Dinner at my grandmother's house

My grandmother is a great cook. She always thinks of something new to make for dinner when I visit her, and it always tastes great. She says I inherited her taste buds, and that's why she knows exactly what food to prepare for me.

She wasn't always as good at cooking as she is now. Her mother, my great-grandmother, taught her nothing. She did not care much for food, and was not allowed in the kitchen anyway because she used to have servants to make dinner.
However, during World War 2, even my great-grandmother realized that times were changing, and that her daughter would probably have to take care of herself and her family in the future. So in the last year of the war, when there was nothing to eat and everyone was hungry, she sent my grandmother to household school. There was not much food to learn to cook with, so mostly the girls had to watch how their teachters cooked one egg for the entire class and explained to their students what they were doing. Cooking meat was out of the question because there was no meat, except for one time, which my grandmother now recalls as something very special.
So she learned in school how to take care of her family. My mother recalls that she was not very good at cooking in the beginning. And anyway what was she to do with a husband whose only comment on a good salad was 'I am not a rabbit'? But she liked cooking very much and her skills developed over the years. She even became a vegetarian!
So now she is ninety-four years old, and a leftist vegetarian grandmother who always surprises us with something new for dinner.

She still lays the table like she always has: with crystal glasses for wine, and 'messenleggers' (the things on which you place the blade of the knive to keep the tablecloth clean, I did not find the word for it in English, does anyone know it?).
Today she made baked potatoes, and celery in a light cheese sauce, with spicy falafel.