Cooking with Bibi meant learning the secrets of her chelo galeyeh and chopped liver.
When I walk into her apartment, it’s dark.
The only light coming in is from the sun filtering through the tall, dusty kitchen window behind her.
A childhood photo of the author, Andrea Strong, with her grandmother.Photo: Andrea Strong
She has thick short silver hair and weathered brown skin that is deeply lined.
She is wearing a loose dress made of blue cotton that hangs below her knees.
A cigarette dangles from her mouth, a clump of ash ready to fall.
The author’s grandmother at the stove.Andrea Strong
She still smokes Merit 100slong, thin, brown cigarettes that look like skinny cigars.
She doesn’t hear me until I’m almost upon her.
At somewhere north of 80 years old, her hearing is not really that sharp.
Oh, I am so happy to see you, darling!"
Her voice is hoarse and gravely from years of smoking.
Bibi is my grandmother.
It is the day before Rosh Hashana.
I have come to cook with her.
It’s been a long time since we cooked together.
I feel my time with her is running out.
I want to learn from her.
I want to be with her.
I hug her tightly.
Well, all but one that’s pushing out its last watts as we speak.
“Bibi, where are your lightbulbs?
Let me put new ones in for you,” I scream at her so she can hear me.
Bibi lived for years in London after fleeing her village of Mashhad, in Persia, the late 1920s.
Her accent is slight, but it is strong enough to know that once she was from somewhere else.
They are tossed on top of each other like some sort of cruel lightbulb graveyard.
All of them rattle when you shake them and they each bear the dark spot of a busted bulb.
I pull out dozens and finally find a set that looks new.
Bibi looks at me.
“What did you do?
What is in the bag?”
“Bibi, you have a lifetime supply of broken lightbulbs in there.
These don’t work.
I’m throwing them out.”
“NO, YOU ARE NOT!
Don’t throw them out!”
she says in a hoarse scream.
Who was I kidding?
She wasn’t about to let me throw anything out.
She is a grandmother.
They don’t toss anything.
“But Bibi, these are broken bulbs.
You don’t need them anymore.
you’re free to’t use them.”
They do not light.
They stay gray and dusty.
I have now clinically shown her that the bulbs don’t work, but she does not care.
She will not stand for me throwing out her old bulbs.
I surrender and return the old bulbs to their corpse closet.
And then I think, maybe she is afraid to toss them away.
And then, we start to cook.
There are dozens of onions.
I feel like I’m in the army.
I am peeling and dicing onions with tears streaming down my face, for at least an hour.
Bibi supervises with a fresh cigarette in her mouth.
Then she moves me onto the carrots.
And then scallionsdicedthe green and white parts.
Some of the onions and the carrots will be tossed in with the gefilte fish.
The soup simmers, covered, and the kitchen fills up with the aroma of my childhood.
Once the soup is simmering we start on the chopped liver.
To the liver mixture, Bibi adds salt and pepper and her secret ingredientcinnamon.
She takes the eggs off the stove and tells me to peel them.
They burn my fingers and I drop one to the table.
“Ouch,” I say.
“These are hot.”
“Nonsense,” she says, scolding me for being such a princess.
She pulls one from the water and peels it with her bare fingers.
She doesn’t flinch at all.
This is a routine I seem to see in a flashback.
I am standing on a step stool beside her.
She fills, and I push the wooden piece through.
The livers squiggle out.
It is a laugh I have not heard in some time.
It’s a giggle, kind of.
Once we are almost done with the livers, she adds a few piece of challah to the mix.
“It’s a trick.
It will absorb some of the grease,” she says.
When we are done with our grinding.
she sits down with the bowl of warm chopped liver, and asks me about the seasoning.
“What do you think, darling?
Some more salt or pepper?”
she asks, looking up at me from her seat.
I taste a forkful.
It is warm and livery and lovely.
But yes, it needs a bit more of each.
We taste again, and add a bit more pepper.
Then we are happy with it.
“Get me the box of crackers from the cabinet,” she says, softly.
“Let’s have some.”
I reach up and get the Ritz and pull out a sleeve for us to share.
As we grow full, she turns to me.
“Did you say you need a fish head?”
“Yes, for the blessing.”
You see we have these blessings we say before dinner on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.
But we are Sephardic.
We are Persian Jews.
We have about 10 more blessings that we say, all over food and all related to food.
It is the one of the only ways I relate to my religion.
(Fertility is huge where I come from.)
We pray for bitterness to end over bowls of sharp scallions.
We say this blessing over the head of some sort of an animal, which we then must eat.
