Megan Stielstra's Blog

Our first stop was Gainesville, where we surprised Christopher’s grandmother on Mother’s Day which was maybe the coolest thing in the Universe: to see her open her front door and there’s her Chicago grandson holding flowers! She was so happy and he was so happy and yaaaaay, mothers! HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, MOM! AND GRANDMA! AND MARILYN AND ELSIE AND JUDITH! AND ALL THE OTHER MOTHERS I KNOW LIKE JULIE AND COURTNEY AND JEN AND ANNIE AND CHRISSY AND ALMOST WANDA AND MARGARET AND MANAO AND SUSAN AND ANYONE ELSE I’M FORGETTING! YOU ALL ARE SUPER-GREAT! We had yummy Texas breakfast (biscuits and gravy, eggs and bacon and sausage and coffee) with her and C’s Aunt and Uncle (he works for FEMA and showed us photos of some of the rebuilding efforts in Louisiana and Jackson Missippi—heartbreaking. Homes leveled. Cars smashed and thrown into living rooms, STILL. Years later. “You don’t see any of this stuff on TV anymore,” he said. “It’s a shame. It’s BEYOND shameful.”) and cousin Maegan who’s a really great photographer—hopefully she’ll visit us in Chicago this summer! and then, after breakfast, something very important happened:

Christopher’s grandmother taught me how to Pasties, proper Texas-style (which is a sort of pot pie with onions and cabbage and carrots and peppered pork and butter and potatoes and it is YUMMY).

This is Christopher’s favorite food in the Universe. I think my learning how to make it FROM HIS GRANDMOTHER is a sort of initiation, the same thing as Christopher going bow-hunting with my dad and Uncles AND! I think I passed! I stretched dough and layered vegetables and even, afterwards, I made apricot-oatmeal squares and she said I crumbled the dough JUST right and we talked about picking blueberries and Christopher’s grandfather and I felt so lucky to have that time with her.