Secrets about Grandmas
When I was a little kid I would go over to Grandma’s house and without fail, every time I went, in this little antique tin that looked like it came straight from the circus, were delicious ju-jubes. You know, those little gummy bits of candy that get stuck in your braces… Most importantly to go with the ju-jubes were freshly made buns like nobody in the world can make! (except Sherry says her grandma’s are better… but she’s wrong) When I went to my other Grandma’s house, without fail, every time I went, there would be fresh… frozen butter tarts (I know, fresh frozen doesn’t make sense… but if you tried them you’d understand) for us to eat, as well as ginger snap cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and of course lemon meringue pie.
As a kid, you would never think anything of it. Grandma always had the right sweets and it was just a fact. As I got older and started doing my own baking and cooking, I started thinking about HOW my grandparents and more generally most grandparents are able to keep such a stock of sweets for us to eat… and we ate a LOT!
Fast forward a few years, now I’m married and have more grandparents (although I have lost some on my side) and sure enough Sherry’s grandparents are the same way! One set always has cookies (fortunately ginger snaps are one of the staples) as well as a shortbread chocolate chip, and the other side of the family always has large quantities of food, snacks, beverages, and is a veritable storehouse of yummy goods.
My question of how this came to pass was answered only a few weeks ago. Sherry and I were up at the Grandparent’s cottage and this very basic but fundamental question was laid upon me. “Would you like to come to the grocery store with us?” Normally I would say no, because I can think of 5296 things to do that would be more enjoyable to me than grocery shopping, but because I needed to go to the internet cafe to upload an album and a blog post I said “I would love to go” and off we went.
They didn’t ask me to go into the store with them, only that once I was done at the cafe to come over and help carry the bags (they were using me for my muscles :D) so I obliged. I uploaded the things I needed to upload.. (Now one thing you need to understand about the Foodland in Mindemoya is that it only has 5 short rows, plus produce and dairy, so it’s not like your neighborhood Costco… it’s pretty small) Well, 45 minutes later, after checking my email, uploading and generally browsing the internet I was thinking I was going to be late and that they would have all their groceries in the car. So I ran from the coffee shop to the grocery store and went up to the till where I thought I would find them. Whew, just in the nick of time! They were on row 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There they were, walking around the grocery store with 2 carts, one for perishables and one for non-perishables. I joined them on their trek around the store at the most interesting pace I have seen on grocery isles. Each item on the shelf was carefully considered and matched against the coupon list and the to-get list to see if it made the cut. If it did make the cut and got into the cart, then the quantity would be debated until the right amount was carefully selected. It was impressive! 
Notice the flyer in the back pocket 🙂
A total of 2 hours elapsed from the time they entered the grocery store until they went through the checkout. I was relieved that we were done and on our way home as we had filled both of those carts, and likewise the back of the Toyota Matrix! Unfortunately I forgot about the pharmacy section :(. Several more minutes were used to debate which hand pump soap container was to be selected based solely on the attractiveness of the bottle and a few other things were purchased for the way home.
Sure enough, any product that might be needed was purchased and the cottage was now perfectly stocked to fulfill any need that may arise. Ahhhh Satisfaction.
(as a side note… two other people from the household went to the store the next day to pick up a few more items :D)
Of course this raises another question… How does she use up all the groceries with none going bad??
By the way, my Grandma is 94 years old and she is STILL making buns!!!
Grandparents are awesome!
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