Just call me “Druie”

Everyone wants to be remembered for something great after they are gone from this earth. At the rate I am going, I am likely to be remembered for my ability to do laundry or maybe my stellar weekly grocery store runs.

Faced with this quandry of how I might be remembered, a random thought occurred to me over the months we were sequestered to home last March, April, May….until we realized we could indeed go on with life. While we were home eating all of our feelings, I decided to try and find Druie’s famous cherry pie recipe. Now, you may be wondering who Druie is.  Well, the facts are that she is Josh’s grandmother on his dad’s side. The opinion, of which an in-law, such as myself, best not question, is that she is the best cook to ever walk the planet. 

I recently asked Josh for some of his favorite dishes by Druie, and he smirked and said, “You know, everything she touched was just the best thing you’d ever put in your mouth.”  Alrighty, then. He continued, “Fried chicken, cubed steak, pork chops, corn, field peas, dressing, lemon meringue pie, cherry pie, strawberry pie…”  Abruptly interrupting him, I asked if he was fully aware that I was not at all a great cook when he married me. He said he didn’t need to eat like that on a regular basis anyway. So, it truly is no secret that cooking isn’t my favorite thing. I do it almost daily. I wish I loved it. I wish I cared enough about food to even take a second look at a recipe that involves more than four steps, but I do not. 

During our Stay-at-Home order, I made a “Cherry Delight” recipe which got raving reviews from Josh and may have been as close as I was going to get to matching the famous Cherry Pie dessert Druie made. To be fair, Irvin had tried a couple of recipes that just didn’t cut it, so my work was made easier by his previous efforts. Also thanks to Irvin, I have Druie’s Thanksgiving dressing recipe written out with clear instructions for “the best dressing known to man.” I don’t think Josh would celebrate Thanksgiving without it. 

Now just because I don’t regularly fry up chicken or whip up a pie to die for doesn’t necessarily mean that I can’t be known for my cooking skills some time far in the future when I am old and gray or maybe when I am no longer walking this earth. Here’s my plan. I am going to have my grandkids call me “Druie.” Over the course of the years and the story-telling and the recipes that will be passed down, the coming generations won’t know which Druie was the original G.O.A.T. cook. In the blur of the lines of who is who and when she lived and where, I might get even half the credit for being an amazing cook as she was and maybe it will be said of me, “you know, everything she touched was just the best thing you’d ever put in your mouth.”