Recipe | Granny's Biscuits & Gravy
She showed me love with food.
I’m going to be upfront: This is not a healthy recipe.
It will, however, heal your soul.
A ridiculous notion, I know, but this recipe is one of the last pieces I have of my granny. And since that side of the family has made it clear that I am persona non-grata since her passing in 2015, it’s something I treasure from the one person from my childhood who I know loved me unconditionally.
My racist (I’d learn later) granny loved her little half-Korean grandbabies in a way that made me doubt the stories my father would tell me as an adult. But the older I got, the more I understood… and remained a little confused.
How could someone who hated non-white people so unconditionally love me? How could a racist stand up to my white parents (my bio mom left when I was 4) about my weight and how they were treating me?
By the end, I’d made peace with the contradiction. Because she showed me nothing but love in all those years I was with her.
My biggest regret is that I didn’t go and visit her in those last years. Part of it was because the one time I tried in 2005, she was… dismissive. Like she said there was no point in me coming because they were having their nurses over to help them out with bathing and whatnot. I tried to tell her that I would be okay sitting outside while that happened, but she kept giving me reasons not to come.
So, I didn’t.
And while I sent her happy snail mail and flowers, I didn’t see her again until my grandfather died in 2008. And I missed an opportunity to see her at a birthday celebration, because I was so severely depressed.
After she passed, I got into a big fight with one of my cousins on Facebook. I thought it was grief, but when I thought about it later, I realized that she’d been holding in all that anger towards me because Granny had been alive. Granny, who would not have tolerated anything negative against me.
So when she passed in 2015, that cousin let it all out.
Which was so confusing, because we seemed to get along just fine when I was there every summer.
However, I have mostly let it go. Mostly.
Note: I think my reaction is part of my neurodivergency. Because I literally can’t understand why people don’t like me. I mean, not in an arrogant way, but like ‘what did I do that you don’t like me?’ way? If that makes sense.
Anyway, that was a bigger ramble than I’d anticipated. The recipe is good. If you try it let me know. If you want more recipes, let me know that, too.
Thanks for listening.