Maternally Yours

Time was when Grandma could be counted on to have iron-grey hair, always wrenched into a bun, and would only ever be found either tatting lace in a bentwood rocker or pulling something delicious from the oven. These days, Grandma is more likely to look like Valerie Bertinelli or (horrors!) Cher — a part-plastic variation on her own girlhood who wouldn’t dare get close to an oven, for fear of melting off part of her smooth, lovely face.

For those of us who bemoan the loss of old school grannies, there is Plynn Gutman’s The Work of Her Hands, in which the author shares stories of her grandmother’s life and some of those old school Gramma recipes. Marie Anne Lacaille probably thought of herself as “ordinary,” but Gutman’s warm remembrances refute this notion of her grandma, while also entertaining us with fond memories of our own grandmothers.

Thu., Dec. 9, 7 p.m., 2010