"IT's A GOOD SIZE," Says Grandmother!

While doing a search I came across this uniqe site...Ravings of a Textural Deviant's Tales from the Kitchen Archives. Along with these short articles there are some very good and helpful recipes. Enjoy!
Gary/Louisville

It's a Good Size
Part of: Tales from the Kitchen
I used to have a tendency to save old containers--yogurt containers, especially, but also margarine tubs, salsa jars, and the like. Yogurt containers are great--I can use the cups to hold rinse water for brushes when I'm painting, and the leftover lids make great impromptu coasters. (One of which is under my peppermill, nicely containing the inevitable mess.)

Two things have really cut back on that habit; the first is the availability of curbside recycling in my neighborhood (finally!). The second was my grandmother's mayonnaise jar collection. Back in the mid/late 1990s, after my grandfather died, most of the family--by which I mean me, my parents, my aunt, uncle, and their two younger kids, and my other aunt and uncle and their kids--gathered in Springfield, Illinois to help my grandmother clear out the house. And the basement. And the garage. And the storage unit. (I have half a dozen stories just about the sheer quantity of stuff, but I'll save them for later. Suffice to say that it took over 2 years and several gatherings to accomplish the task.)

Allow me to set the scene--An extended family, seated on the linoleum floor, positioned in front of a bank of lower cabinets. They are surrounded by massive quantities of old rubber bands, digital watches that don't work, an amazing assortment of ballpoint pens (working and non), and more paperclips than one human being could ever need in three lifetimes. A beloved and exhausted grandmother sits in a folding chair nearby, surveying her beloved progeny as they rifle through lidless margarine tubs of a vintage older than some of the grandchildren. Her middle child (it's always the middle child) opens a cabinet and discovers a few dozen clean, empty glass mayonnaise jars.

"Into the recycling bin!" cried the assorted progeny.

"No!" my grandmother objected.

"Why not?" asked my long-suffering aunt, the middle child.

"They're a good size," my grandmother explained triumphantly.

"A good size for what?" my mother and aunt shot back in unison.

"Mayonnaise!"

(Just as an aside, I have to mention that at this time, despite the fact that she around 80, my grandmother had absolutely no age-related dementia. Just the normal kind that runs in the family.)

I went home and threw away every single jar, bottle, and tub I had saved in the past seven years. Also old rubber bands, pens that didn't work, cardboard boxes, bits of string, and a lot of wire hangers. (I don't even know how I ended up with wire hangers. I always get the plastic ones, and I send stuff to the dry cleaners about once every eight years.)

I'd still like to know what mayonnaise jars are a good size for--other than mayonnaise, of course.

Comments
Correction! Most of the 27 digital watches DID work. That was part of what made it so funny.


I collect unusual containers. I made it a collection so that I had a valid reason to continue holding onto them.

Mayonaise jars are great for enough cold chai to dip powdered donuts in... at least, that's what I used them for... or soda glasses during gaming. Also, cotton balls, crayons, and coins. [grin]

Posted by MT Fierce March 27, 2003 05:15 PM


http://www.yarinareth.net/lirapkin/archives/cat_tales_from_the_kitchen.html