Today is Mom's birthday. I've been missing family lately. Whenever I smell something close to what she'd cook while I was growing up, this feeling becomes more acute, so I've been thinking about how food relates to family and care.
We don't have a Normal Rockwell relationship, Mom and I. We've spent the last few years putting it back together but I still love her and wish I could cook like she does.
Starting in my early teens I used to make pasta with red sauce family members swore would cure whatever ailment they were suffering from. They'd purchase ingredients for me and I'd visit them and make dinner. The recipe was never the same as I relied on whatever spices were available in individual kitchens. The 'cure-all' sauce stories began after cooking for an Aunt in the dead of winter. She had powdered sage in her cupboard and I decided to use some. She reported feeling better the next day. I know this isn't miraculous and has a great deal to do with the herbal properties of sage, but the act of care itself is part of healing.
Our families and those close to us teach us the most about care because they are responsible for how we learn about food. We occasionally had Fend For Yourself Night, but most of the time Mom tried her best to get us around a table for some duration at dinner. Conversely, an old college roommate of mine had a Fend For Yourself childhood and was stunned when I poked my head in her room and mentioned food was ready. She knew I was cooking but assumed I was not making her any. I remember the meal was a simple chicken and rice dish that I managed to not burn. Years later, she would laugh at me when I tried to pan fry a chicken breast with herb and cheese coating...whoops. One broke summer between jobs and aid checks she made some weird garlic and tomato sauce thing with whatever starch we could find. It seemed to last forever and after we weren't as broke we tried to recreate it. No dice. Maybe you have to be stretching your pennies for cheap beer in dive bars (we liked the air conditioning), to inspire such strange and awesome dishes. She was my family for a long time.
Mom used to make this for my sister and I during summer and she'd serve it whenever there was a party for people who did not want or could not drink alcohol.
Mom's Faerie Juice
Your favorite light or clear sparkling beverage
Orange juice
Lemon or lime juice to taste
Citrus fruit
Find a punch bowl. Thrift stores are good for this. Cut the citrus fruit into slices to float over whatever mix of the other ingredients you concoct. Nice for hot summer days.
Of course, I wouldn't be celebrating Mom's birthday properly without including directions for making an Irish Coffee, truth serum du jour. The Wikimobile tells me a proper Irish Coffee is made this way:
Black coffee is poured into the mug. Whiskey and at least one level teaspoon of sugar is stirred in until fully dissolved. The sugar is essential for floating liquid cream on top.Thick cream is carefully poured over the back of a spoon initially held just above the surface of the coffee and gradually raised a little. The layer of cream will float on the coffee without mixing. The coffee is drunk through the layer of cream. To ensure the integrity of the ingredients of Irish Coffee, NSAI, Ireland's national standards body published an Irish Standard, I.S. 417 Irish Coffee in 1988. The Irish Standard can be obtained from www.standards.ie or viewed for free in the offices of NSAI in Santry, Dublin, Ireland.
Alright everyone, what's for dinner? What dinners make you feel most at home, wherever home might be?