How Grandma’s cookie scooper made me a better stepmom

Memories crowd my kitchen cabinets. They linger over my cast-iron skillet, everyday plates, and the ancient cookie dough scooper with a wooden handle. As family members downsized their homes or died, my pantry shelves and drawers slowly filled with items first used by someone else. I became so well stocked that when I got married, I hardly needed anything new.

Family holiday recipes handed down through the generations are one way to honor traditions, but so is what culinary historians call the material culture around food – the rituals of setting a table just so, the kinds of plates that are used, the tools deployed to mash the potatoes. 

The practices around these items can offer a form of resilience and mooring against the shifting tides of family life.

For me, passed-along kitchen items became a kind of life raft in unfamiliar stepparenting waters. In the early days, I played more of a spectator role than a cook, as my husband made meals familiar to my two stepchildren: chicken broth soup with egg drop dumplings, breaded chicken cutlets, and smoked sausage with egg noodles. It was their comfort food, but not mine. 

So I drew my comfort from the memories that gathered when I used my grandmothers’ baking tools to make scones and cookies; served up our meals on my dad’s heavy blue dishes; and whirred, whisked, and blended with the many appliances my mom gifted me over the years. 

In my mind, suddenly there is Grandma serving up pineapple pound cake, Dad beaming over bowls of homemade tomato soup, and Mom ladling batter into the waffle iron. These silent cheerleaders reassuringly patted me on the shoulder, offering feelings of connection when I felt like an outsider. 

Things are better now. My stepdaughter, away at college, requested I bring a batch of my chocolate chip cookies on our last campus visit because “nobody makes them as good as you do.” Since I just follow the recipe printed on the back of the yellow bag of chips, there must be magic in my old cookie scooper. 

And my stepson, fueled by his growth and constant activity on the soccer field, is eager for my meatloaf and lasagna. 

So now memory and usefulness sit side by side in my kitchen as I cook, bake, and stay alert for emerging traditions that say “home” and “welcome.”  

As the holidays draw near, people may ask familiar questions: Who will be hosting? What are we having? 

The answers are never the same. No two holidays ever look alike, and finding peace with that is a true recipe for resilience.