I Found Gramma in a Box of Triscuits?

I Found Gramma in a Box of Triscuits!!

Today, I bought a box of Triscuits…. And Found Gramma!

I Know that sounds really weird… 

And I can’t deny it. Yup, it’s weird.

Would it be even weirder if I told you my Gramma has been dead for a very long time?

Ok, SO it Really is not THAT Creepy. It actually is quite happy!

I’ll Explain… well, TRY To Explain anyhow!

So, it seems daily I find another food I cannot eat due to my allergies. Often the foods I have eaten my whole life suddenly are off-limits, and I am constantly forced to give up the most basic of life’s little guilty pleasures.

Cheez-its are one of my all-time favorite snack crackers. I have eaten them my whole life. Then they came out with all those wonderful flavors of sooo many delightful kinds of cheeses in their crackers. Oooh, I was in heaven! Anyone who knows me would not doubt I LOVE Cheese! And then to have my favorite cracker have a dozen new flavors… Oh, it was wonderful! WAS. Imagine suddenly not ever being able to eat a Cheezit again. This happened to me this spring. After consuming a portion of Cheezits (I don’t recall which flavor, but it does not matter), I got that all-too-familiar feeling that I ate something I should not have. The only thing I had eaten was the Cheezits, so I looked at the ingredients. Yup, has Palm Oil. Grumble, Growl, Snort! Look again in disbelief… Yup, There it is.

Palm Oil is one of many items I am allergic to. In recent years, many food manufacturers have switched to using Palm (or Coconut) Oil, instead of the Sunflower or Soybean Oils. I am told the reason for this is purely cost-motivated. Palm and Coconut oils are cheap, so the companies can make more profit. So even products I have always been safe in eating suddenly become poison to me. This was the case with my beloved Cheezits. (and before anyone starts suggesting I look in the “Natural”, or “health food” Stores… Think about that for a second… Those stores Use MORE Coconut Products than others do! Those stores are like ticking product-bombs just waiting to jump out and poison me!

I was in disbelief as I read the label, because I knew… I ABSOLUTELY KNEW There was no Palm Oil in my beloved Cheezits. But there it was… and even without reading the label, I could FEEL it poisoning my blood and brain. But regardless, it was there in nice, clear print. So I naturally did what anyone would do… I grabbed a different box of Cheezits from the cupboard (I normally had no less than 6-boxes on hand at all times.) And I found exactly what I knew I would: That box had NO Palm Oil. But several of the others did. It was clear… they were in the process of changing their ingredients, and I had one box that was older than the rest.

Never mind the way the allergic reaction was making me feel, react, and behave. I was (trying to be)more focused on the thought of “Might I find a store that still has pallets of the Old Cheezits?” Hmm… How can I find All the old ones, and possibly buy ‘em all up, so I can keep enjoying Cheezits forever? But of course that would not work on my budget. In fact, I had already spent my snack budget… and it was quickly dawning on me that I had a cupboard full of snacks that I could not eat…  and even more depressing, I was realizing that I likely would never find any Cheezits on the store shelves that still were the old recipe. I looked through some of the other snack I had in the cupboard, and found similar scenarios. For example, The box of “Scooby Snacks” I had just bought had Palm Oil in it, but the one I had bought two weeks prior did not.

Wait, You think you just read something about Scooby Snacks? Yes, You read that right. “Scooby Snacks”… here, look….

….Yup! They are shaped like dog-biscuits, but are delicious and deceptively tasty as human snacks! A hint of cinnamon in a Graham Cracker. Fun to just put in a bowl, without the package and see if people will eat a dog-snack!

But I was sad, because the more snacks I looked at, the more I found Palm Oil. This was hard, because in the past three years, I have had the same story with Ice Cream. So, now I was not able to enjoy my beloved ice cream, it seemed also, my beloved snacks were to be off limits, too! (and Muffins, too!)

I bagged up all the snacks in my home that Now had Palm Oil and donated them to a worthy home. It was sad to have to say goodbye, but they went to a home that could love them… and where I would not be tormented by them in my sight.

The next time I went to the store, I spent at least an hour in the cracker aisle, looking for any crackers that did not have palm oil. I found some, but of course they were not varieties I liked, or worse, they were the Extremely expensive brands… The ones where you feel you should at least be wearing something fancy if you are going to consume them. Ugh. Here I go again… something I never had to give any thought to, now will poison me if I am not careful.

The hardest part is the few without palm oil are the ones I can’t enjoy. So, my snack cupboard remains an empty space… very symbolic.

Every now and then, I find a random cracker brand, or flavor that looks promising, and I buy it. Each time, I am disappointed. There was a reason I chose Cheezits as my favorite for my whole life… and none others will fill that void.

