This summer, we took the kids back to Maui, where Randy grew up. We wanted them to see the places he remembered, but one of my favorite days ended up being the simplest.
We drove up to Keokea, stopped at Fong Store for a few big cardboard boxes, and headed to Harold Rice Memorial Park. Growing up, Randy would take cardboard to the park and slide down the hills. It didn’t take much convincing to get three kids on board with that plan. And down they went.
Watching them race down the same hills their dad had raced down as a kid was one of those moments I wanted to hold onto. Randy had once been the kid on the cardboard. Now he was watching ours. Same hill, same ridiculously simple idea, completely different generation.
A lot of my childhood connections happen in the kitchen.
Thanksgiving means cooking with family, and every year I make dishes because the women before me did. There’s cheese bourag, an Armenian dish from my Grandma Rose, and wine biscuits, an Italian recipe from my Nana, Virginia Cerbo. I grew up with both dishes, and now my kids do, too.
Having the kids help isn’t necessarily the most efficient way to get Thanksgiving dinner on the table. Everything takes longer. The kitchen gets messier. Someone inevitably needs something while I’m juggling three other tasks. And yet, years from now, I’m not going to remember whether dinner was ready on time, but I hope they remember being in the kitchen with me.
I want them to know that when we make cheese bourag, there’s a Grandma Rose behind the recipe. When we make wine biscuits, we think of my Nana, Virginia–Ginny to everyone who knew her. Food has a funny way of keeping people in the room long after they’re no longer the ones doing the cooking.
Places can do that too.
Kaluz is one of those places for me. We go there now, but I can still remember when that same spot was Roadhouse Grill. I remember going there when eating peanuts and tossing the shells right onto the floor was part of the experience. Try explaining that concept to your kids now.
Today, I can sit at Kaluz overlooking the Intracoastal and still remember going to that same spot years ago. That happens to me all the time in Fort Lauderdale. I’ve lived here long enough that I can be somewhere and suddenly remember exactly what used to be there.
I love that my kids are growing up in the same city and creating their own memories in places where I already have mine.
And really, that’s what I’ve been thinking about this Thanksgiving. Randy gets to take them back to Maui and show them what he did as a kid. I get to make Grandma Rose’s cheese bourag and Nana Ginny’s wine biscuits with them and tell them where those recipes came from. They’re getting a little bit of both of us.
Of course, they’ll make their own traditions too. They’ll probably change some of ours. That’s part of the fun.
But if we find ourselves back in Keokea someday, I have a feeling they’ll know exactly where to