hit another one. You should have seen us kids when dad didn’t try to avoid them. That old station wagon was like a tank. It could handle any old pothole. I can still see dad’s eyes, smiling into the rearview mirror as we bounced around on squeaky springs in the back trunk seat sitting backwards. “Yahoo?” we would yell. Mom took it all in stride, bouncing around with her jello in her lap and her tall hair hitting the ceiling. “John, slow down!” she’d tease, but she was smiling too.

I recall vividly the day I first figured out a few words on those recipe cards. It was like someone had revealed the secret of magic to me. Before that those recipes were important simply because they held grandma in them. Smears of butter and sauces touched every card, hand written in pencil by grandma, but I could tell which ones she made the most by finding the messiest ones.

Letters became words when I was 6, and I recognized the word butter on a recipe for the first time when I pulled one out, sneaking one day to find that secret ingredient again. My eyes became big and my smile gave me tingles down my arms. I quickly pulled out recipe after recipe and laid them on the laminate kitchen table, looking for more of the word butter. As it would turn out, many of the recipes had butter in them. No doubt it was why my grandma’s meals tasted so good, but possibly why I grew to have a thing for butter.

Sitting at her table now, the box now inherited by me as the eldest granddaughter, I feel that same tingle as I ready to open that box. Not a child anymore, and it overwhelms me as I realize all at once grandma is gone and so are her memories. I may never know the secret ingredient. Perhaps I was never meant to know, but undoing the gold latch brings back the scents of her kitchen and the same feeling that I may find out this time. The stirring woman still smiles at me when I flip her up and pull out the first recipe.

The catalog of ingredients and smears have not changed and I drag my finger down the list. At the bottom grandma has left her usual initials: SI, which is where she said that secret ingredient goes.

“You guys, have you ever wondered about grandma’s secret ingredient?” I ask my cousins in the room. They are going through her drawers and cabinets with the kind of reverence grandma deserves. I know everyone says this about their grandmas, but she was the kindest, sweetest woman I had ever met. She welcomed me into her kitchen from a tender age when I had to stand on a step stool to see what she was making. She never said no to stirring or tasting, nor scolded for the messes I made, and I know I made many.

“Secret ingredient? I never heard of one.” Marissa says as she lays out all the serving dishes on the counters.

“Me neither,” Josie shakes her head.

For a moment I feel like the most special granddaughter of the bunch. Perhaps she only shared that with me.

“When you were cooking with grandma, didn’t she tell you that the secret ingredient in her recipes was hiding in her recipe box?”

“I didn’t cook much with grandma. I was always outside trying to get papa to let me ride that old mare, Shayna,” Marissa tells us. “Besides, with my dirty hands and boots, grandma would have shagged me back out that screen door,” she laughs.

“I don’t really remember cooking with grandma, just eating. Do you guys remember the dolls in the attic? I wonder if they’re still there?” Josie reminisces. “Anyway, I don’t think I was patient enough for cooking.”

I finger a few more of the recipes and a giggle escapes my lips as I see the word butter on so many of the cards. “That old butter churn. Did you see it around here?”

“Yeah, I saw it in pantry. Maybe that’s why I spent so much time outside. I did not like the indoor chores and grandma always wanted me to churn butter,” said Marissa.

“Maybe butter is the secret ingredient?” said Josie.

“It can’t be because it’s on the ingredient list. Grandma said it was this SI in this empty space at the bottom.”

“Maybe it’s love,” snickered Josie. “I’ve heard people say that the secret ingredient in family recipes that make it taste so good is love.”

“Perhaps, but it just doesn’t feel right,” Sarah paused. “Maybe she was just teasing and making it a game with me.”

The cousins looked thoughtful and returned to their sorting and choosing. Their mothers had already had their time to go through grandma’s things and now it was their turn. Perhaps she should help with the sorting too, but she was too lost in thought. Sarah slowly pulled out each recipe until the last one was on the table. At the bottom she spied a taped note with her name. She picked off the tape carefully so as not to tear the paper. Although memories of grandma would always be precious, this felt like one of those moments that was not to share.

Sarah excused herself to the bathroom with the note hidden in her hand. She was shaking by the time she got there. This could perhaps be the last thing her grandma would have said to her. It felt like a moment to cherish between her and grandma, and she paused and took a deep breath before opening it.

SI: Sarah Ingalls. It was always you. You were the secret ingredient. Remember me by making my recipes and sharing your meals with others. Love you always, Grandma.

Sarah tucked it in her pocket. Her humble spirit told her that her cousins had their own special moments with grandma, but right then, she felt like her one and only.