Undergraduate / Common App Essay -- Cooking with my Polish Grandmother (does it say enough about me?) [2]

I'm afraid that my essay doesn't say enough about me, and puts too much focus on my grandmother. Also, I'm not sure if it's easy to understand. Any feedback will be very appreciated!! (It's word count is 640 out of a maximum of 650)

Prompt One: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

I could only communicate with my grandmother through a labyrinth of digits and telephone cards, since she lived in Poland -- 4,000 miles away from my New York City apartment. When I got the chance to speak to her, she would tell me childhood stories, share words of advice, and give me snippets of her community's latest gossip. Dense with laughter, our conversations often lasted for hours, and ended with a sad string of goodbye's. Naturally, after listening to my grandmother for years, I yearned to see her in person. So, during the summer of 2013, I flew across the stretch of the Atlantic to meet the woman across the telephone line.

In a matter of seconds, I spotted my grandmother in the Wroclaw airport. Her black hair, mist-blue eyes, and pink-tinted glasses pierced through the crowds of dazed travelers and speed-walking businessmen. Once we finally reached each other, she wrapped her arms around me and smiled. Then, holding my hand, she walked me towards her car, and drove me to the quaint apartment that I would call home for the next two months.

Amid the several eventful days I've spent at that apartment, a hazy day of wandering around, doing nothing, has been my most memorable. On that particular day, I navigated through the house in blissful boredom, running my fingers across the walls, and peering out of window panes.Then, smelling the sweet scent of sauteed onions, I diverged into the kitchen, where I saw my grandmother kneading a knot of dough. As she stretched and folded it at a steady, meditative rhythm, she spotted me from across the room, and motioned for me to come. As I approached her, she instructed me to spread some flour across the table. So, I blanketed the surface with a sheet of white, and continued to watch the knot soften into shape. From that moment forward, making pierogi, or Polish dumplings, became our tradition.

In between the kneading, cutting, shaping, and boiling, my grandmother and I bonded, welding together the 4,000 mile gap that once separated us. While cutting out circles of dough, my grandmother would lace a string of stories together, about growing up in Poland during World War II, about having little to eat at home, and seeing soldiers raid the homes of neighbors, friends, and family. She would tell me about her experience being raised in a farm, by a poor family, and later becoming a distinguished school teacher. As she spun together her tender web of advice, history, and inspiration, she opened my eyes. The woman who stood before me, plopping dumplings into a bubbling cauldron, was now more than a black-haired, blue-eyed grandmother. She was my role model.

Even with our close relationship, the 4,000-mile distance between my grandmother and I returned once I arrived at New York City. Once at my mom's apartment, I would punch in the numbers from the all-too-familiar telephone card, call my grandmother, and sob about my homesickness, about my desire to stay in Poland for eternity. After wheezing out my final rant, however, she would always exchange the same two words across the line: Make pierogi. So, I would proceed towards the kitchen, take out a bowl, and mirror my grandmother's moves, as she made pierogi in Poland. After rolling up my sleeves, I would press my palms into a knot of dough, stretching and folding in rhythm. I would blanket the table with a sheet of powder-white, seeing the familiar, flour-cloud rise through the kitchen air. Then, my grandmother's infinite string of stories would stream through my mind, while I scooped potato filling into a dumpling skin. Plopping the dumplings into the stove-top's bubbling cauldron, I realize that, although grandma is no longer by my side, she has given me a new appreciation for my life and culture.