Weekend Special

Weekend Special

We were all left speculating about who would inherit what from grandma’s estate, she had passed away a few days ago from a short illness. Grandma came from humble beginnings and was widowed at the age of 30 with 4 children to support. She never remarried for the fear of “What would happen to her children if she did?” Although grandma didn’t have much money, her husband left her with a restaurant and a moderate insurance policy that would sustain her for a few years, the rest she would have to make up as she went along. It was after the death of my grandfather that she became obsessed with the restaurant business. Grandma worked almost 18 hours a day, with her children sleeping in the pantry which eventually led her to adding a flat to the back of the restaurant. Grandma had amassed a small fortune during the last 40 years and we were all called to the reading of her will.

I chose not to speculate about her will despite secretly wishing that she would leave her restaurant to me. I had studied hotel management and had a relatively successful career in the city, however, recently I had a desire to come back home and open a small business of my own. I patiently waited during the reading of the will to hear who the restaurant would be left to, and to my delight I was now the proud owner of grandma’s restaurant. I feared I would get some resistance from the family, alas to my surprise everyone was fine with their lot and even encouraged me to take the restaurant to new heights.

I had to go back into the city, resign and sell my flat then make the move back home and take over the restaurant business. It was a stressful yet exciting period in my life, a journey that I wouldn’t exchange for anything in the world. When I got to the restaurant I realized the interior was a bit dated and the menu hadn’t changed in the last 40 years. I wanted to put everything I had learnt in the hotel industry to use. The support of my family was priceless with dad handling the building contractors and mum assisting with the new menu, there was no doubt that the business would succeed.

Despite all the effort, money and time my parents and I poured into the restaurant, we were slowly losing customers. It seemed like the customers preferred my grandma’s menu, some even asked for her specialties. Lucky for me I retained the staff that worked with grandma, but there were some secret recipes that she did not even share with her oldest chef.  What I did not have however, was her recipe books, and that was imperative to restore the restaurant to its former glory. I included some of the old recipes on the menu and the old customers started to roll in. Some started to ask for grandma’s weekend special mutton dish. Come hell or high water I knew I was to find that recipe or at least try to replicate it. 

The first place I searched was grandma’s bookshelf, which was filled with nothing but cookbooks. I started to go through every mutton recipe that she had highlighted or bookmarked. That day, I decided I would stay at grandma’s house and cook in her kitchen

using her utensils and spices from her pantry to get the authentic taste. I must have cooked about 20 dishes that day, yet nothing tasted remotely close to her weekend special mutton dish. It was 2 am and I was still experimenting with the spices and flavours when I came across a box of spice which looked like dry fenugreek, but had a label which read “secret spice”. The only instruction that it had was “ crush and add as garnish, mix well”.   I jumped for joy, this was it! I had found my grandma’s secret ingredient. The last dish that I made was delicious, yet it lacked that something special. When I added the “secret spice”, I felt like I hit the jackpot. I suddenly had flashbacks of sitting in my grandma’s restaurant surrounded by happy customers, all laughing and enjoying their meals, calling for more. I remember there were times when we had to ask the customers to leave because the food was finish or we wanted to close. That night I had enjoyed the food so much that I had devoured the whole pot, or was that the reason? I ended up sleeping on grandma’s kitchen table. I was grateful nobody else had been there to witness me waking up the next day.

I went back to grandma’s spice cupboard and looked up the “secret spice” only to find that it was nothing but dried hemp, which resembled fenugreek. What a sneaky old lady grandma had been, she kept this secret for 40 years, not even revealing it to her chefs or children. Now that I knew her secret, was I going to use it? I walked around for days weighing up whether I should or not. It suddenly struck me, I knew what I had to do to get out of this dilemma. That day I cooked up a big pot of grandma’s weekend special and served it to the staff and my parents. They all agreed that it should definitely be part of the menu once again.

A re-launch was advertised in the local newspaper and radio station, which was a raging success. We had long lines of people waiting and even more phoning for bookings for lunch or supper. On Saturday there were people willing to wait or even come back the next day for grandma’s weekend special. I had never seen the place so busy, not even when grandma was alive. The old restaurant was back to its former glory, just the way I’m sure my grandma had wanted. My grandma used to say “ if it isn’t broken there’s no need to fix it”. I suppose I should have taken heed to her words before I went in trying to change everything, only to change it back again. Today, like grandma, only I make the weekend special and nobody is any wiser.