Cooking – Page 3 – Cynthia Reyes

What does home mean to you?

I’ve spent a lot of time at home these last two weeks. Yes, I went and overdid it with all the book stuff and landed myself in bed — again. But, hey – I’ve got a bed. And I’m safe at home. These days, that’s something to be VERY thankful for.

I asked a few writers to be guest-bloggers – to contribute very short stories, which I’ll post every so often. Here’s the question each had to answer: “What does home/belonging mean to you?”

Georgeina Knapp sent this lovely story:

THE ESSENCE OF HOME

Home.

The word is a floodgate that releases memories and emotions — at the most unexpected moments. Sometimes, all it takes is a sound, a smell, a sensation, a sentence, or even the sight of a simple household item.

And before you know it, you’re swept back. Home.

Home is an image. The image of the blue and white mixing bowl and the brown pitcher embossed in a basket- weave pattern, passed down from my grandmother. The sight of these objects brings me straight back home.

Grandmother's Bowl and Pitcher — Grandmother’s Bowl and Pitcher

Home to my childhood, and to my mother making pastry. I’d watch her measure the flour and lard into the bowl. Beside it, the pitcher held the ice-cold water that she slowly added, creating the basis of delicious pies of every kind.

The building that held the essence of home was an old farm house, its exterior covered in cream clapboard with green trim. It stood apart from neighbouring houses and faced open fields across the street, giving it a feeling of country although it was at the edge of the village. On the front lawn, there was a swing on each of the two large maple trees, a place for happy summer hours. In the back, there was a huge garden where my mother grew the vegetables she would preserve for us to eat all winter.

Home is sound. The sounds from our small barn. The white Leghorn chickens, the pigs and the cows.

The cows mooed softly as though having a conversation with each other, and called more loudly to get our attention when they decided it was time to be fed or milked. The pigs sounded like someone with a bad cold. They snuffled and snorted until one offended the other; then there was a loud squeal of protest. The sounds from the chicken coop ranged from the gentle clucking and chirping of contentment to the loud squawk of excitement.

Home is smell. The outdoor smell of animals, the damp earthy smell of the garden after a rain, and the sweet smell of flowers growing around the house.

The inside of our house was fragrant with the vegetables, fruit, jam and pickles my mother preserved during the summer, or food cooking in the oven on cold winter days. In the dark cellar downstairs, there was a different, but no less distinctive smell: a somewhat damp, musty odour which filled my nose whenever I ventured down there for coal or a jar of the preserves crowded on the concrete bench along one wall.

At Christmas the house was filled with the spicy aroma of special cookies baking and the fresh pine scent of the real Christmas tree we brought home from my uncle’s farm.

Home is sensation. The warmth of family and friends who gather for a cozy evening, and the warmth of the big kitchen range that burned coal and wood.

In winter, we loved the heat from that big range. We put our wet mittens to dry on the open oven door and set our boots under the stove.

In summer that same heat could be unwelcome: even on the hottest days, the fire would have to be lit to cook our meals.

On summer nights when the upstairs bedrooms were too hot to sleep in, my mother would spread some quilts on our front lawn and we would sleep there for a few hours until the house cooled down enough for us to return to our beds.

Home is a single sentence: words from my father.

I’ll always remember how my father summed up the feeling of home one winter evening. He and I were coming back to the house from the barn and he lifted me up to look through the kitchen window. He asked me what I saw. I told him I saw mom taking something out of the oven. And that the table was set for supper and a freshly made pie was on the cupboard.

My father said, “That’s the best thing of all: coming home and there’s somebody there”.

I was just a small child, but I knew what my father meant, and I agreed.

Note from Cynthia: Thank you, Georgeina!!

Photos by Hamlin Grange

Way out of reach is where the biggest, sweetest fruit always grow. The sweetest guava hangs way out over the middle of a deep pond. The perfect apples are at the top of the tree.

And far below them you stand, wishing you had wings.

That’s what I’m thinking as I gaze up at a bunch of apples near the top of our big old apple tree. A heritage variety, Wolf River, this tree and the one next to it are well over a hundred years old, taller than our two-storey farmhouse, and still going strong. When ripe, the apples are as big as grapefruit, fragrant, with an unusual spicy-sweet-tart taste. Perfect for pies.

Last year, there were hundreds of ripening apples to choose from: enough for birds, squirrels and humans to peacefully share.

But these trees only bear heavily every other year. Since this is their “off year”, it’s a race against the wildlife to get at the fruit first.

If we’re lucky, the wind blows some off the trees in early October. These windfall apples aren’t ripe, but make delicious filling for crepes. Just cut off the bruised parts, slice up the rest and drop it into a hot pot, along with brown sugar, cinnamon and butter. But the very best and biggest apples are those that ripen on the tree. Just two of them could make one pie.

“I’ll use the tall ladder to get them all in a week or so”, my husband says.

“It won’t be tall enough,” I reply.

“Don’t worry,” says my brave guy. “I’ll use the tall ladder, AND a long stick.”

Several days later, I go outside and look straight up at the treetop. The apples are still there, but something doesn’t look right, somehow. It’s like there’s a big dark bundle right above a bunch of apples.

“You should go take a look,” I tell my husband when I come back inside the house.

He goes outside. He comes back and says: “That’s the biggest squirrel nest I’ve ever seen.”

It figures. If you’re a squirrel who likes apples, it makes perfect sense to build your home right at the source of your food.

Squirrels have to eat, after all. But …

“You little creeps!” I hear myself yelling up at the nest.

On the Internet, I learn that squirrels are notorious criminals. They steal pears, peaches and apples. They build their nests right in the trees and get to the fruit before the humans can. This makes fruit tree owners so furious, some have become criminals themselves – moving from trapping to illegally shooting the squirrels. It’s war out there.

Meanwhile, our apples have stopped falling. The remaining ones get bigger and riper every day. I can’t understand why the squirrels haven’t got them yet.

Or my husband, for that matter. There’s no sign of a ladder or stick, or a husband getting ready to pick apples.

But — what if the squirrels have been watching the apples just like we have? Just biding their time? What if they gang up on my poor husband when he’s tottering on a tall ladder, aiming a long stick at the apples right below their nest?

“Let’s just pick the ones you can reach with the stick,” I say one early evening.

Surprisingly, he’s able to pick most of the apples, except for the ones nearest to the squirrel nest. He looks up into the tree, eyeing that bunch wistfully.

“They’re perfect apples,” he says, shaking his head. “Just perfect. Pity…”

We decide to leave them to the squirrels and be thankful for the ones we already have. I’m packing the apples into a basket, when I hear, “What the hell…!”

And an instant after that: “There’s a raccoon up there,” he says, pointing, voice raised. “An enormous raccoon.”

He’s right. It is huge. A grey-black thing, all fur and eyes and tail, looking remarkably comfortable, almost curled around a tree branch. Seems there’s more than squirrels eyeing those apples.