Editorial: Life lessons from Lucy’s kitchen
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We should all live like Lucy.
Lucy Pollock, 98, of Latrobe spent the last months surrounded by the love of her family and friends.
And how those friends grew in that time.
During the coronavirus pandemic, when people stayed home in lockdown and baking bread became the closest thing many had to a sport, this tiny lady became the internet’s grandma. She would show and tell the way to make cinnamon buns or pumpkin rolls, marinara sauce or green bean soup in livestreamed videos on a Facebook page her daughter set up for her.
She collected thousands of followers. She wrote a cookbook. She was interviewed by a former first daughter on national television. After almost a century, Pollock was a star.
She was cheery and busy in the face of a pandemic response that has left many angry and bitter. It might be that, born in 1922, Pollock had learned a lesson many of us haven’t yet. She was a child during the Great Depression, when railing against the unfairness of it all did no good but doing the hard work to get through it did. She was a young woman during World War II when sacrifice was asked and expected, but sacrifice was also offered without protest.
She learned to cook and bake from her mother. Baking bread is the kind of thing that teaches patience because yeast doesn’t care if you are frustrated or anxious. It’s going to take as much time to rise as it’s going to take, so you learn to make your peace with your part in the process.
And the part Pollock chose was to be the comforting warmth that lets the dough rise.
“I’m just happy I am able to help people,” she told Jenna Bush Hager on “Today” when she was interviewed on Oct. 21.
On Friday, Pollock was admitted to the hospital. She had a lung infection, daughter Mary Ellen Ranieri posted to the Facebook page — but she also added another post. Her mom wanted people to have her pie crust recipes for Thanksgiving. On Saturday, she was a little better, Ranieri wrote.
On Sunday, the family announced she was gone. Ranieri said she had tested positive for covid-19.
If there is a way to honor the kind of life that was spent feeding bodies and souls, it will be done by following her example — and a few simple rules she gave to Hager in that interview.
“Wash your hands,” she said. Good advice for baking but crucial in a pandemic.
Make sure to knead your dough enough. In other words, do the work and don’t take shortcuts.
And lastly, “If you don’t have yourself organized, goodbye. You’re not going to do it right.”
Thank you, Lucy, for being the kind of teacher people needed this year — and not just in the kitchen.