Once the gravy is finished, you serve it on top of toast. Photo by Kailyn Lamb.

Neither of my parents had much interest in cooking. I was very young when they got divorced, and have no memory of what my life was like when they were together. What I can remember was very little of our time was spent in the kitchen.

My parents split custody. Neither of them had a meal that was their specialty, and very few things stand out in my brain. My step-father did most of the cooking at my mother’s. As a single parent, and picky eater himself, my dad didn’t have many cooking options. More than anything he bought Hamburger Helper meals. We probably could have used the discarded boxes to wallpaper our entire house.

My dad is from a small town in southern Illinois, called Virden, that was 30 minutes south of Springfield. Since my dad doesn’t eat much of anything aside from potatoes and chicken, I can only imagine what challenges my grandmother faced in her kitchen.

The first step in making cream chipped beef on toast is to chop the green onions. My grandmother would often skip this part, as my dad did not like anything green. Photo by Kailyn Lamb.

From the small collection of recipes that my dad has shared with me, my grandma Carol’s cooking was simple. The dishes do not feature spices or bold flavors. But they worked for her, and most importantly my dad actually ate the food.

One of her recipes, cream chipped beef on toast, made it into my dad’s adult life, and into my childhood. It is one of the only meals I can remember either of my parents making while we lived in Colorado, since Grandma Carol had shared the recipe with my mom before the divorce. This creamy sauce, plopped on top of toasted Wonder Bread was a bridge between my parents’ estranged households.

As I grew older, both of my parents drifted away from cream chipped beef on toast. My dad remarried, and for a time the burden of cooking was no longer something he had to do on his own. We moved on to other foods. My dad would be angry with me if I didn’t mention his own favorite, a delicious chili that could be made in big batches.

Once my dad graduated college he moved straight to the more mountainous state of Colorado, where he would eventually meet my mom. Since his family was still in Illinois, building a relationship with them was hard. We visited Virden a few times, and my grandparents would sometimes come to Colorado. As a kindergarten teacher, my grandmother was always warm and loving to her grandchildren. As I got older, she taught my sister and me to play rummy, her favorite card game. Playing cards with her are some of my favorite memories.

But I never knew her, I never had the chance to learn about her childhood as one of eight children. I never knew what kinds of meals she liked to cook for my dad and his two brothers.

And sadly, I never will.

My grandma Carol was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when I was in high school. She quickly forgot the rules of rummy, and even the names of her siblings. The stories I hear about her now are told by others, and are small, beautiful glimpses into a life I wish I had asked about years ago.

I realized recently that these dishes, simple as they are, are a connection I still have to my grandmother. As a child, I can remember standing on a step stool to see my parents browning green onions in butter and preparing the creamy gravy while toasting bread. As an adult I see it as my lingering connection to a woman I thought I had all the time in the world to know. But time plays tricks on us all.

Kailyn Lamb