Ravenous and Tipsy (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ninabeans) wrote,@ 2005-03-07 23:52:00 |
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Mother's Milk
When I was little, my mother was a mother who Cooked-with-a-capital-C. Each dinner had to have an entree, a green vegetable, and a side dish, and when we were lucky, dessert. When we weren't so lucky, fruit salad - the anti-dessert as far as my brother and I were concerned.
In the category of "things I didn't appreciate while my mother was alive," is that my mother would race home from teaching, pick us up at the community center, and then put together a meal for which we rarely said thank you. But she still did it, day after day, night after night. Sure, she had her lazy days, which is when the featured entree would be hotdogs split down the middle, stuffed with cheddar cheese and ketchup and then baked. But every now and then we'd get my favorite, Shepherd's Pie. It's become this mythical thing in my head, a recipe which is so the embodiment of Mom that it seems like if I could just taste it again, she would be standing before me in her thin skirt and button down blouse, smiling a crooked grin.
I've never seen a recipe quite like she made it, making me wonder it was her own invention. A beautiful homemade pie crust, which she must have blind baked, filled with sauteed hamburger meat and onions (no lamb for finicky children), frozen green peas, and mashed potatoes on top. This would go in the oven until the crust was flaky and golden, and the potatoes had touches of brown on them. When you ate it, the creamyness of the mashed potatoes would contrast with the tender crunchiness of the pie crust, and the pop of the green peas. Warm and filling, it was the very definition of comfort food.
Ever since reading (and crying through) Claire Smith's Blog, Life in LA, I've been thinking about the death day letters she writes to her mother. Brutally honest and heartwrenching, each one takes stock of what has happened in the past year, as well as serving as snapshots of her grieving process for both her parents. I would love to write something like this on my mother's deathday, but I don't know if I'm ready/able, seven years hence. Perhaps instead of a deathday letter(or, in addition to, if I'm ready next January 8th,) I will make a birthday dish on April 18, recreating one of the recipes that she knew in her fingers. Perhaps I will be faithful, perhaps I'll answer her call with a few improvements, daring her to come down and show me how it's properly made.
When I was little, my mother was a mother who Cooked-with-a-capital-C. Each dinner had to have an entree, a green vegetable, and a side dish, and when we were lucky, dessert. When we weren't so lucky, fruit salad - the anti-dessert as far as my brother and I were concerned.
In the category of "things I didn't appreciate while my mother was alive," is that my mother would race home from teaching, pick us up at the community center, and then put together a meal for which we rarely said thank you. But she still did it, day after day, night after night. Sure, she had her lazy days, which is when the featured entree would be hotdogs split down the middle, stuffed with cheddar cheese and ketchup and then baked. But every now and then we'd get my favorite, Shepherd's Pie. It's become this mythical thing in my head, a recipe which is so the embodiment of Mom that it seems like if I could just taste it again, she would be standing before me in her thin skirt and button down blouse, smiling a crooked grin.
I've never seen a recipe quite like she made it, making me wonder it was her own invention. A beautiful homemade pie crust, which she must have blind baked, filled with sauteed hamburger meat and onions (no lamb for finicky children), frozen green peas, and mashed potatoes on top. This would go in the oven until the crust was flaky and golden, and the potatoes had touches of brown on them. When you ate it, the creamyness of the mashed potatoes would contrast with the tender crunchiness of the pie crust, and the pop of the green peas. Warm and filling, it was the very definition of comfort food.
Ever since reading (and crying through) Claire Smith's Blog, Life in LA, I've been thinking about the death day letters she writes to her mother. Brutally honest and heartwrenching, each one takes stock of what has happened in the past year, as well as serving as snapshots of her grieving process for both her parents. I would love to write something like this on my mother's deathday, but I don't know if I'm ready/able, seven years hence. Perhaps instead of a deathday letter(or, in addition to, if I'm ready next January 8th,) I will make a birthday dish on April 18, recreating one of the recipes that she knew in her fingers. Perhaps I will be faithful, perhaps I'll answer her call with a few improvements, daring her to come down and show me how it's properly made.
