Two Sides of the Family--One Building

This thread has filled my head with memories. I'm trying to sweep out the bad ones. My mind keeps returning to the wonderful apartment we lived in. Since my parents spent half the year in Florida, it was mine a lot.

It was through the apartment that I learned how architecture can enhance a person's sense of well-being. How grace and space can make living in a place better than it otherwise would be.

One of the reasons I hated being chased out of my home was that apartment. I LOVED that physical place. Loved that apartment. My parents did, too. And most people who saw it, loved it. It was built for luxury, and it was luxurious.

No matter who came to visit, no matter how many people came to visit, my mother dragged everybody into my parents' bathroom to see the shower. Yes, the shower. (My bathroom had the bathtub--one of those big ones with legs.) It was a stall with three sides of beautiful mosaic tiles. On three sides were spigots at various heights. There was also a huge overhead showerhead. You could turn on just the spigots (fun), just the overhead (nothing special) or both--wunderbar.

What else am I remembering? Being on the monkeybars in a playground near our tenement apartment. My father would stand watch to make sure I didn't fall and break my head open. When he was there, I could do all kinds of tricks and fancy upside down stuff. When he wasn't there, I couldn't do that stuff. I guess his presence gave me confidence.

Now I'm remembering my grandmother's waist long hair and how she would braid it and put it up every day. When she entered a nursing home, they lopped off her hair--too much trouble. I went to see her. When I saw what they had done, I cried.

Sabbath (shabbas) dinner (Friday nights) at my maternal grandparents' house.

Everything started with my grandmother saying the prayers. She lit candles. Then we sat at the dining table. I had to sit on a Manhattan phone book for a while. I considered it a major triumph when I graduated to a Bronx phone book (much thinner). I was getting to be a big girl. I liked it best when I didn't have to sit on any phone book.

Every meal, Shabbas or otherwise, started with my grandfather having a glass of schnapps. Whammo. No one else drank alcohol--except on Passover, when even the kids partook (and got snockered).

Then the food. Chicken soup with homemade noodles, kreplach (Jewish wontons), or matzo balls (even when it wasn't Passover). My grandmother's matzo balls were like lead. Heavy, heavy. I think one is still lodged somewhere in my innards. They were also DELICIOUS. My mother made very light matzo balls that had no taste. The soup was hot, and the slurping began. I mean serious slurping. I mean window-shattering slurping. This was a loud group under the best of circumstances, but the slurping was deafening. (I'm the only person on my mother's side of the family who doesn't talk LOUD--or slurp.)

After the soup, everybody leaned back and said Aaah. Then came the gefulte fish. Fresh (the fish were swimming that morning) and delicious. Everyone in the family begged my grandmother for the recipe. She wasn't trying to keep it a secret. But her instructions were not followable. A red glass of this. A bent spoonful of that. With the gefulte fish came homemade horse radish. Stand back. Watch out. Even though it was cold, fumes rose from it. STRONG.
I put a touch on my fish. One of my boy cousins decided to be macho. He piled the horse radish on his fish. One bite. His face turned red. His eyes teared up. He gasped for air. I though this was hilarious.

Next up was usually the chopped liver, served with sour pickles, sour tomatoes, sauerkraut, and radishes. I have my grandmother's chopping bowl. I believe that the bowl is instilled with her aura. This is why I make good chopped liver. The whole while the fresh baked challah has been on the table. This is where it shone. Poifect with the liver. With every course, there were lots of noises, usually the kinds made when you are eating something good. And lots of loud talking and occasional yelling and arguing. The almost inaudible voice was mine. If I kept at it, people would eventually notice I was talking. They might even occasionally listen.

The main course could be chicken, pot roast, turkey, goulash, short ribs with wonderful and semimysterious sides. What's tsimis?

Desserts in kosher places are always a let down. No butter, no milk. What are ya gonna make? Some kinda dry cake (don't remember the name). A pyramid made out of something or other dipped in honey (sorry I don't remember the name).

My grandmother was a superb baker, but you can't serve superb baked goods with meat. C'est la vie.

The final course was Bromo Seltzer. And then the grepsing (belching) started. Serious, loud. Except me. Not my style.

