To Trim the Roast:

We sat by the pool in the summer sun. Barb, in her big hat, positioned herself on the stairs, leaning against the railing, sipping her sparkling water.

I floated around in the water as Barb told plenty of stories in that way grandmas do— no prompting necessary. She giggled often, tickled by the joy of a simple, sunny day.

She began one particular memory as she traced her finger in the water: "Oh, goodness. Isn't it just funny why we do things the way we do..."

She continued...

I remember when I was little, we'd host the family holidays in our little farmhouse. How cozy I recall it to be, everyone huddled around the radio or the fireplace, laughing, hollering, or hugging. The year I turned 13, my mother called me into the kitchen to help cook the roast. Now this was a big deal— until this point the women had only entrusted me with duties like setting the table or refilling the water pitcher.

Most of the women whirred about the kitchen; the others sat at the table sipping coffee and carrying on. I stood next to Mom, eager to fulfill my role amongst the ones who made the wheel of our holiday celebrations turn. Mom, in her red plaid apron, summoned from the kitchen the pan for the roast. Aunt Lynn found a moment to grab it and handed it over in stride, without breaking her concentration on the green bean casserole. What a well-oiled machine; this bustling holiday kitchen charged with chatter and warm love. An automated masterpiece of multi-generational multitasking.

Mom snagged the pan from Aunt Lynn and handed it to me. She presented the roast and took me through my lesson.

"Glaze here," she said quickly.

"Why?" I asked her.

"Why, for more flavor, of course!"

"Rub here," she said.

"Why?" I asked again.

"Why, for a savory crust, of course!" she answered.

"And then, trim here," she instructed.

"Why?" I inquired.

"Well," she blinked and stole a split-second to think for first time since the kitchen's engine roared to life early that morning. "Well just because we do, I suppose!" She blinked again and snapped back into the kitchen's cadence. With a sharp turn of her head, she said to Aunt Lynn:

"Lynn, why do we trim this part of the roast?"

Lynn, simultaneously focused on sprinkling french fried onions and setting the oven timer, said, "I don't know, just what Mom always did,"

Conveniently enough, Lynn and Mom's mom was making gravy at the island. I carried my question the next rung up the ladder. "Grandma, why do we trim this part of the roast?"

Grandma, tending to the gravy in that way (only) grandmas do, said, "well, because Mom always did."

This roast-trimming inquiry now had an inertia of its own. Luckily, my investigation could continue up the family tree another level. When I was 13, my great grandma was 94. The matriarch sat in her recliner in the parlor, gazing out the window at the soft snow in the twilight. I went over to her quickly, doing my best to shift my overwhelmingly kinetic kitchen energy into her zen-like state in the 7 steps it took to get there.

"Great-Grandma," I over-articulated, holding tightly my supercharged curiosity: "why do we trim that one part of the roast?" Her blue eyes, cloudy and glazed, searched my face and energy field for more information, in that way great-grandmas do. She motioned for me to help her up. Ugh! The suspense was killing me!

We hobbled into the kitchen, her well-worn body leaning on my arm for support. My patience for the answer was nearly non-existent, but we made it the 7 steps back. I guided her to the counter and pointed at the roast. Wrangling down my intense desire for an instant and immediate answer, I found it within me to ask again, slowly, "This part. Why do we trim this part of the roast?"

I waited for what seemed like an eternity, wondering if the precious inquiry made it into her brain. She stood there with the stillness of a Midwest morning lake, that way Great-Grandma's do. Hellooo? The inquisition had me ready to burst. Right as I was about to reiterate, she summoned up the answer and delivered it in her glacial, wise, undulating voice:

"Oh. Well, see, I just didn't have a big enough pan back then."

Barb giggled, sighed, and sipped her sparkling water, in that way grandmas do.