{"id":122,"date":"2020-05-30T03:40:10","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T03:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/?p=122"},"modified":"2020-06-03T19:53:25","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T19:53:25","slug":"the-influence-betty-had-on-kelsey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/the-influence-betty-had-on-kelsey\/","title":{"rendered":"The Influence Betty had on Kelsey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In loving memory of Betty Christoferson<\/p>

1930 – 2019<\/p>

Forever my sunshine.<\/p>Kelsey Schoen<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Kelsey Schoen<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Grandma Betty making rolls.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s\n7:00 A.M. at my grandma\u2019s house; I smell fresh hot coffee, oatmeal, eggs and\nfried spam. I hear the sizzle from the grill and the horrible sound my grandma\nmakes when she scrapes the bottom of the oatmeal pan. As I awake to the smell\nof my grandma cooking breakfast, I know it is time to get up. My grandma gives\nme a big warm smile and points to the kitchen table where my bowl of brown\nsugar with a side of oatmeal is already set up for me to eat. I squeal with\nexcitement because I know that no one could beat Grandma\u2019s oatmeal. She, of\ncourse, knew to set it out for me ahead of time so the brown sugar could melt,\nand the sides would cool. Very quickly, I found out that if you eat from the\noutside edge of the bowl first, and then slowly make your way to the middle,\nyour food will always be at the right temperature. Grandma knew how I ate and\nmade sure that all my food was prepared that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandparents\u2019 house was built on my grandpa\u2019s parents farm. Most of the vegetables that we ate during the spring and summer were grown by my grandpa and me. My grandpa was a true Norwegian, so the garden mainly consisted of potatoes. Every year, half the crop would rot due to my grandpa getting impatient and overwatering the potatoes. My grandma would just shake her head but cook the potatoes that survived anyway. She only knew how to make potatoes two ways: boil them \u2018til they are mush, or if she boiled them too long, then they were mashed potatoes. Oh boy, did people not like when she did that! But me? I loved it! The best part of the potatoes were that she didn\u2019t put a lot of salt in them, so they tasted perfect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s 3:30 P.M. and I am walking through the front door after school; I run to the fridge and look to see what\u2019s in it. I look down to the bottom shelf and I see an overly-used, worn-down, rectangular yellow Tupperware container, with cold neatly frosted cherry-chip cupcakes. My mouth begins to water as I grab one, sometimes three. I plop myself in front of the TV and devour the cupcake. Thirty minutes later I look behind me and I see a plate of Lefse, a Scandinavian potato flatbread, with butter and brown sugar just sitting there waiting for me. I don\u2019t know how she did it because I never heard her footsteps. She had special powers when it came to getting me to eat. My grandma played an influential role in teaching me how to cook and acknowledging what I like and don\u2019t like to eat. She would make a dish called salmon loaf with creamed peas. Some may call it a peasant dish; I call it a luxury. Granted, I am very sensitive to salt and refuse to add it onto any cooked foods, but I loved this quite rather salty, creamy dish. When I would get home from school and the house smelled like fish, I knew it was going to be a good night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One drink I will always despise and never wanted to drink is milk. However, my grandma made me drink it before I was allowed to leave the kitchen table. It got to the point that we compromised on a small glass and I just drank that like a shot of whiskey. I never understood why my grandma was so gung-ho on the fact that milk makes yours bones strong. At the time, I didn\u2019t believe it. But, hey! Grandma knows best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Grandma making lefse.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Overall, if it weren\u2019t for my Grandma, I wouldn\u2019t know who I am as an eater or a person. Yes, she spoiled me rotten, but it gave me a chance to figure out what I genuinely like to eat and cook. I now know what true comfort food is, and that even though Grandma\u2019s potatoes are good, roasting is the way to go. My grandma never made me eat something I didn\u2019t want to, she just encouraged me to try it when I was ready. The same went for cooking. If I didn\u2019t want to cook with her that night, it was okay, but she encouraged it the next day. It\u2019s that sweet, gentle, kind approach that made me into the adventurous eater I am today. Thanks to my grandma I am a cook, baker, future farmer, and adventurous eater. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s 5:00 PM and I\u2019m sitting at my grandma\u2019s kitchen table. I get up and go see what she\u2019s doing and if she needs any \u201chelp.