Grandma's Sunday Cooking

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baby photo of me
baby photo of me
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 My grandparents came to America looking for new opportunities for the family. My grandmother loved cooking for the family back in Saint Lucia so she brought that over to America. When she came to Brooklyn, she was looking for jobs and found a housekeeping job in Long Island. This job required her to stay there from Monday through Friday so my grandfather would have to take care of the house while she was gone. To make up for the things she couldn’t do, she decided to cook every Sunday since it’ll be easier. Every Sunday, there would be food to eat for most of the week until next Sunday. My grandma would cook rice, peas, greens, oxtail, chicken or goat, fish for my grandpa since he doesn’t eat meat, and macaroni and cheese. Although the process was tiring, she loved cooking every Sunday because the house loved eating her cooking. Her Sunday cooking is a big part of our house culture. While most of the house was tired of it, I ate it any chance we got. Even now she loves to cook because she knows I enjoy it. I’m very grateful for her because if my mother doesn’t get to cook, I would eat Grandma’s cooking. It’s one of my few connections back to Saint Lucia since I haven’t been there. Her Sunday cooking is a way of her handing over opportunities she never got to have, to me.
 

Place(s): Saint Lucia, Brooklyn (NY)
Year: 1999

– Yann Alexander

Relationship:  Grandchild of im/migrant Grandchild of im/migrant