My Grandma Mona made the world's best homemade mustard to serve with her Easter ham. I find it funny that my mom had to recently remind me about the Easter cupcakes grandma would bake specially for the grandchildren, topped with "nests" of dyed-green coconut and speckled jelly-bean eggs. But I needed no help remembering the mustard.
It was surprisingly mild in both color and flavor, given Grandma's lovably spicy personality. I can still picture her carrying it proudly to the Easter table in a gravy boat. My dad and his four sisters—nostalgia shimmering in their eyes—had to coerce each of the 22 grandchildren into our first taste of this thick, warm sauce that looked nothing like the French's we ate on our sandwiches. (At least one rookie in-law mistook the mustard for warm vanilla pudding and swallowed a heaping spoonful before realizing his mistake.)
My dad and aunts grew up spooning Mona's mustard over their Sunday ham. They also helped serve it in the small-town cafe grandma and grandpa owned for 30 years. But at banquets only, for either the Lion's Club or ladies bridge nights or when church dignitaries would visit the tiny Mormon town. Oh no, it was far too precious for the regular dining room.
The recipe can be found under the heading "Mustard Sauce" in the Matthews Family Cookbook ("Ewe'll Love It!"), which Grandma typed painstakingly on a heavy, old typewriter one summer and distributed at a reunion of all of her cousins on her mother's side. I wonder how many of Caroline Elizabeth Orr Matthews's many descendants—she bore 11 children—skip right over the recipe to this day, having no inkling of the magic therein.
Truly, it can be the simplest, most unexpected things that turn into the most cherished and lasting family traditions. My cousin Andy's wife, Whitney, now stirs the mustard (for 15 minutes in a double boiler) each Easter for my Aunt Margo's family gatherings. My mom is the mustard maker in our family. I'm certain my Aunts Lynn, April, and Jennifer are carrying on the tradition, too. One day it will be my turn.
And grandma's example taught me so much more than just a tasty way to serve ham at family dinners.
I think of the impact of Mona herself, not to mention her mustard sauce, when I hear the parable in the book of Matthew, where our Savior likened the mustard seed to the kingdom of heaven. It "indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." (Matt 13:31
Grandma Mona lived simply, never owning a dishwasher or even a disposal in her kitchen sink, in a little white house on main street in Grace, Idaho, a town of less than 1,000 farmers, homemakers, teachers, welders and plant workers. She and my grandpa could never boast much in the way of money or worldly goods, but she considered herself wealthy in terms of her blooming family tree. Never was there a woman more vehemently proud of her grandchildren. To be related to her was to have a champion in your corner who loved you unconditionally, unabashedly, and without reserve. She was a woman of fierce devotion to both faith and family, inviting all that she loved to "come and lodge in the branches" of her generous heart.
She spent her final years in a retirement home in a city 65 miles from home, where she had more visitors than she could count. She had been terrified to leave her tiny hometown and vowed she never, ever would, but she blossomed in her new life. She thrived. One of her final acts of faith was to be an instrument in the Lord's hands in converting an 80-year-old fellow resident, Mary, to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
For me, Mona's mustard sauce is a taste of childhood and of home. It's a reminder of the far-reaching effects of faith. How the tiniest seed of hope, kindness, and pure devotion can blossom and grow, touching lives in the most unexpected ways.
This article was submitted by Angie Lucas, creator of the website Yeah Write. You can contact Angie at anghlucas@gmail.com.
