Member-only story
This Is Us
Grandma’s Kitchen
A poem about food, family, and pride
She caught me at it once,
face in the fridge,
fingers sticky from glacé cherries,
silver candy balls for wedding cakes.
She told me she wouldn’t tell mummy,
laughed with “teet like dese”
as she washed my small hands
in the steel kitchen sink.
Her match-lit gas stove
was always hot,
ripe plantain sizzling in oil,
tuna and ting and ting bubbling,
dumplins bobbing in Saturday soup,
chicken browning in spice,
legendary Easter Bun rising.
Sitting on a white step ladder,
sucking a mango stone,
I watched her slice onions and tomatoes
in one hand,
measure flour and sugar by eye,
scrunch rice clean,
use only her finger tip
to check the water level.
She could peel a whole orange in one go
without once breaking the rind.
I practiced for hours
circling a knife around and around,
trying to get the skin off intact.
Now, when I remove a full orange shell,
I see her smile in the corner of my eye,
and know she is proud of me.
