Bestemor’s House
By Amanda Bensen

Thanksgiving always makes me think of Bestemor, my Norwegian-blooded grandmother. Throughout my childhood, Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Vermont was less than an hour’s drive from ours. It was like my second home, and was often the center of family gatherings for holiday meals. She sold it this year, so I’m feeling nostalgic.

Grandma's house held wonders like Fluffernutter sandwiches. Courtesy of Flickr user Ibán.

My brother and I were especially obsessed with the cupboard to the left of Bestemor’s kitchen sink, since we knew that’s where she stashed the jar of “candy buttons” and other sweets. We knew she wouldn’t let us leave without a treat in hand. And we knew that if we professed hunger, she’d rummage around and find ingredients that we’d never sighted in the aisles of the health-food coop where our mom shopped: bread as soft and pale as a cloud; peanut butter that somehow didn’t stratify; and magically gooey marshmallow Fluff. In other words, the makings of a “Fluffernutter” sandwich. (So, so unnatural, I know. But I still kind of want one.)

At Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, my brother and I feigned annoyance while basking in the adoration of our visiting younger cousins, imaginative girls who were always eager to involve us in their games. Just when we were beginning to tire of tossing stuffed animals down the three-story laundry chute, Bestemor would call out, “Kommer, spiser!” (“Come, eat!”)

There were never quite enough chairs, and an uncle or two usually ended up awkwardly perched on an antique bench that had a reindeer skin draped over the back of it, presumably a souvenir from one of Grandma and Grandpa’s many trips to visit relatives in Norway over the years. They took me with them on one of those trips when I was sixteen, and Grandma and I returned a few years later, after Grandpa died. I didn’t expect it from a woman in her late 70s, but Bestemor was an ideal traveling companion—spontaneous, open-minded and prone to fits of giggles.

Before the family ate, we’d all hold hands and bow our heads while someone—usually my father, a pastor—said a blessing. That was in English, of course, but sometimes we also recited the traditional Norwegian “grace” that was written out on hotplates, potholders and wall hangings around the house: I Jesu navn, gar vil til bords, Spise drikke pa ditt ord.… I loved the way the round, rhyming words felt on my tongue.

Finally, it was time to eat. The food wasn’t particularly outstanding, in retrospect, but I was always impressed by the sheer volume of stuff on the table. A grocery-store turkey or glazed ham was the standard main dish, joined by several classic casseroles: sweet potatoes topped with mini-marshmallows, green beans topped with French’s “fried onions,” and a strange but tasty concoction of pineapple chunks baked with butter and crushed crackers. There were salads, sort of: a fruit salad made from frozen berries and scoops of sherbet, a green salad of mostly iceberg lettuce, and Jello “salad” involving slices of bananas or mandarin oranges. There was a basket of “brown and serve” dinner rolls and a butter dish, which never seemed to be in the same place at the same time; and a gravy boat that was always getting separated from the mashed potatoes (which were always my favorite, and may have actually been homemade).

Though most everything came from the freezer, a can or a box, Bestemor served it all with elegance, getting out her best tablecloth, silverware and fine china. There was always some sort of seasonal centerpiece involving real candlesticks, which the kids fought over extinguishing with an old-fashioned brass snuffer after the meal. There were cloth napkins bound with wooden rings, and blue-tinged glassware filled with sparkling cider or cherry ginger ale (though only after the kids had finished a requisite glass of milk).

Grandma B.

For dessert, a parade of pies emerged, fresh from the supermarket baked-goods section (or frozen and baked at home, Marie Callender-style): pumpkin, pecan, cherry, and often two types of apple pie, always with Cool Whip to garnish. I liked to cut the tiniest slice possible of each one so I could try all of them.

After the table was cleared and the dishwasher loaded, the adults would play Uno or Trivial Pursuit and chat while the kids watched a movie in the other room. It was dark by the time everyone found their coats, boots, hats and mittens and stuffed themselves back into their cars. On our way out, we would practice the few Norwegian phrases we knew, to Bestemor’s delight: “Mange takk! Takk for maten!” (Many thanks! Thanks for the food!)

“Kjøre sikkert!” she would tell us. (“Drive safely!”) And of course: “Jeg elsker deg!” (“I love you!”)

The ritual continued as we backed out of the driveway, waving back at Grandma and Grandpa’s silhouettes in the doorway and honking until they were out of sight.

