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Years later, grandma's hands still comfort I'm flipping quickly through stacks of old cooking magazines, looking for the world's best marinated salad recipe, the one I swore I'd never misplace. It's a really good late-summer Italian salad, full of fresh peppers and artichoke hearts, plump mushrooms and red onion, all tossed together with oil-cured olives and a distinctive vinaigrette. But I can't find it, not in the stack of magazines next to the bed, not in the one by the living room chair, not in the proper pile of to-be filed magazines in the kitchen. Flip, flip, flip. Foods of London, foods of India, foods of Provence. Finally, I find the foods of Italy edition. But when I do, I have to stop and stare at the page. There, in the photograph from a tiny Italian town, are my grandmother's hands. Wrinkled and rough, with sturdy, square fingers, ragged cuticles and baggy knuckles, the hands in the photo cradle a crumbly round of pasta dough. I look again, and see they're not grandma's hands at all, of course. They belong to a woman named Ida who lives in Emilia-Romagna. But the image is so startling I can't get it out of my mind. Grandma's been gone nearly five years now, and still, I miss her hands. It's not because they were pretty hands, that's for sure. Gnarled with arthritis, roped with veins, spotted with age, Grandma's hands only got worse as she got older. "I'm no spring chicken, Nellie, just look at my hands," she'd say, splaying her fingers to reveal their one ornament: a battered amethyst ring from my grandfather. And I don't remember Grandma's hands because they were soothing, or because she used them to entertain her oldest granddaughter. I cut out my Betsy McCall paper dolls myself, sitting in her darkened living room. And Grandma's hands were downright harsh the day I tried to smuggle a lizard into her car after Girl Scout camp. I don't even remember Grandma's hands for the food they created. She was a passable cook, but just barely. She sliced cornmeal mush for my grandfather's breakfast and fried the yellow squares golden brown, but we kids would never eat anything called "mush." Maybe she should have labeled it "polenta." She mixed small hamburgers from big batches of ground beef and fried them into tiny, hard balls, a habit formed from years of trying stretch the meat to feed five children. She baked fruitcakes so dense and dark _ brave family members dared to say "burned" _ that I thought scorched was the way the Christmas treats were meant to be served. Only years later, when I baked a fruitcake that turned out tender and moist, did I realize they didn't have to taste that way. What I remember most about grandma's hands is the same quality that makes me linger so long over the glossy magazine page. Like the hands in the photograph, grandma's were wizened and worn, weary with the repetition of daily life. Still, they worked on, mixing batter, sewing pillows, dusting tables, even though the chores never ended and no one particularly appreciated the effort. I always wondered why her hands didn't simply stop. One day, of course, they did. And then I knew. The point was the process, not the product. Slowly I closed the magazine, which didn't contain the recipe for that marinated salad, after all. I had to mix it from memory, chopping vegetables, snipping herbs and whisking vinaigrette by smell and feel. You'll find the recipe following. All the while I worked, I was aware of my own hands, still strong, still supple, but bearing, for the first time, hints of the aging to come. I looked at the square fingers, the baggy knuckles, the wrinkled wrists, and I smiled. My hands, you see, are just like hers. Marinated Summer Salad SALAD: 2 red bell peppers, seeded, cored and sliced into julienne 3 cups small, whole button mushrooms, halved 2 10-ounce boxes frozen artichoke hearts, thawed 1 small red onion, peeled and slivered 2 ripe Roma tomatoes, chopped 1 cup Kalamata olives, halved DRESSING : cup fruity olive oil 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 1 clove garlic, minced cup Parmesan cheese, grated 1 tablespoon fresh chopped basil tablespoon fresh chopped oregano In a large bowl, combine peppers, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, red onion, tomatoes and Kalamata olives. In a small bowl, whisk together dressing ingredients until they form an emulsion; toss with salad until well-coated. Let sit at room temperature for a half-hour before serving. Send cooking questions to JoNel Aleccia, The Mail Tribune, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501. Call 776-4465, or send e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA