Baker S The Art of Spaghetti

¶ … grandmother that used to love cooking. I know most grandmothers cooked. However, my grandmother always cooked and did a bunch of other things. I remember how she used to put down the pot on the stove and ask me to get her some water. How she would have story ready right as I turned on the faucet. I remember her hair always being done up and the way her makeup always looked finished even when the steam of the food permeated her face. These details much like the details of Mr. Fleagle in "Art of Eating Spaghetti" are things a person remembers long after that person is gone. It is these kinds of moments, like the smell of beef sizzling, that can help portray a memory to a reader.

Baker uses an example about Macbeth in order to describe Mr. Fleagle, recalling a passage where he mentioned a child sucking mother's bosom and then ending it with "don't you see." My grandmother always tacked on a phrase to her conversations whenever she would to talk to me and thought I was not listening. "Do you understand?" she would ask as if giving me a chance to notice I was not paying attention. She would even try to give me a stare down if I really wasn't paying attention and ask me the same question in a louder voice. That would cause me to snap out of whatever daydream I had and look at her for guidance of what to next.

My grandmother would tell me to grab some milk or herbs or whatever and then add them to the food cooking on the stove or in the oven and then I would continue spacing out as she talked. People might think I was rude for not paying attention, but my grandmother's talks were always filled with things that did not interest me. I remember her talking to me about finding a lotto ticket on the floor and winning $50 from it. That was one of the few interesting stories she told, but besides those instances, she would talk about her desire for the president to make some changes and how she could not stand some stories in the news.