Question

Times are a little tough at our house right now. Neither of us makes a lot of money, but years of experience have taught us how to walk between the raindrops and make it from one month to the next with a fair amount of grace. I cook a lot at home, more when we're facing lean times. When I know that I have to keep us fed on not much money, I fall back on my grandmother's recipes. She taught me to cook.

When I was a kid, my twin brother and I spent long summer weeks and Christmas vacations with my mother's parents in the mountains of North Carolina. Rather than go hunting with my grandfather on frozen mornings, I found myself more and more in the kitchen with my grandmother, watching her making a lemon cheese pie with her soft hands.

My great-grandmother died when my grandmother was 11 years old. As the eldest daughter, she was expected to take on all of the housework while attending school. Throughout the Great Depression, she learned how to make a little food go a long way. Vegetables were cheap, so she cooked a lot of them, mostly only using small amounts of meat for seasoning. Roast beef was a twice-a-month luxury, but there was nothing she couldn't do with a chicken, every part of it. Nothing went to waste.

Now I understand that her food was sacred. I feel connected to my grandmother and to hundreds of years of family when I'm in my kitchen making country food. In the delicious smells is a long tale of victory over hard times, of conquering starvation—of not just surviving, but finding joy and pleasure in every meal of every day.

From grandmother I learned to take real satisfaction in feeding people. My grandmother would beam with pleasure over a heavily laden table and say, “Do you know what this would cost at the restaurant? ” I never knew what restaurant in particular she had in mind, but I knew that the question was totally not fair, because no restaurant anywhere can cook like a grandmother. But now, thanks to her guidance and years of practice, I can.

1.According to the passage, the author cooks a lot at home because__________.

A. she wants to try out her grandmother’s recipes

B. she and her husband are quite particular about food

C. she enjoys cooking at home

D. she and her husband are embarrassed financially

2.What does the underlined word “lean” mean in the first paragraph?

A. with a bad harvest B. with little money

C. with little enengy D. with little work

3.According to the passage, the author’s grandmother__________.

A. learnt to cook throughout the Great Depression

B. was careful in budgeting

C. preferred chicken to beef

D. was careful in cooking vegetables

4.Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

A. Cook like My Grandmother B. My Grandmother’s Sacred Food

C. My Grandmother’s Recipe D. Joy and Pleasure in Cooking

Answer 1