Over the years the blessing has always been said over the meat from the head of a cow.
We’ve really been the trailblazers for nose-to-tail chefs who love cow’s brains and cheeks and all that.
I was eating them back when I was a mere baby.
I hated that head meat.
But guilt is a powerful tool.
Bibi tells me that cow’s head meat is not that popular at the dinner table anymore.
I tell her that it has never been popular.
She tells me that this year she wants to try a fish head instead.
She asks me to go to the fish store on Lefferts Boulevard.
She tells me she prefers the head of a cod, haddock or carp.
I arrive at the fish store on Lefferts Boulevard, and it is crowded.
I take a number.
Soon my number is called by a young guy wearing a Mets cap and a bloody apron.
I need a fish head.
Do you have any?"
I have a go at ask as nonchalantly as possible.
There is a line of people behind me.
“We only have salmon fish heads,” the young guy offers, unfazed.
“No carp, cod or haddock?”
“No, just salmon.”
I don’t know what to do.
I wonder if it is OK to say the blessing on a salmon head.
I make a bold move.
I decide to call Bibi on my cell phone.
I just hope that she hears the phone ring.
She does, and she answers: “Hallo?”
From the fish store line I scream: “HI BIBI, IT’S ME.
I AM IN THE FISH STORE.
HE ONLY HAS SALMON HEADS.
DO YOU WANT A SALMON HEAD?”
Bibi answers in a barely audible rasp: “What about carp, cod and haddock?
He doesn’t have those heads?”
I ask the guy again: “You don’t have any carp, cod or haddock?”
He shakes his head.
I relay the news to Bibi on the cell.
The line of people behind me looks like they are ready to deck me.
Bibi asks me to ask him what he does with the heads of the other fish.
Does he throw them out?
If so, can he get one out of the garbage?
I cannot believe this.
It’s like the lightbulbs all over again.
I DON’T THINK I CAN ASK HIM TO TAKE A FISH HEAD OUT OF THE GARBAGE.
I DON’T THINK HE CAN SELL IT TO ME FROM THE TRASH.
THERE ARE HEALTH CODE LAWS.
DO YOU WANT ME TO GET THE SALMON HEAD?
People on line are now starting to talk about me.
Bibi continues: “Well, have you seen the head of the salmon yet?”
“NO I HAVE NOT SEEN THE SALMON HEAD YET.”
“Well, ask to see one!”
she demands, condescendingly.
“If it looks good, get two.”
If it looks good, get two?
I wonder if I have ever seen a salmon fish head to determine whether it looks good or not.
Not really a clue.
“How much is the salmon fish head?”
I ask the young man, who is now starting to chuckle at my conversation.
“$1.50 per pound.”
“$1.50 PER POUND, BIBI!”
I’m ready to inspect a salmon head.
I can figure this out.
But as he disappears into the back to retrieve the head, Bibi is going ballistic.
“A DOLLAR FIFTY?!
IT SHOULD BE FIFTY CENTS A POUND!!”
It looks nice to me.
He weighs it in at 2 pounds.
IT LOOKS GREAT TO ME.
IT’S 2 POUNDS, SO IT WILL BE 3 DOLLARS."
“THREE DOLLARS????!?!?”
“you might’t spend that much money on a fish head.
We’ll use the cow’s head.”
I can’t believe this.
“LOOK BIBI, THE FISH HEAD IS ON ME IF YOU WANT IT.
JUST TELL ME IF IT’S OK.”
She’s already hung up.
I decide to buy the fish head anyway.
I cannot have just wasted this guy’s time and not buy it.
When I get back to the apartment, it is dark again.
She is in her armchair smoking and watchingCelebrity Poker Showdown.
I hate to disturb her, so for a few minutes I just sit there and listen and watch.
I think about how much time I have left with her.
I am amazed at her strength.
The TV cuts to a commercial, and then I scream: “HI BIBI!!!
I AM BACK FROM THE STORE!!!!!”
She hears me (so do people in the neighboring boroughs), and she turns off the television.
She pulls herself out of her chair and joins me in the kitchen.
“Hi, darling.
What did you do?
You got the head!
YOU SPENT ALL THAT MONEY ON THE HEAD!”
She seems ready to kill me.
But then she opens the satchel.
“Andy, this is a nice head.
You should have gotten two.”
And I think, Yes.
This is a blessing.
Her most recent cookbook isGood for You: Bold Flavors with Benefits, written with chef Akhtar Nawab.
Andrea lives with her kids in Brooklyn.
