noodle grandma's noodles

my great-grandma was famously known, within our family, for her noodles. she made the most delicious homemade noodles. noodle grandma, as we affectionately called her, was a small, yet stern, woman. as a kid, we would drive to her tiny house on the main street of tiny roann, in to visit her and enjoy her tasty beef & noodles. when we walked in, we were greeted with her big hugs. she had a slight limp in her walk from the brace on her leg as a result of polio as a child. on the table was a glass plate filled with cubes of cheese. slightly dried from sitting out a while, we would devour the plate before dinner began. once it was time for dinner, we would load our plates with mashed potatoes and noodles. we would take a small chunk of the beef sitting on the side of the stove, too. dinner would be filled with stories of relatives i barely knew, but could find pictures of all of them on grandma's desk near the kitchen. along with the many pictures she displayed, noodle grandma was known for her vast salt & pepper shaker collection. every time i was at her house i would look through all those pairs - the yellow birds dressed as sailors, the music notes, and the lighthouses are just a few of the very many she collected that i can remember to this day.

after dinner, as the adults continued to talk, my sister and i would go spin around in n. grandma's orange chair. or we'd dig through her knitting bag and find the bag with the beads on it. n. grandma would let us pick the beads right off that bag. to this day i'm not sure why she encouraged us to do it, maybe she didn't like it! along with her noodles, grandma was known for her knitting. she made each of us a huge afghan blanket for our beds. typically we were only entitled to one of these in our lifetime, but i remember getting another one only after i had pulled on the yarn as a small, finger-sucking child. (i think n. grandma got so annoyed with repairing it that she decided it would just be easier to make a new one!) also, grandma would have a bag full of knitted slippers. they were the warmest slippers you'd put on your feet. she even doubled the knitting on the bottom to make them softer. my sisters and i would "skate" around the kitchen floor with these great slippers!

and tucked away on the corner of noodle grandma's counter was a unique cookie tin that was always full of archway oatmeal cookies. grandma would always let us have one. i wasn't really even a huge fan of these cookies, but it was just something special about having one at n. grandma's house. they didn't taste the same anywhere else.

i'm fortunate to have many of these memories of my great grandma. she lived well into her 90s and her legacy has lived on. i'm lucky to have that cookie tin and a few of the salt & pepper shakers in my possession. i was also given one other thing to remember noodle grandma - her noodle recipe. while it may not be the exact recipe that she used (because she didn't actually use a recipe), they taste almost identical to the noodles i remember as a child.

after my sister perfected the noodle recipe, she recently passed it on to me. i decided i would make these noodles for thanksgiving this year. so as we sit down to thanksgiving this year, we can all share a bit in the memories of noodle grandma.