A Little Something Sweet

This is a Honey Cake which is traditionally made for Chanukah, but delicious all the time. My grandma makes this cake often and I used her recipe for this one. It looks nothing like hers and didn't taste like hers either, but was good. Something was missing and I don't know what. She thinks that I didn't put enough black tea in it or enough honey.

It was ok for a first try, but I miss the taste of hers. I miss everything she makes.

I feel homesick today which isn't something I have felt much since moving to Seattle. I used to just miss certain things about home but never wanted to go back to live. Today I feel the strange need to go home and it is overwhelming.

The thing is that I miss my grandma. I want to go home and hang out with her right now. I called her today but she didn't answer. Later on I saw that she called me back but somehow I missed it. Then I tried her again but she turned her phone off and was probably asleep. I called my dad too but amazingly my parents are going to a tango lesson tonight with friends they made at the wedding. They didn't have time to talk to me and usually I have to tell them that I need to get off the phone. Geez. It's a lonely Saturday night for me and that situation calls for a little something sweet.

When I was visiting home recently I had a very serious heart to heart with my grandma. She is worried about my mom's incredibly high blood pressure and smoking habit. She said that they often get into screaming matches that make her cry. My mom's perspective on this is that it's good for them to passionately argue because it keeps my grandma feisty, but hearing her side of the story wouldn't make that the case. Grandma started to cry when she was telling me about how she kicked my mom out of her apartment for saying mean things to her. It was almost funny because she told my mom not to come back to her home but she lives downstairs so it's impossible and ridiculous. Still the whole conversation brought tears to my eyes and I try never, ever to cry in front of her.

Out of nowhere she says: "Hey. How bout little ice cream? I tink we gonna have little someting sveet. Better sveet than sour."

As usual she is right about everything. A minute later we are eating ice cream and laughing. It's incredible how a little bit of sweet can lift your spirit.