Jeg elsker deg ogsa, Bestemor. (I love you, too.)

This sweet story comes to us from Lori Berhon, a self-described “fiction writer by vocation; technical writer by profession” based in New York City.

Fondue Memories
By Lori Berhon

At my freshman orientation, the culinary high note was that a former alumna had set up a fund to ensure that every student, lunch and dinner, had access to fresh salad. In other words, an iceberg lettuce fund. In those days, you couldn’t find arugula unless you were Italian and grew it in the yard. Julia Child was just wrapping up The French Chef, and easy access to things like balsamic vinegar, chutney, or even Sichuan cuisine was still a couple of years in the future. In short, the American Food Revolution hadn’t yet begun.

Hopping from room to room, looking for likely friends among the strangers, I noticed that a girl named Susan and I had both considered a few books from Time-Life’s “Foods of the World” series important enough to drag to school. I had The Cooking of Provincial France, The Cooking of Vienna’s Empire and another about Italy, I think. (I know one of Susan’s was Russian Cooking, because we used it the following year to cater a dinner for our Russian History class…but that’s another story.)

Courtesy of Flickr user Denis Dervisevic

It was astounding to find someone else who thought reading cookbooks was a reasonable hobby, not to mention someone else who understood what it meant when the instructions said “beat till fluffy.” Susan and I became firm friends. Over the course of our college careers, we swapped a lot of recipes, talked a lot of food and teamed up to cater a few theme-heavy history department functions. But to this day, if you ask either one of us about food and college, the first thing that comes to mind is our favorite midnight snack: chocolate fondue.

If you were in New York in the 1970s, you’ll remember the fad for narrowly-focused “La” restaurants: La Crepe, La Quiche, La Bonne Soupe (still standing!) and of course, La Fondue. Eating at these, we felt very adventurous and—more importantly—European. In this context, it shouldn’t come as a thunderbolt that my school luggage contained not only a facsimile of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, but also an avocado green aluminum fondue pot, a set of forks and an illegal electric burner.

The “illegal” bit is crucial to the experience. Our dormitory was built in 1927 and, at the dawn of the consumer electronics age, hadn’t yet been rewired. We were told not to use hair blowers in our rooms, and we were not even supposed to possess such things as burners, toasters, irons, televisions…and certainly not refrigerators. We were supposed to avail ourselves of the common-use shelf on each floor, which had an electric burner and a grounded plug. No one listened. Everyone had some sort of appliance for playing music, and I had a television, as I considered myself constitutionally unable to study unless seated in front of one. Susan had a bar-sized refrigerator that masqueraded, under a tablecloth, as a storage box.

I can’t remember how it started, but the routine was always the same. Throughout the term we kept boxes of Baker’s chocolate and miniature bottles of flavored liqueurs—Vandermint, Cherry Heering—in the metal safe boxes nailed near the doors of our bedrooms. When the craving would strike, we spent two or three days filching pats of butter (that’s where the refrigerator came in), stale cake and fruit from the school dining hall. It was pure forage—whatever we found, that’s what we’d be dipping. The anticipation was intense.

When we finally had enough, we would muster our ingredients in one room or the other late at night, after studying to whatever goal we had set. While the chocolate and butter and booze melted together in my one saucepan, we cubed the cake and fruit. The smell of melting chocolate would snake out of the transoms (1927 dormitory, remember), driving everyone else who was awake in our hall half-crazy.

We listened to Joni Mitchell, stuffed ourselves with chocolate-covered goodness and talked for hours, the way you do in college. Afterward, we’d have to wash out the saucepan and the pot in the bathroom’s shallow sinks, with the separate hot and cold taps—not so easy, but a small price to pay.

There are photos that capture that memory. We sit on the floor by the painted trunk that, when not in active service between campus and home, did duty as my “coffee table” and held the fondue pot. There’s one of each of us, looking slantwise up at the camera while carefully holding a dripping fork near the pot of molten chocolate.

A couple of years ago, some friends pulled together an ad hoc dinner after work one night. The host had a brand new fondue pot and wanted to put it to use. Stepping up, I found myself in her kitchen, melting chocolate and butter and raiding her liquor cabinet for an appropriate soupcon. The smell floated out into the living room, drawing everyone near. People picked up their forks and speared strawberries and cubes of cake, and we sat in a circle dipping chocolate and talking for hours.

Don’t you love when your college education pays off?!