Today, I was pleasantly surprised to find a new Triscuit Cracker. It was called Triscuit Thins, and Was Cheese Flavored, too! I had not had a Triscuit in so many years I cannot recall when it was I last had one.  I have never disliked Triscuits, just never got excited about them. Also the fact that they are in the higher-priced range of crackers, plus you get a teeny-tiny box for that high price, I have not ever gone to buy them. But today, with the discovery of This one with Cheese… And No Palm Oil, I bought the box!

I’ll bet you are still wondering how any of this connects to my dead Gramma, right? I’m getting’ to that! Be patient… hehe.

When I got home from the store, as usual, I like to snack while putting the groceries away. And Often, I will choose to snack on The new item I have brought home, excited to try this new discovery. So, I opened the box of Triscuits. As soon as I opened the box, the long-ago-familiar smell of those Triscuit Crackers hit me. I did not at first connect what I smelled with what my mind was remembering… Until I took that first bite. Oh MY GOD! It’s Gramma! I tasted Gramma!!! I smelled Gramma, and Tasted Gramma!! I was suddenly a kid again in Gramma’s kitchen snacking on Triscuits with her! Now don’t get all weird and think the cracker tasted like Gramma’s flesh, or anything like that. It was at THAT Moment I recalled the last time I had eaten Triscuit Crackers! Triscuits were Gramma’s cracker, like Cheezits were mine.

I Found Gramma in A Box of Triscuits!! My Gramma died long ago, and I have never felt this feeling of “Her” since even many years before she died. I am not even sure when she died, or if she was buried, or cremated… or even where the remains in whatever form were placed. (Not to sound insensitive, but I had said goodbye to Gramma many years before she actually died, and whatever, or wherever I was in my life at the time of her actual death did not make an impact on me in the sense that I needed to mark it on a calendar.) Actually, I bet that last bit makes you think I am really insensitive, huh? I guess you’ll just hafta sit and chat with me about death sometime to fully understand my views, huh? Insensitive, no… different about many of the things we experience, yes.  Her death definitely impacted me… Often in more deep-ways than you might first imagine. I have interesting ways of dealing with death, loss, suffering, and how it affects my life, and how I move forward.

Enough about her death.

Tonight, I found Gramma in a Box of Triscuits!! This was enough of an impact that I immediately turned on the computer and started writing about this. (well, as soon as I put away the groceries, anyhow) I had a huge list of things I wanted to accomplish tonight, since it was the end of my weekend, and this coming week will prove to be more hectic than many of the past have. Also, this week will mark the end of one chapter in my life, and the beginning(s) of many new chapters. The last thing I intended to do was write a blog… until I Found Gramma In a Box of Triscuits.

This Gramma I mention is the one I have written about at least in a dozen different blogs. She was My Mom’s Mom. Technically, she was a “Grandma”, but we called her Gramma. As a kid, I cherished every moment I ever got to spend with her, and I never felt like I did not belong, or that somehow she just tolerated me. She was always a mix of The Country-Club Queen, and The Get-Dirty in the Garden Gal. She was the perfect blend between high-society-social parties, and talking silly using pig-latin at the dinner table kind of lady.  She went easily from pearls and heels, to nudist in the mud. She could set-up The Perfect Formal Dinner in her dining room, and an hour later, transform that same room into a fort made of couch-cushions, sheets, and pillows for us to have sleep-overs in. She was the one who everyone felt safe and comfortable naked around, yet she would be the first to point out the funny lines left by a chair on your butt. How, you might ask do Triscuits fit into all of this? Simple: Triscuits were Gramma’s Cracker. No matter the level of class, or how down n dirty she got, Triscuits were the cracker she had for all to enjoy. She always served cheese with the Triscuits, too. So this box of Cheese-Triscuits I opened and ate tonight, unleashed a flood of memories that I had not felt since at least 33 years ago!!

The last time I remember feeling this was when I was 12. Tonight when I stood in the kitchen eating my Triscuits, I found Gramma in That Box. So, No matter how, or where her remains were placed when she died so long ago, I found where they went… They somehow went to The Nabisco Plant, and found This Box of Triscuits, to come and visit Me! I never imagined I would feel that feeling ever again. Tonight, I was taken back to a world long lost. A world where everything was safe, a world where no matter what was happening, once you were at Gramma’s house, it would all be ok.

Triscuits… Who woulda thunkit? And to think… maybe I am allergic to all my favorites so I would find these Triscuits, and Feel Gramma once again… Everything happens for a reason… Gramma, Thank You for The Triscuits!...

… Now I think I will go built a sheet and couch-cushion fort to sleep in tonight.