At my grandmother’s apartment on 81st street, there were all kinds of foods to scare the living bejesus out of a kid–gefilte fish, pickled herring, cold beet soup, and greasy cheese blinzes. However, she did make a wonderful strudel–and there always seemed to be some on hand–as well as excellent apple, peach and blueberry pies.
One of the things she cooked that I liked best was cream of wheat. Nana made it with milk, cream, butter and sugar. Health, the old fashioned way! It was creamy smooth, no lumps (the lumps only started to appear in her later years). I never knew you could add salt to cream of wheat, and I didn’t have grits until years later.
Still, her cream of wheat is a rich, fond memory and I still make it every so often–no lumps, Snoops. Kind of like this one–that adds mascarpone!–from the food blog, Proof of the Pudding:
yup thats just how my g'ma made it..."sticks to your ribs" she'd say
Definitely brings back memories. Dark weekday winter mornings, cold kitchen floor, that precious half hour of TV (Bugs, Rascals, Munsters, Popeye etc.) before school...
I remember when my mom started working again, after we were all old enough to be left in the morning, she would often leave us a pot of oatmeal, or cream of wheat. It was a comfort for me to know mom had thought of us before she left. It was always lumpy, but I loved it.
For some reason, I never think to make oatmeal or cream of wheat for myself or my kids. My wife made it a couple times, but the boys weren't diggin it. Gotta give it another shot now that I think of it.
speaking of comfort food.. LoHud's got today's lineup up already:
Jeter SS
Granderson CF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez 3B
Posada DH
Thames LF
Cano 2B
Swisher, RF
Cervelli C
RHP Phil Hughes
I love today's lineup. Hopefully work won't get in the way too much for the early innings.
Mmmmm, Cream of Wheat.... I ate a ton of that when I was a kid (I still eat it every now and then, especially when I'm sick).
We always had cream of wheat in the house, prepared just that way. No lumps. It was one of my grandfather's favorite breakfasts.
[0] By the way, I grew up on 81st street. My mother still lives there with the beet soup (she just gave me a jar of homemade borscht), greasy blintzes (we had blueberry as well, and of course pickled herring on special occasions.
5) Dude, that's crazy. They were at 15 west 81 between CPW and Columbus, though their apartment was closer to the 82nd street side of the building and we used that back entrance more often than not.
I grew up on Cream of Wheat and now neither my wife nor my daughter will come near the stuff. Plus I can get it here (N.C.) only in packets, not in the big box.
Lumps of Cream of Wheat? Worth avoiding. Lumps of brown sugar in the Cream of Wheat? Yer talkin'.