Dairy for Dinner

A couple weekends ago, I visited my aging grandma in DC. And I mean really aging. Pushing 90, though she still drives a car. Conveniently (okay, I planned it), my dad was also in town to provide a generational buffer.

I left the District with a bouncy ball in my jeans pocket and an egg of color-changing Silly Putty at the bottom of my backpack. Both objects belong to my dad—who is, of course, normal dad age despite his penchant for small toys—and I wondered how long it would take him to notice their absence.

I inherit several things from my father: the unbreakable nail-picking habit, the incessant pot-stirring, the intellect (the vanity), the bad sleep and the urge to do something with my hands like bounce a jewel-toned rubber ball or squeeze Silly Putty deliciously between my fingers. In public. Quirks aside, I was glad to have him in DC.

The visit was fine, but when you only see an elderly person once or twice a year the mental and physical deterioration that should be—and realistically probably is—gradual becomes startling. Upsetting. Since my grandfather’s death almost two years ago, my grandma has sunk inward and started to forget things.

Her memory trips me out. Makes me think of post-modern literature classes in which we debated collective memory, parallel memory, memory loss, memory gain and memory re-construction. Makes me think of Sethe’s re-memory in the haunted house at 124. If such a thing is possible, I think I read Beloved almost more than I read The Awakening during my time as a women’s college English major.

When I got to the house my dad grew up in, I plopped down in my grandma’s funky sixties-era kitchen and waited for the typical “what will you eat?” Jewish grandmother question. Despite my pretzel rods and Corona Light on Amtrak (I’m as classy as I am health-conscious), I was famished.

The query came, but in a slightly altered form. “What will you eat: brisket or yogurt?”

We looked at each other. I cocked my head.

Interesting choices. Hot new fusion or red-alert sign of aging?

First off, I’m a vegetarian. Brisket is the meatiest of meats. She should know this. She does know this. I’ve been one for years. We’ve discussed it. She’s tried to convince me out of it.

“Remember, grandma, I don’t eat meat.”

Cringe. Telling your Jewish grandma you don’t eat meat is almost as bad as telling your Jewish grandpa who is also a red-meat-worshipping TEXAN that you don’t eat meat. He literally barks in joy when he eats a particularly fine steak. To date, that was one of life’s hardest conversations.

I shouldn’t feel bad about my tofu confession. She knows this.

“WHAT? Since when?”

“A few years. Since I OD’d in Argentina. Remember?”

“Oh. But you'll eat my brisket, right?” she asks, fanning the fridge to tempt me toward the carne.

She does make a mean brisket.

“Sorry.” I respond. I’m at the point in vegetarianism where my flesh-cravings have dwindled to disgust. Slow-roasted brisket is not an ideal reentry into the world of meat.

“Well,” she proclaims, hands on her hips. “At least Josh eats meat!”

Josh is my brother. Josh is 21. He has been a vegetarian since he was four. Since the neighbor kid Lucas (Mucas, as I hysterically called him) dissected a bird in front of him in their backyard fort, or so he says.

I dropped it, but I was worried.

Her memory is strange. Weeks ago on the phone, she recounted a story from third grade at PS89 off Flatbush in Brooklyn (what goes around comes around?) with an impressive amount of clarity for something that happened 80 years ago. She and her best friend Fanny got in trouble during cursive class and had to have a mark taken off their class board. The details were exquisite; she was charming. How could this same woman forget I’m a vegetarian?

“So how do you get protein?” she asks in alarm like her poor granddaughter might be on the brink of a life-threatening protein deficiency. I am not.

I pause and weigh my options over the drone of the still-ajar fridge. I can:

a) Explain that Americans are protein-obsessed, and that iron is the only real concern of a vegetarian diet.

b) List the various healthy proteins I regularly consume (nuts, beans, dairy, gummy bears, etc).

c) Just cave and eat the fucking brisket.

OR.

d) Brilliant.

“Honestly, grandma, I mostly get protein from yogurt! Didn’t you say you have some?”

She beams, and I am her compliant, beautiful granddaughter again. I added in the beautiful part.

Although I don’t want Activa yogurt for dinner even a little bit, the dinner debacle is thankfully behind us. For Jews, that’s not small change. My grandma will forget I don’t eat meat again in 15 minutes and offer me brisket (yeah, that happened), but in those brief minutes I get a crystal-clear story about how her romance with my grandpa developed overseas and over letters.

As long as I can avoid the brisket, that’s memory I’d rather get.