As I stared into my refrigerator on this, my grandmother’s 112th birthday, I was reminded of her frugality and creativity with food.

Gram would, as many of her generation did, save every unused ingredient and unchewed morsel in the freezer for insane lengths of time. It made sense; she came of age in the starving-est time in American history (…so far) and that stinginess, that resourcefulness came in handy back in the Depression and the War and served her well up right until the end.

Thus were reheated lasagna rolls never more than a few minutes in the oven away.

Thus was frittad never more than a few eggs, some onions, and a jaunt to the garage freezer for God-only-knows-what-else away.

Thus were vegetables snuck into chocolate chip cookies, which, now that I think about it, was not merely for the sake of sneaking nutrients into children’s diets, but for the sake of stretching various foodstuffs as far as humanly possible. The sense of betrayal was never enough to keep us from eating the cookies, and yielded, as the years passed, and as I had to reduce dessert consumption anyways, to appreciation for her wisdom.

We would joke about how long ago any particular dish or ingredient was first frozen, partly because it was probably better not to know the truth, partly because it was one of the Old Girl’s trademarks. But so long as Gram made it in her kitchen and served it at her table, it was good either way.

Happy 112th birthday to Gram!