The Books
About ten years ago my mom handed me a brown paper bag that I assumed was "giveaway", and said "Do you want these?”
I peeked inside, finding the familiar colorful checkers of her cookbooks.
“DO I WANT THOSE!?!?!!”
It was as if she was asking if I wanted her surplus of onions because it was “buy one bag get another bag free” at the market that day. “Make some French onion soup”, she’d say. “Or throw them, away, I don’t care.”
It was like the time in the middle of a painfully long church service, she nudged me in the side, pointed to her gold watch and mouthed “Do you want this?”
It was like all the times she’d hand me a bag overflowing with “stuff” - full of half bags of flour (because she “wasn’t baking anymore” (again) ), command strips (because hot glue gun worked better), mismatched athletic socks (not sure where the others went, but “these are perfectly good”), an opened box of couscous (because she hated the feeling of it in her teeth) and pre-stamped white letter envelopes (because “email is the way to go these days”).
DO I WANT THOSE!?
Why yes. YES. I want those.
I want to know the secret of Mimi’s Chocolate Cake, our great grandmother’s secret cake that was made every year for our birthdays. I want to see the list of ingredients in the Frito Salad we loved so much growing up. I needed to make Monster Cookies and find the secret brownie recipe that she’d eventually “stolen” so to speak, from a church friend.
I found though, as detailed as she was, Mom left a lot out.
I can “intuitive cook”, I can do things like “Bake til golden brown”, “Boil for five minutes and then reduce to simmer until it’s the thickness of syrup”, and I can “Blend until it’s the consistency of pancake batter…”
I stall though, when I come to footnotes with “optional” ingredients.
Add nuts (optional) - This is hard. Do I like nuts in my cookies? Sometimes…and what kind of nuts? Are they chopped or whole? Do they have skin? This all makes a difference.
Add cheese (optional) - Does the cheese change the consistency of the bread?
Add raisins (optional) - This is easy. NOPE.
And I feel stuck when there’s no measurements and words are used like “some”, “to taste” and “a tad”.
And then there’s this:
“Add some flour” – How much is “some”? A pinch or a pound?
“Bake until done” – When exactly is that? In 10 minutes or 2 hours?
“Use oil” – Olive oil and motor oil are not interchangeable!
“Add onions” – Chopped, sliced, or whole? It makes a difference!
“Let it rest” – For how long? A minute or overnight?
“Mix well” – With a spoon, a mixer, or your hands?
“Add butter” – Melted, softened, or straight from the fridge?
Memories of our kitchen include fresh bread baking on Mondays, dinner being prepped by 9am, garlic braids hanging from the corner, a ceiling full of hanging baskets, canning days, of jams, relishes, pickles.
I remember as I pick away at recipes through the books, how Mom went from loving her oven baked BBQ chicken to vegetarianism - and then back to loving bacon cheeseburgers - and then back to vegetarianism. And it will all be reflected here.