Do What Mom Did

My husband and I used to have a continuing battle over how to correctly put the bottom fitted sheet on a bed. Through my sheer tenacity, he has finally given in.

It always started out okay. Put one corner of the sheet on one corner of the bed. However, he would then attempt to put the other corner of the same side of the sheet onto the corresponding corner.

“No, that’s not right,” I would (once again, with feigned patience) explain. “You MUST put the corner that is directly diagonal to the original corner onto the mattress next.”

Invariably, he would ask why. The answer: Because. That’s the way my mom did it.

I never really bothered to ask Mom why she did it that way. I always presumed that it was because the sheet would somehow fit tighter onto the mattress if done that way. Perhaps sheets weren’t made as well back then. It doesn’t matter why. I just know it was the right way to do it because my mom did it that way.

I started thinking about some of the things I do as an adult simply because my mom did it. For example, I am unable to throw away any kind of bottle of anything with a thick texture – shampoo, dishwashing soap, olive oil, hand lotion – without balancing that for-all-intents-and-purposes empty bottle onto the new bottle so as to catch every single drop of the one I’m about to toss. Yes, that has resulted in breakage. It is not unusual to hear a crash come from the kitchen when the corn syrup bottle that is balancing on top of the other succumbs to gravity and falls onto the counter or floor. Still, I continue to do the precarious balancing act every single time.

I asked my sisters if there were things they do simply because Mom did it that way. Yes, laughs one sister. Mom always properly set the table, so no matter where she and her husband eat (even if it’s off of the coffee table in front of the television), she sets the plate, carefully folds the napkin to the left, and properly places the flatware, fork to the left, knife to the right.

Of course, says the other sister. She cannot (not will not – CANNOT) throw away a little bouillon cube jar. They can, really MUST, be used for such things as leftover salad dressing, buttons, or garlic butter.

Mom’s influence goes to all of our cooking habits as well. Mom used garlic salt every time she browned ground beef. So do we. Mom took the lid off of the potatoes she was boiling to ultimately mash and let the water evaporate, which she said concentrated the flavor into the potatoes. So do we. (Well, I must admit I just learned this habit of Mom’s recently from my sister, but it is undoubtedly the way I will boil potatoes from this point forward.)

I have a friend who used to cut off a corner of her ham every time she cooked one for Easter dinner. One day, she told me, her mom was at her house for dinner. Her mother watched as she dutifully cut off the corner of the ham and tossed it aside to use in soup. “Why did you do that?” her mother asked. Surprised, my friend said, “I did it because you always did that when you made ham.” Her mother laughed, and responded, “I did that because my pan was too small to hold a whole big ham!”

I would love to hear what sorts of things others do for no other reason than that is what their mom or dad did.

Simple

Sometimes I practice what I preach, and cook simply.

It’s been kind of a tiring month, and has involved a fair amount of cooking for large numbers of people, all here in honor of my father. Usually I love to cook for crowds – the more, the merrier. This month, it has felt kind of overwhelming. I’m not quite up to par I guess.

In addition, last weekend I, along with a friend, hosted an annual gathering of women to celebrate the Christmas holiday. These are generally the kinds of situations in which I thrive. I love to make simple and delicious soups and salads, and bake homemade goodies for friends and family.

However, sometimes cooking simply means making it easy on yourself.

For example, I have talked before about how I can make these wonderful chocolate cupcakes that I fill with delicious cream filling, reminiscent of Hostess cupcakes. I have successfully made these cupcakes a dozen times. This time, however, something went terribly wrong. I’m not entirely sure what. Perhaps I forgot the baking powder. Maybe I used too much (or too little) flour. Instead of light and delicious cupcakes, I had greasy chocolate doorstops.

I briefly (about a millisecond) considered a do-over. Then I came to my senses and went to my pantry and brought forth a store-bought chocolate cake mix and a can of store-bought chocolate frosting. In a mere 20 minutes or so, I had not-quite-as-good-as-homemade chocolate cupcakes, which I filled with the homemade cream filling I had already made for the original cupcakes.

And here’s the thing – nobody noticed. Everyone was caught up in joyful conversation and holiday gladness, and not one person took a bite of the cupcakes only to spit it out with disgust. While I knew they weren’t as good as homemade, no one else cared.

The moral of the story is that cooking and eating for and with friends should not exhaust you or bring you to tears. There’s nothing wrong with taking the easy way out when that seems to be the most sensible thing to do. Just think of yourself as Sandra Lee, the star of Semi-Homemade Cooking, instead of the Barefoot Contessa. After all, both women are probably equally loved – and equally rich!

Love Letter

November was a difficult month for me. My father died.

He was placed under hospice care at the beginning of the month, and died with exceptional dignity on November 9. That he died with such grace was predictable.

I have spoken about my father often in this blog. He was a baker, just as his father was a baker. While as far as I know, he never said this out loud, I’m not sure being a baker was his first choice. I think if he could have been anything he wanted when he grew up, he would have been a professional musician. Making a living by blowing a horn.

He was, in fact, a musician when he met my mom. He was playing in my mom’s brother’s dance band when he spotted the pretty petite girl who was his band leader’s sister. He set his sights on her, and never looked back.

He knew that after they got married and began a family, a musician’s life was not practical. So he went back to my grandfather’s bakery to work, and eventually bought the bakery from him. He and my mom ran a very successful business, and he was probably the best baker in the entire Midwest.

He fully understood the feel of a dough or the way a cake batter should look. If the look or feel wasn’t right, he knew why and how to fix it. My dad would roll out yeast donut dough, and could cut the donuts and flip them onto his finger (tossing the hole aside) all in one flawless motion – faster than you can say Krispy Kreme.

He was proud of his skill, proud of his business, proud of his family. He taught my brother to be a baker, and taught all of us the importance of hard work and doing our best. After all, we couldn’t produce incomplete homework any more than he could put a shapeless loaf of bread into his showcase. Work hard for the best product.

He taught us all how to live and what is important in life. There was no use in his eyes in looking at what might have been but only in looking ahead and at the gifts he was given. And what was important to him was his family, beautiful music, and good food – and if you could have all three together, that was even better.

He died peacefully, sitting in his easy chair in his own living room. Fittingly, his three daughters had just taken a bit of time away from him to have a sandwich, and once we sat down next to him again, he took his last breath. It would have been important to him that we would have eaten something before he left us. In fact, I’m pretty sure my mom and my grandmother were in heaven telling him, “Now Honey, there’s no need for you to go anywhere until they have had a little something to eat.”

While my brother is a professional baker, I only dabble. I’m fairly successful, but fully admit that nothing about baking is intuitive to me. I follow a recipe and my baked goods generally turn out to be pretty tasty. But when my bread won’t rise or my cakes fall in the middle, I can’t tell you if there is too much humidity or the flour is old or the water used to proof the yeast was too hot or too cold. But in my dad’s memory, I will continue to bake. And also in his memory, I will try to always have a positive outlook, just as he did.

And finally, I pledge to learn to make a decent loaf of bread. But it won’t be as good as his.