\u201d I can smell the over-cooked boiled potatoes and broccoli but what I\u2019m most excited about is the fishy, creamy, mushy, to-die-for salmon loaf with creamed peas on top. The food is placed nicely on the table and the food people liked the most is put close to them just so. I run and grab my huge glass of water and sit down as fast as I can so I could get the biggest slice of the loaf. My parents divorced when I was five, so my mom, brother and I lived with my grandparents \u2018til my mom could get our house back. We say grace and I start eating my food. I always ate my food in order of what I liked the least to what I liked the most. I quickly learned that if you eat your favorite food last the taste of the food lingers, which I enjoyed. We get done with dinner and I yell, \u201cIs everyone done with the potatoes and broccoli?\u201d Of course, everyone says yes, and I devour every last crumb. As I\u2019m finishing my vegetables out of the corner of my eye, I see it: dessert<\/em>. Yes, I still had dessert, even after all the food I ate, but it was always worth it. The dessert varied from cake, cookies, or even just my favorite graham crackers filled with Betty Crocker canned vanilla frosting. Having dinner at my grandparents\u2019 house was always a treat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Grandparents met atPictSweet, which was a cannery in Stanwood, Washington. My grandpa was\nknown as \u201cthe man leaning on the broom.\u201d One day, my grandpa asked my grandma\nif she wanted to go out to breakfast. She thought he was out of his mind\nbecause all she wanted to do was go to sleep since she just got done working a\nnight shift. My grandma eventually agreed, and it went from there. In 1947 my grandparents\ngot married, and not soon after my uncle, Kenny, was born; they ended up having\nsix children, with my mother being the youngest. My grandpa was a first\ngeneration Norwegian, and the food that he grew up on was influenced by his\nheritage. His diet included a lot of fish and the milk products from their farm\nsuch as, milk, cream, eggs, and beef. Everything he ate was boiled. My grandma\u2019s\nfamily ate a lot of traditional West Coast American food, which was similar to\nmy grandpa\u2019s diet. Both of my grandma\u2019s parents were deaf and met because they\nwere introduced into that social circle. They settled on a dairy farm in\nSilvana, Washington and raised my grandma and her younger sister Alice. My\ngrandma lived through the depression, during which sugar was rationed, but that\ndidn\u2019t stop my grandma and great aunt from stealing the sugar from the kitchen\nto make fudge. Every time my grandma told that story, she always ended it with\n\u201cIt was all worth it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Grandma (left) and Alice (right) at Lake Chelan<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When I\ndined at my grandparents\u2019 house, I pretty much ate meat or fish, boiled\npotatoes (a staple), and a boiled vegetable, which I finished off when everyone\nwas done. When I cook, I don\u2019t boil my food, but I do eat similar foods such as\nfish, potatoes, vegetables, and eggs. My body needs seafood, especially fish. I\nhave seafood at least once a week, usually twice. If anything, the foods my\nbody craves the most are seafood, potatoes, vegetables, and eggs. My grandma\u2019s\ncooking has tremendously influenced how I cook now, I just kicked it up a notch\nand added flavor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not\nonly did my grandma influence my cooking, so did my mom. After we moved out of\nmy grandparent\u2019s house, my mom was the main cook. Oh boy, when my mom cooked, did\nshe add flavor. Sometimes the wrong flavor, which was salt. Less is more, in my\nopinion. My mom would always have the Food Network Channel on television and\nher and I would watch Emeril Lagasse together. Emeril Lagasse had a cooking\nshow filmed with a live audience, and every time he put spices in his food, he would\nyell \u201cBam!\u201d. Whenever my mom cooked dinner, I would run in and help her, acting\nas if we had our own television cooking show. I called it the Mom and Daughter Cooking\nShow. It was more like me talking a lot and getting in my mom\u2019s way, but she\nlet me do it anyways. Recurring dishes in the Schoen household where meat and\npotatoes (roasted not boiled), some kind of pasta dish, and random recipes my\nmom found that we either kept or never ate again. Without my mom and my grandma\u2019s\ndifferent types of cooking I would not be the chef I am today. I cook like my\ngrandma in that I cook with heart and love. I cook like my mom because of the\nstyle and techniques I use. Whether it be roasting vegetables or looking up new\nrecipes, my mom and I cook pretty similarly. I do have to say, there is nothing\nlike a good home cooked meal from my mom. Ever since I was young, both my mom\nand grandma instilled in me the value and impact sharing a meal can have on\nsomeone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In loving memory of Betty Christoferson 1930 – 2019 Forever my sunshine. Kelsey Schoen By Kelsey Schoen It\u2019s 7:00 A.M. at my grandma\u2019s house; I smell fresh hot coffee, oatmeal, eggs and fried spam. I hear the sizzle from the grill and the horrible sound my grandma makes when she scrapes the bottom of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"geo":{"latitude":48.2424126,"longitude":-122.3497849,"description":"Stanwood, Washington, 98292, US"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}