Following her instructions, I joined her in the chopping and mixing. The magical smell of pickling spices wound around us and it wasn’t long before we were in another world. I was suddenly immersed in the hand-written recipes Mother resurrected from the back of the Hoosier cabinet–in the cheesecloth filled with mustard seed and pungent dill. As we followed the recipes her mother had followed and her mother before that, we talked–as the afternoon wore on I was listening to preserve the stories in my mind. ‘I can remember watching my grandmother and mother rushing around this same old kitchen, putting up all kinds of vegetables–their own hand-sown, hand-picked crops–for the winter. My grandmother would tell her stories about growing up right here, on this piece of land–some were hilarious and some were tragic.’ Pots still steamed on the stove, but Mother’s attention seemed directed backwards as she began to speak about the past. She spoke with a slow cadence, a rhythm punctuated (or maybe inspired) by the natural symphony around us.
– Leslie Goetsch –
Back Creek
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