“Years ago a couple came into [the French Laundry]. They said, “Thomas, this reminds me of –” and they gave a very emotional description of an experience they had at a restaurant in France.
And it’s about the memories we have –at the end of the day it’s our memories that we hold near and dear to us.”
–Thomas Keller

That’s really it. Isn’t it? There can be as many reasons why people eat and why they cook as there are people. The reasons we have in our youth is the never ending pursuit of “yummy”. We have our technical reasons, for nourishment as well for the art, for the thrill of creating.
But as we get older, as we begin to compile decades to look back upon, food becomes something much more near and dear. “Memories”, in time, is added to that list. That – invoking memories, more so than only feeding people, becomes the pursuit of the greatest of our chefs–chefs like Thomas Keller.
I was a little boy, my Grandma was babysitting me. I went bouncing into the kitchen,“Whatcha making Gram-ma?” She was pickling beets. Her pickled beets were delicious, a favorite little treat whenever we were there. The thing that struck me at the time was that she did it. I always knew she pickled beets, but my young brain never before grasped the idea that there was an actual process to it. I found the process interesting, but I found watching her doing what she was doing outright fascinating. She explained things beautifully, she had a knack for simplifying things—she was a gifted teacher. Sometimes I think I was her last student.

Thirty years later I was one of her pallbearers.

A few weeks after her death, my family and I had to face the heart-wrenching process of going through her worldly goods. My Aunt and my Dad approached my Wife Annie with Grandma’s old canning pot. “She knew you love cooking, she thought you would want this.”
For a few years, that old canning pot sat on a shelf in the corner of our basement collecting dust. Then one afternoon the snow came down. There was enough snow that school was called off. There was enough snow where Annie couldn’t even make it into work. When a Wisconsinite is unable to get through the snow, the snowstorm is a big deal. We were snowed in.
On a whim, Annie decided to make some jam. She had all the things she needed, including Grandma’s canning pot. What she created was simply delicious – I had forgotten how good homemade jam is. It didn’t take long for this to become a hobby for Annie. After the third or fourth batch, after the process was sinking in as second nature, something began to change with Annie.
Let me explain: my wife Annie is an office manager. My girlfriend Annie was a professional chef who had to prematurely end her career due to arthritis in her hands. As my wife began playing around with different flavors, I started catching glimpses of my girlfriend, the girlfriend I fell in Love with. The chef was waking up. Instincts honed in culinary school were beginning to fire back up. She added pickling to her list of newly discovered hobbies. The hobby was beginning to look like an obsession. I was finding myself standing in the middle of our basement, trying to find a place to put Annie’s latest batch.
My Mom’s timing couldn’t have been better, “Annie, you should try selling your jam at the Farmer’s Market.” Annie and I looked at each other, a shared light bulb appeared over our heads.
The markets have been a surprising success. Apparently my Mom and I weren’t the only ones who thought Annie might be on to something! It has been such a success that Annie is beginning to talk about how cool it would be to open a store, be a business owner…someday.
Then one day, she approached me, “I’d like to take a stab at your Grandma’s pickled beets recipe. Do you have any idea if her recipe is written down anywhere? And if it is written down, where?”
I sent a message to my Dad, who in turn sent a message to my Aunt.
It took some effort, digging through some old shoe boxes and recipe boxes, but she was able to find Grandma’s Pickled Beets recipe and she sent it Annie’s way.
Annie laughed as she read it over. Most of the basic ingredients were listed. Some quantities were mentioned, but for the most part, the recipe was a list of the finer points, side notes and reminders written by Grandma for Grandma. It turned out that most of that recipe existed in Grandma’s head.
Many beets were sacrificed in the process of Annie deducing what it was that Grandma did. There were a few failures along the way and constructive points were mentioned. Eventually Annie figured it out.

She knew she had it when she saw the expression on my Dad’s face as he bit into it.
Food Memories…my Dad was with his Mother again, and could barely see over the kitchen counter.
This was a recipe that we all thought was gone forever. Our family thought they would never taste her beets ever again. Through Annie’s talent, skill, and incredible effort, it was brought back to life.
Every year, Annie enters a few of her canned products in the Local Agricultural Fair. This year my Grandma’s beets won “Best of Show.” She could not believe it, she actually teared up a little when she realized it. It was one of the most meaningful victories in her life.

I’d like to think Grandma was smiling down at that moment too, sharing in the joy of that ribbon.
Once upon a time, my Grandma pickling beets was simply another memory. One of a million threads that make up the growing tapestry of my life. The memories were in deep storage, a dusty piece of parchment assigned with a filing tag. It was a blunt, straightforward story. “She was pickling beets, and they were delicious.”
When Annie began chopping up those beets, that initial scent hit me, and it became more than just one of many threads. The memory was alive, the story was alive. The scent transported me. I was a little boy again, my golden blonde bowl cut returned, I was wearing those hated corduroy pants that my Mom used to dress me in. I was riding in the back of Grandma’s mint-green Cadillac (powered windows—very fancy!). It was a rainy day, perfect for going to the library. She was a bibliophile, and when she looked at me, she saw a kindred spirit. We both Loved learning, we both Loved books. She let me browse the grown-up section, she let me check out as many books as I wanted and both of us would walk out of that building with an impressive pile.
When we arrived back at her house, my Grandpa greeted us. I still feel a little intimidated as I recall his short stout, powerful frame and those bear paws he called hands. He never went fully grey, even up to his final days, there was always a full head of salt and pepper waves complimenting his dark swarthy skin. I could hear a constant hint of agitation in his voice (even when he was having fun). This time he muttered something about “You’ll pick up all those books up when your Mom comes to pick you up. Right?”
“I will Grampa”
“John! Go easy on him! He hasn’t even made a mess yet! Let him sit and read!”
“Just making sure.” I managed to catch a hint of mischief in his barely perceptible grin. His wink gave it away. That was the only way I ever knew if he was just having fun with me.
I used to slip into the garage to admire his tool collection. I could see the handlebars of Dad’s old bike peeking out from the garage loft, wondering when I would be big enough to ride that thing.

I blinked. My eyes returned to the present. The girls are still playing nicely. Annie was done chopping the beets and was now beginning to cook them down. The new scent hit me hard before taking me back again.
My Grandma was on a stepladder getting the canning pot from a high shelf, the same canning pot that she would will to my wife.
All that swarthy coloration of my Grandpa was complimented by my Grandma’s color. She was white-skinned, white as typing paper. She had silver grey hair and silver-framed glasses. When she smiled, her entire face smiled. She never yelled at me, she only occasionally scolded me.
Besides the pile of books we got from the library, I was granted free reign of Grandma’s glorious encyclopedia set and all of the teacher’s edition textbooks she used when she was still a school teacher. I needed a break from it all, so I went bouncing into the kitchen. “Whatcha making Gramma?”
With the refined patience of a retired school teacher she explained exactly what she was making and how she made it. She never stopped working as she explained it to me. I can still see her shuffling way of walking, I can hear her lilting chuckle and how the kitchen light’s glare on her glasses competed with the twinkle in her eyes. I remember the humidity in the kitchen, the basket of jars getting lifted out of the canning pot and set on the counter, the two of us sharing a laugh over her steamed up glasses, the jar lids popping. “Can I try one?”
“Not these. They need to be left alone for a while. But I have some jars that are ready for eating downstairs, I can bring one of them up if you want.”
Despite retirement, she never stopped being a teacher.
I think I actually was her final student.

“At the end of the day it’s our memories that we hold near and dear to us.”…