TERRE HAUTE — I can still feel her finger nudging my shoulder, her voice quizzing my drowsy brain.
“Mark. Mark. Mark. What’s the score?”
Back then, I spent many evenings with my girlfriend at her grandparents’ home, where that brown-eyed beauty stayed after starting college. Her grandma had only a few house rules for me, one of which was to stay awake. My work shifts began before sunrise, and 15 hours later, my girlfriend, her grandma and grandpa and I were often lounging in their living room, watching Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics on TV.
By the middle of the third quarter, my eyes — totally against my will — occasionally grew heavy. And the instant my top eyelid made contact with the lower lid, Grandma Cel somehow knew.
“Mark. Mark. Mark. What’s the score?” she’d ask.
Sometimes, I’d guess — “Celtics by double digits. Bird’s unconscious. How many fouls does Parish have?” If I nailed it, she’d give me a “you-got-lucky” grin. But if I couldn’t answer correctly, it was time for Mark to go home. I respected that, and her.
Grandma Cel and I had some important things in common — a dry sense of humor, loyalty to the Cincinnati Reds, and a deep love for her granddaughter, my girlfriend, who became my wife.
Memories of Cel remain close in our lives, and little things trigger those reminiscences. The savory scent of real bacon sizzling. (She and Grandpa Joe kept a plate of it on the kitchen counter almost 24/7.) Sliding patio doors. (Years later, when my wife and I started a family, our boys were constantly running in and out at Cel’s place.) Old Chevy trucks. (It’s a long story, but when Joe convinced me that he and I could replace the front end of my crash-mangled pickup in their garage, let’s just say Cel kept the project moving ahead of schedule.)
And, of course, cranberry salad at the holidays.
They introduced me to that tangy confection, and I’m hooked. Its creation is an event, not a night-before-Thanksgiving rush job. And as Grandma Cel taught my wife, the right way is the only way to make cranberry salad. And that’s the way it happens in our house now.
The ingredients include unpeeled apples and oranges, sugar, walnuts, Cool Whip and, of course, cranberries. Each element is crucial, but the cranberries must be ripe, yet unbruised. Ripe, yet not too expensive. Grandma grew up during the Depression, and made purchases carefully. In Cel’s later years, my wife shopped for the salad ingredients, and if the berries’ price and look weren’t just right, she knew to look elsewhere.
The equipment matters, too. Cel used a cast-iron, hand-operated meat grinder to churn the fruits into tiny, tasty pieces. The grinder attaches to the edge of a table with a clamp. The juicy berries-apples-and-oranges mixture falls into a bowl below. When my wife was a kid, Grandma mixed up the oranges and apples first, so her granddaughter could get a glass of the sweet juice before draining it and adding the tart cranberries.
Then the sugar and chopped walnuts are stirred in, by hand.
By that point, the kitchen smells like a fruit-smoothie shop. It’s marvelously intoxicating.
Finally — and most importantly — the salad is placed in small bowls, with enough room at the top for a 2-inch layer of Cool Whip. The multiple bowls are vital, because Grandma Cel’s cranberry salad is meant to be shared. She routinely delivered bowls to friends on Thanksgiving eve.
(The temptation is to eat it immediately after it’s made. But Orson Welles’ old TV commercial slogan — “We will sell no wine before its time” — applies to cranberry salad, too. The prime mixing day is the Monday before Thanksgiving. Like wine, it gets better with age. Given time, by the big day, the sugar has dissolved and jelled with the fruit and nuts.)
The last step is the cleanup. Stuff gets nice and sticky. Cel always emphasized the need to thoroughly dry the grinder before it got put away, so it wouldn’t rust before the next Thanksgiving. She’d tell my wife to rub a thin layer of vegetable oil over it, then store it carefully.
Cel’s granddaughter still follows her advice, still uses that same grinder, still makes their cranberry salad the same way — the right way — and still shares it with others. This past Monday, she did it all again, with our daughter and our son’s girlfriend helping. The aroma of cranberry salad filled the house. It felt like holidays were on the way. Grandma Cel would be smiling … and probably poking my shoulder to make sure I was awake enough to sample this year’s batch.
I’m thankful for that.
Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.
Grandma Cel’s Cranberry Salad
Ingredients:
3 12-ounce bags of fresh cranberries
3 red delicious apples
3 oranges
3 cups sugar
11⁄2 cup chopped walnuts
8-ounce container of Cool Whip
• Rinse cranberries and discard any that are bruised. Drain. Cut apples and oranges into wedges. Leave skins on fruit. Hand grind all fruit and put in large mixing bowl. Mix sugar and walnuts into ground fruit. Stir thoroughly. Put salad mixture into a bowl that has a lid. Smooth the top surface and cover. Refrigerate for 2 days to allow sugar to dissolve well. Before serving, spread a 11⁄2-inch to 2-inch layer of Cool Whip over the top. (Serves 12 to 15 people.)
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