#dishe

Back to the PNW’s regularly scheduled programming: And back to warm, cozy dishe…

Again to the PNW’s often scheduled programming: 🌧☔️ And again to heat, cozy dishes. As promised yesterday right here’s my easy and scrumptious model of my fave, French Onion Soup 🧅🥖🥄 Components: 2 yellow onions 6 cups beef broth (or 1.5 quart cartons. I used @pacificfoods Beef Bone Broth) Recent bundle of thyme, rosemary + sage (I purchase the poultry herb pack to avoid wasting $ which…

I hope this goes here, I am new to reddit so let me know if there is a better thread to post this on.

This happened a long time ago. When my great grandmother was alive, the family would use her house as a gathering place since she was too old to visit all of us, so we were there often. Next door lived her best friend who was also quite old. I got to know her because her home was open to all of us as if we were her family and sometimes she'd be at my great grandmother's house. One year it had been a long time since I'd seen her and I asked about her on our way to visit again. My mother told me that she was very sick and said it was best not to visit her this time so as not to bother her.

Me being a 12 or 13 year old kid, I decided not to listen to my mother so I could go visit with her. I went inside and she sat on her couch looking worn out from whatever sickness she had. She was sweating and panting a bit and seemed unable to even look up at me with how tired she was. I sat with her on the couch in silence, wanting to keep her company. I could hear someone washing her dishes in the kitchen. The water running, the clanking of glasses. I figured it was her caregiver, my great grandmother had one for when we weren't around so I figured she had one too since she was so sick. After a few minutes she tells me she's thirsty and asks if I can get her a glass of water. So I head to the kitchen, the dishes still being washed, but as I step through the kitchen doorway all the noise stops. I look around and no one is in the room. I go to the sink and it's empty and dry. There are no dishes in the rack and I have to get on the counter to open a cabinet to get a glass which was also dry. I fill the glass with tap water, thinking I must have just been hearing things and head back to the living room. As I approach the couch, the water begins running again and moments later, the clanking of dishes and glasses. Now a bit freaked out I hand her the glass of water and ask, "Is there someone here washing your dishes or taking care of you?" And the old woman replies, rather nonchalantly, in an almost defeated tone, "Ah yes. They've been here a while now. They are just waiting for me to die." The conversation ends there because she spoke Spanish and didn't know much English and I the opposite. Confused, I go to the kitchen once more and the same thing happens, noise stops, the sink is wet only from when I poured water into the glass. I told her I had to go, she nodded slightly still not looking at me, glass in hand having never taken a drink and I ran back to my great grandmother's house.

I didn't tell my mother as I thought I'd be in trouble for going to visit her after she told me not to, but years later I told her this story. She looked terrified that I'd gone in the house, then told me that my great grandmother and two of my aunts were with her as she died in her bed in her house (several months after I'd visited her) while a priest prayed over her (customary catholic thing) and that all three of them said that she was terrified to die in the end. She never spoke loudly while we knew her but that as she died she was screaming, shouting in fear and staring at nothing they could see saying they are taking her to suffer and she didn't want to go, then died with eyes open and face distorted. Before my great grandmother died she said her friend admitted to her she'd done "devilish" work in her youth and that as she grew older she believed it was catching up to her even though she'd abandoned the practice long ago.