I smiled as I wrote this. Not only because of the wonderful food, but because of the overall familyness of it. No pretensions. No inhibitions. No nothing but loud talking and grepsing. How I miss those dinners.

How glad I am that you shared it

Glad you feel that way, Panzade.

I'm adding a PS.

Many years later my mother was hosting a family dinner in her much smaller apartment in the north Bronx. My mother was not a good cook. She made a few things well.

As usual we started with chicken soup. As usual, one of my cousins let loose with a grepse. Now I was not sitting on phone books. Now I had some authority. I said to him, "Please spare us your gastric eruptions." He stared at me for a second and then started laughing. His brother and both their wives laughed. They howled. One of them gasped, "Gastric eruptions?" and laughed some more.

No more loud belching at the table. I didn't miss it.

I remembered the name of the dessert honey pyramid: teiglach.

Here's a picture. Not quite like my grandmother's. She didn't mix in the fruit.

<bumping... no burping...>

my tags seems to roll over pages - catching up with the family...




You write so that I can picture this so vividly

...it reminds me of FQ's huge family meals at her parents where the kitchen is full of "jars" and nothing is EVER EVER measured or weighed... Grandma Senile (FQ's Mom who is anything but senile) cooks that way and cooks for dozens and dozens at the drop of a hat. I love going there and sitting with their family - it's always an adventure...


loving your stories Boida, do keep remembering and writing - even tho some of these are hard to read stories... hearing/reading about them from you is brill...

please, do tell more!

THANKU

x

Your family stories are wonderful, Roberta. Thank you so much for sharing them. (More! More!)

And I'll just bet you were flirting! Look at that expression. Wish we could see the no doubt dumbstruck recipient.



(I had a grandma that measured flour etc with her hands. She only translated a couple of her recipes for me.)

Glad you're back. And glad you like the writing, Iz.

Tai, I remember my mother and two aunts hunting around my grandmother's kitchen, looking for a red glass.

I told you that my grandparents celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary at the Concourse Plaza Hotel. Many members of the family were either married or bar mitzvahed there.

The man conducting the ceremony was with the family for many years, involved in all family occasions. He sang like an angel. A magnificent tenor. A cantor.

Now there's a photograph.

Glad you like it, osso.

I know that weddings are a big deal. For newlyweds and for old timers. This anniversary was a gonsa megillah to end all megillahs.

I think almost 200 people were invited. The issue of my grandmother's dress was a family affair and the cause of many, many shouting matches. The men had it easy. Tuxedos.

The Concourse Plaza may still be quaking from that anniversary.

More pics after I do some work. A goil's gotta make a living.

That is one wonderful photo.

When I'm doing my discerning thing, I'm not nice. I like that photo. So, who took it?

This was a megaproduction, osso. A professional photographer took it.

Well, then, very good. Serioso, as I would say. No one else would say that, they would think I was off my rocker.

We did live across the hall from the Maras. Not that I ever noticed. My mother did tell me so, which is why I remember it. I think I saw people coming out of their door once. No memory if they were giraffes or warthogs, which is to say, no.

When we lived there, our building was probably keen to have some people from the film industry. And maybe only a few. I'm guessing it is where RKO people got a place. I've linked the building before, from the view of the schoolyard.

Not an interference.
Just talking.

Who are the Maras? I'm mystified. Also taking a break from work.

This is a picture of my mother (left) and my aunt (yes, the eccentric one) walking my grandmother down the aisle.

I think this was him. But, hey, I was eight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_Mara

My memory is linked to my mother's. Something about Maura Mara.

Trust me, I don't follow this, I'm interested in where we lived, which varied, and this apartment was - in memory - a real highlight.

Just googled, and there is a real Maura Mara. I'll read more. None of my business, of course; my mother liked her name, and said it, no idea if they met.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/08/sports/joy-for-the-sister-who-owns-the-giants.html
Well, the year we had the apartment (6 C), 1950, we didn't know much about other tenants. But slightly, as a guess.

I've previously posted a photo of the building on a2k, and reported later that the building is gone.

so it goes, and beg pardon for the diversion.

What were we doing there? my father was a director of commercials for rko, that year.