Fig Newtons

I had a birthday earlier this month, and it was a very busy day.  One kid had an oboe lesson.  One kid had a violin lesson. I had a cello lesson.  Dr. Peds was working at the hospital.  We didn’t really have time to do a lot of celebrating, but late at night on his way home from the hospital Dr. Peds stopped at the grocery store and bought me a bag of groceries.  The bag was filled with all sorts food I really like, and food that I consider too  extravagant to purchase ordinarily, or just different foods that made him think of me.

In the bag was a container of fig newtons.  Here’s the deal.  Fig newtons do not rank up at the top of the list of my very favorite foods in the world, but I like them just fine.  But fig newtons always, always make me think of my Grandma Jan, and Dr. Peds knows this.  It was so special that they were in my birthday grocery bag.

Whenever I eat a fig newton I am carried back to the days of my childhood, when I’d have a little stack of fig newtons on a napkin, and a little glass of iced tea and my Grandma and I would have a snack and chat.  Pink grapefruit juice in a little can also does this to me.  Grandma hated baking cookies, but she almost always had a package of fig newtons on the shelf in her pantry or  in her cupboard, and she always had little cans of grapefruit juice to mix in with her tea, or maybe some gin. I’m not exactly sure anymore about what she exactly mixed up, but I do know she always let me have grapefruit juice.

I would never think to buy fig newtons on my own, and their unique taste and texture just floods my head with memories of my grandma.  I even shared a few with some kidlets after school one day and told them a few “Great Grandma” stories.  The package lasted over a week because I had it locked up in my food safe, and every day — fresh memories.