My sister Mary from Minnesota joined us for thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time drinking coffee, laughing, and telling stories, sharing memories together. Mary is number three in the birth order, four years ahead of me, so we spent a lot of our childhood together. At one point in the festivities I simply gave her some sort of special look while I pointed up at the top of the hutch above our dining room table. I knew she’d remember. And she did. “ENCHILADAS!” she almost screamed with joy.
Up there on top of the hutch sits the copper skillet, the very copper skillet that our grandma Lydia used to make enchiladas; well, the enchilada tortillas. One by one she made them for our extended Hawkinson Christmas family gatherings, when in the late sixties and early seventies there might be thirty or forty of us crowded into their flat on Christiana avenue.
The issue was this, that because those enchiladas were so very delicious, Lydia needed to make, in my estimation, at least two hundred tortillas, one by one, on that little skillet, let alone all the fillings — hers were mildly, rather “Swedishly” seasoned ground beef, cheese, and brown beans. Like being faced with Nanna’s Maple Bars or Oma’s Rye Bread or a bag of Fritos (you pick your favorite food you cannot stop eating here), the over/under on these enchiladas was 5. I think one year my cousin Tim set the record at 12.
Of course Lydia didn’t have to do this — and how she got all those corn tortillas ready to cook up I’ll never know, but wish I did. She could have made it easy on herself; after all there were only two houses to the corner and Foster foods. But there she will ever remain, laboring with love, carefully cooking up hundreds of enchiladas for the generations to gulp down.
And of course, it’s not really about the enchiladas, but about the sacred memories of those childhood christmases, and so many who were there who aren’t anymore, and so many who I rarely if ever see anymore. There’s uncle Zen with his homemade jul must (root beer!). Aunt Barb, ever the preschool teacher, gathers us kids to tell us a Christmas story. Grandpa Eric, ever the stoic, sits in the corner with a sly and delighted smirk. My dad is in his early forties and full of life! And mom at some point gets to the piano and gets us all singing. My oldest Cousin Tom is back from Illinois Wesleyan; and my youngest brother Paul is a toddler, “Pauly-wally” in those days. What memories.
And, of course, it is about the enchiladas. They were scrumptious.
So what thing, what object is laying close by somewhere in your home, and what memories does it hold for you? What are those memories for you? Tastes and smells, faces and voices?
Love From Here
Peter Hawkinson
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