Love, Mom

We hadn’t had a family dinner in a long time. When we gathered together at home on a Sunday afternoon not too long ago, childhood memories floated back to me and I was reminded of how much I miss it when I am away at college. My family, our guests and I, all crowded around a lovely piece of patio furniture, meant for four but seating eight instead. We used to have a brown rectangular dining table, more fit for indoor dining, but after my brother bought a house my mom gave him the table as part of his house warming present. The piano behind where my dad sat looks unassuming, like always, a backdrop for the wall. It was used as an extra surface for the dinner rolls that night. My dog Piper and the two cats, Cally and Tiger, hovered anxiously around the table legs. “Dig in”, my mom said as she ran to the kitchen for one more thing—honey, essential for bread rolls. I was over zealous with the serving spoon, as I often am, and I knew as soon as I tasted the first hardy bite of my perfect meal, Beef Bourguignon, and my eyes looked down at my ample helping, that I had taken too much.

The veggies and the button mushrooms had been purchased by my mom at our local grocery, Wagoner’s, except for the pearl onions. I picked up those up from Meijer on my way out of Kalamazoo. When I arrived in Lawton and walked up the front steps, brick and crumbling, my mom ran out to greet me and to help carry in my laundry. Bringing home the dirty clothes is a natural routine for any college sophomore staying home for an evening.

When we settled ourselves in the kitchen, ready to turn whole foods into fractions, I was eager to finally be cooking with my mom. I had never cooked on my own before and it wouldn’t be a perfect meal if I didn’t have company. My mom was an obvious choice, after her long years of feeding a family of five and never once complaining. To me she is the best cook around.

I remembered to wash my hands before we began all the chopping that had to be done. I started by slicing the taut red bell peppers while my mom turned the heat on under our flour coated meat. My mom poured a glass of wine and the winter sun shining through the kitchen windows made the drink sparkle. She peeled carrots in the sink as I moved on to the purple onions. I kept thinking about how my chopping skills would be useless to a trained chef but also how it didn’t matter. It would taste delicious either way. The carrots were my least favorite to cut up because they were much tougher than the other ingredients and I always ended up banging the knife against the cutting board trying the whole time to be gentle but falling short each time.  

Dinnertime togetherness had been a requirement for most of my life and the chopping made me think about how noble my mom’s efforts had been—trying to keep us at the table while we were pulling away. Mandatory family dinner slowly disappeared as high school and sports took over my life and then in turn, did the same to my sister Nicole two years later. My brother Joel is two years older than me but he doesn’t have the same tendency to put too much on his plate. Dinnertime eventually degenerated into serve your self at your convenience dinners in front of the TV. I was excited to be bringing the family back to the table, even though it was only for one night.

Joel sat between me and his girlfriend from Chicago, Tieren. On my right sat Aaron, my close friend from Kalamazoo College. Next to him sat Nicole and her boyfriend Brandon followed by my mom and dad. Everyone enjoyed the meal. To my siblings and their guests I surmise it was mostly just another free meal from a familiar kitchen with an extra helper, me. But for me and my parents, I know that it was precious time together at home. Aaron was happy to be supporting my cooking endeavors and he is quite a foodie so when he said it was delicious I knew it was true.

I had been overwhelmed the week of the assignment—to make the perfect meal and write about it. I was sick again, second time in five weeks. Since my mom is my closet collaborator in life, I knew she wouldn’t see my request for help as laziness, though I admit it felt that way. But either way, my idea for the perfect meal had more to do with family and friends than any specific dish. The important part was being home and cooking with my mom.

She even picked out the recipe. She recently revisited her interest in Julia Child and her cooking, first with the viewing and then the purchase of the movie Julie and Julia and later by acquiring the cook book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The recipe she found, however, came from food.com and was a variation on the famous stew that Julia Child is known for. She sent her findings in an email:

Hi Baby!

Went looking for some main dish mushroom recipes ... and one of them listed was a variation on Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon (basically, a yummy beef stew) - the variation being that it is EASIER and much less time consuming to make.

Love, Mom

I had just read Michael Pollen’s adventures in foraging for mushrooms from The Omnivore’s Dilemma so when I had called my mom about the project and asked her for her help I informed her that fungi was a requirement. I acquired a taste for mushrooms around the age of 10 simply because of their unique taste and texture. My dad always insisted that they were the food of the gods and so I fell in love with their mysticism too. I knew my parents and I would appreciate the little decomposers, and that was what really mattered. Instead of beef though, I had the idea to use venison. An old work friend of my dad’s fills our freezer with the stuff every year and I thought it would go well with the mushrooms; I wanted to aim more toward the forest instead of the pasture, especially after watching Food Inc.

It all looked so beautiful mixed together in the large roasting pan we used to cook the stew in. First the peppers were added, little red rubies brightening up the meat. Next the purple onion pieces and the chunks of carrot followed by the mushrooms and a bay leaf. Finally, my mom and I pealed the small pearl onions, the size of ping-pong balls. She didn’t know it but we were competing for the fastest peeler award. There flaky outsides were difficult to remove and I wanted to make sure I did the most work. I knew how much work she had done for this meal, and I wished I had done more but at the same time, I knew that she really didn’t mind. Giving up her time and energy for others is a common practice for my mom. She does this. I can only hope that I will grow up to be as unselfish as my mom one day. As she rushed off at five o’ clock to work a shift she recently picked up on Sunday nights to make paying tuition easier, I mustered up the strength to do some work for her. I prepared to tackle the dishes, a minuscule token of gratitude for her unmatched awesomeness as my mother.