Pizzelles Tradition

This is about the time I remembered I still hadn't posted for Sunday, right before I drifted off to sleep. So I'm faking it.

Oh--just in case you ever get a Samsung Gravity phone... Don't attempt to use an SDHC card in it. Even though the user manual indicates that any micro-SD card will do, the phone will irreversibly reduce a 4 gigabyte SDHC to 104 kilobytes. No joke. Guess how I know this. Fortunately I got the card for $9.99, so only tossed $10.81 down the tubes.

Dad put together a big Thanksgiving Revisited meal, with meat leftover from the 20-pound bird he cooked Thursday. And there was STILL lots of meat left over!

After dinner I mixed up a batch and a half of pizzelle batter. Years ago, this is something Gramma and I did together several times each year during the holiday lead-up, both Christmas and Easter. We made all kinds of cookies, but pizzelles are my favorite. She and I would each have an iron going, and she'd tell me about her aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. So when she wandered out of her room after I'd added the anise oil (such fragrant stuff!) to the batter, I had to smile. She sat and silently watched me set up my own waffle iron and start stacks of finished cookies. I offered her one, but she refused. (I called her 'Gramma', and I realized the mistake as soon as it was out of my mouth. If I'd used her first name, she probably would have accepted it.)

Though she really wouldn't acknowledge me except to say that I'd taken the waffles off the iron too soon, she did stay at the table to watch. Mom turned on a CD of treasured hymns, and she sang along (kind of) with Alan Jackson. It's weird that the tunes of those songs have stuck with her to steadfastly. She sang loud, strong, and mostly on-key, at the slow, deliberate pace of the old ladies in the choir loft at St. Joseph's mission.

At some point mom got out Gramma's waffle iron, and she and I sat at the counter, while Gramma still observed and critiqued our efforts. She told Deena on the phone that we didn't know what we were doing (apparently she remembers that pizzelles are supposed to be the color of dark caramel, and ours were too white). After I cleaned up the pizzelle mess, I put all the accidental 'good' ones in the cookie jar for her.

On one hand it was nice to make pizzelles with Gramma. And it was nice to spend the time with my mom. On the other, I do really miss making pizzelles with my REAL Gramma. My kids barely remember her, but she's the Gramma who would never even think to stick out her foot and try to trip them.