The Citymeals Blog

I was lucky enough to know my paternal grandmother Stella for the first 13 years of my life.

Her kitchen was a place of great warmth and comfort. My fondest memories are of watching her make custard cake. It was a wonder – handfuls of flour and sugar being tossed about with precise abandon. Her liquid measuring cups – mismatched empty Jewish Yahrzeit ceremonial candle holders – overflowed with milk. And when the cake was in the oven, I would gleefully lick the custard bowl.

My grandmother’s story mirrors the lives of many of our Citymeals’ recipients. Born in Brooklyn, she was the daughter of Russian immigrants. She didn’t have an easy life. She married at 18 and after her mother died, she raised her six younger siblings, along with my father and his two younger brothers. They made do with very little, and meals were a hodgepodge of what they could afford. But my father always remembers his mother’s kitchen as bountiful.

I think of my grandmother often, especially around Mother’s Day, and I am grateful she had family nearby to care for her in her last years. But for the 18,000 homebound elderly New Yorkers we serve – they have Citymeals. Many of them have outlived spouses, friends and often their own children. Two-thirds of our meal recipients are women, and Mother’s Day can be an especially lonely time for them.

At Citymeals, we view our frail aged neighbors as family, and we build a bridge to the world they hardly ever see anymore. Providing that connectivity, companionship and nourishment is what Citymeals does.

There’s no better way to honor the women we love, including those who are no longer with us, like my grandmother Stella.