Thirsty Thursday–farmhouse musings
My grandma’s noodles are better than your grandma’s noodles.
A family meal was not complete when I was growing up if Grandma Wilson did not make noodles. Roast beef, mashed potatoes, sweet corn, pickled beets, a pie or two–and homemade noodles. I now live in a world of fresh garlic, sushi and $17 bottles of beer, but in reality, none of that stuff is worth diddly compared to my grandma’s noodles.
Chillin’ in the nursing home, my grandma is retired from noodle-making, and this is a loss beyond comparison. A few years ago, I asked her to give me her recipe, as it hadn’t appeared in the Wilson Family Cookbook that we put together back in 1990. “Well, I don’t really have a recipe. I just make ‘em.”
Not good enough.
“Well, it’s just eggs, a little salt, and some flour.”
“How many eggs?”
“Well, it depends on how many’s coming to dinner.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!”
Rather than jot down the “recipe,” she agreed to let me help her make them. I felt like Burt Wolf taking notes, but I got the premise down so I could try my own. It took a couple of tries, but I’d now point out, with utmost modesty, that I make the second best noodles on Earth.
I made them this week, and being solid, Midwestern farmhouse chow, it made sense to talk about a farmhouse ale, Foret, from Brasserie Dupont.
Saisons make me smile. And this organic offering from the Saison Dupont crew did not disappoint. Earthy, spicy, fruity, perfumy–all these lovely aromas and flavors melded in a pleasing fashion. The perfect beer for the coming of fall, this harvest season, and this rural setting in which I now reside.
Not much of a beer drinker, I’m not sure that my granny would find it groovy that after this week, a beer would remind me of her. I care not. She can feel groovy knowing that I think of her often this winter, everytime I snuggle for warmth under the quilt she made me. What is important is that I remember her, and her noodles and her gentle nature. And that I honor her with a good life, hard work and love.
I don’t know what she calls it, but for me it’s brewvana.
__________
About the noodles: I’d share the recipe, but there isn’t one.
October 13, 2007 at 10:47 pm
I love this pic
December 23, 2007 at 8:58 am
[...] circa 1900 farmhouse first appeared on brewvana back in October in a Thirsty Thursday post called “farmhouse musings.” That beer, that field, the noodles I made that week and that photo make me think of my Grandma [...]