Perfection in Chaos - Grandparents.com

How the birth of her grandchild taught the perfectly put-together Birt Lewis to relax and enjoy the ride.

It was different when Birt Lewis’s children were young in the mid-1960s. Appearances mattered more than emotional connection and phrases like “quality time” hadn’t been invented. Back then, most suburban women stayed at home with their children and worked tirelessly in keeping up with the world of suburban life.

“I concentrated on creating a beautiful home, making sure that there was never, ever anything out of place, and raising well-mannered children,” says Lewis.

Her family, friends, former colleagues, and anyone who has seen her home or eaten her cooking call Lewis, who lives near Westport in Weston, Conn., “the black Martha Stewart.” She calls herself “Grandma.”

“Our lives changed the day my husband and I had a grandchild,” says Lewis. Shortly after their granddaughter, Cameron, was born in 1997, constant business travel and professional demands on the infant’s parents became untenable. “Gammy and Grandpa swooped in to the rescue,” she says.

They were barely 60 years old. Lewis, who had gone to work in a social-service agency in Bridgeport, Conn., after her children left home, was easing out of her position. Her husband had retired from IBM. After a lifetime of relocating and spending decades planning to move home to California, their plans came to a halt. Within weeks of meeting their first grandchild, moving plans melted away.

“We were enamored of Cameron’s every move. It was as if we had never experienced the growth and development of our own daughters,” she says, “and now we had the chance to do things differently.”

And different it was.

Once a fanatic about housekeeping, organization, and preparing color-coordinated meals in a timely manner, Lewis was suddenly transformed. She became a patient and adoring guardian, embracing the gooey messes and unpredictability of childhood. Her husband was equally transformed.

“A messy house, clutter, and any sense of timeliness all ceased to be priority matters in our lives,” reports Lewis. “I didn’t want my children underfoot, and now I think something is missing if a little one isn’t around creating some sort of fabulous chaos when I cook.”

Her first-born granddaughter’s introduction to food started when the child was in her high chair. “A half a cup of flour on her tray was enthralling! She could touch it, taste it, spread around, smear it on her face, and splatter it everywhere,” recalls Lewis. By the time she was 18 months old, her granddaughter was squishing together the ingredients for meat loaf, cracking eggs, and pouring milk into cookie batter.

Lewis was beside herself with delight at her granddaughter’s culinary prowess.

“What a mess!” she would exclaim. Her own daughters stared in disbelief.

“Who is this woman?” whispered one.

“This is not our mother,” said another.

And this was before the Queen of Clean, Her Highness Immaculatadi Perfecto, installed a child-sized wooden kitchen in the swanky culinary-arts center of her home, and before she set up an easel so that the grandchildren can practice both the culinary and the fine arts.

“Isn’t it wonderful the way they move between painting and stirring pots,” thrilled Mrs. Lewis, sidestepping a skid of finger paint here, an egg yolk there.

Once, holding a revolting amalgam of cereal, flour, and water, she gushed, “Look at this masterpiece!”

Her daughters decided it was time to take action. “Grab her coffee cup! Get a strand of her hair!” said Stephani, Lewis’s middle daughter, an attorney, and the mother of her grandchildren. “We need to have a look at this woman’s DNA,” she said.

Soon, however, it became clear that cooking with Grandma was more than playtime. It was even more than quality time. The intergenerational kitchen gave them hours of shared purpose, hours to talk and listen, hours to learn family history, hours to learn who they are.

Lewis, who was born in Monroe, La., and grew up in Northern California, began teaching the grandchildren to make her mother’s gumbo. “They don’t like spicy food so much yet, but they love making that dish. It’s so much chopping and mincing and sautéing,” she says. “It’s so much action.”

The dish also requires tasting and a feel for balancing and seasoning the ingredients. At 11 and 8 years old, Cameron and Paige are up to the task. They are serious cooks. They take pride in their work. They don’t like a messy kitchen. Their brother, Julian, was born in July 2006 and has not yet begun his culinary apprenticeship. Lewis has high hopes for him.

“He has demonstrated a distinct interest in chewing on chicken bones,” she says. “He is always craning his neck to see what’s in a pot.”