Mom seldom permitted children in her kitchen, so supper always was something of a miracle to me. But Mom is behind lots of miracles, for that matter.
”Out. Out. Out! You kids stay out of the kitchen,” she cried, sometimes wagging a finger at an offender the way grandmother did.
As I was the only soul in the family bedeviled by an ungovernable appetite for ice cream, a condition which naturally encouraged curiosity about other edibles within reach, I suffered this daily indignity with greater frequency than my six siblings. An exception was made on Saturday mornings. I was welcome then, though only for as long as it took to scrub the kitchen floor on my hands and knees.
How I despised that job.
”You missed a spot,” she would say, wagging that finger again. I cringed, whined, argued and swore Mom saw linoleum scuffs where none existed. But I never won. I probably applied more elbow grease to more nonexistent scuff marks more often than J. Edgar Hoover ever imagined Commies under his mattress, which is saying something.
It always has eluded me how a woman 5-foot-3 and shrinking can terrify a teenager 6-foot-1 and growing. But then, it also eludes me how one woman can give birth and raise seven children of varying belligerence and bulk and still preserve her sanity. That, too, must have been a miracle.
I remember Mom stoically praying in the living room when David was deathly ill with spinal meningitis and–15 years later–whispering excitedly as he walked to the altar in his Navy ensign`s uniform. That her third son lived at all was considered a miracle of the first order.
Kids believed in miracles then. Praying still worked and red meat was wholesome, Eisenhower made the world safe and comic books cost a dime. Dad, who smoked awful cigars that made us all sick in the car, paid 29 cents a gallon to keep us trapped in his Mercury wagon. The great fondness I have for cigar smoke undoubtedly is traceable to that obnoxious odor of my youth, for it reminds me of Dad.
Food aromas likewise cast nostalgic spells long after childhood ends. They help us remember parents on Mother`s Day in a kindly way.
Tears are okay on occasions such as this.
Ours was a meat family, through and through. I think Mom felt it a solemn duty to keep us in marbled beef. The ”starving people of Red China” were invoked as often in one meal as there were children seated at the table.
”We may not have had a lot otherwise, but we ate well,” she recalls.
”We all thought red meat was so good for you in those days. And it was the one thing your Dad really took pleasure in doing–going to the butcher and selecting a particular cut of meat. I think it`s the Ukrainian in him.”
Mom`s kitchen miracles teased me for years. From this forbidden room of cans and pans came feasts of spring lamb, Easter ham, weekly steak and everyday sausage.
Curious as I was about how she did it, her secrets of preparation were denied me throughout childhood and turbulent adolescence. Kids in the kitchen in that era were trouble afoot. No matter how much I peeked, my mother`s secrets remained as mysterious and alluring as the Alexanders she consented to drink only on Christmas Eve.
Her lamb was a rare treat. Braced with green peas of munchy texture and new potatoes seared in bubbly lamb fat, it took all night to make it right. We fought over end cuts with a merciless noise.
No one fought on Friday, though, except to escape. Friday meant tuna casserole. It meant an air filled with a fishy odor I despised almost as much as cigars then, but for which also I have great fondness. (Mom always contended the former was good for us and the latter simply was a disgusting habit. It didn`t help Dad`s case when he switched, years later, to chewing tobacco.)
Supper was served precisely at 5 o`clock. Preceding it was a maternal announcement that could be heard in every bedroom and basement hideaway on Cortland Street. For all I knew, every mother in Jackson, Mich., and perhaps the entire country issued the same cry at dinnertime:
”Time to wash your hands!” she commanded, thus rescuing once again my next-younger brother upon whose head I sat. We immediately dashed to the bathroom to comply.
Even now, 30 years later, when I tell my two children ”Time to wash your hands!”, it`s not my voice I hear, but Mom`s.
Our supper table was longer than a pick-up truck. Carved of bird`s-eye maple and polished by inmates at the prison where Dad examined X-rays for signs of tuberculosis and lung cancer, that gargantuan table bullied my mother for decades. Sometimes I can hardly picture Mom without remembering that table and how those sharp corners unerringly jabbed her hips.
What kind of a mother was she? A good one, I think.
But ”laidback” is an expression I suspect she couldn`t appreciate. My mother is about as laidback as a hair trigger, an understandable trait in someone frightened by Depression and curtailed by multiple pregnancies. Even now, with all her offspring discharged into responsible adulthood and the plastic runners off the floor, Mom can relax for hardly a minute before recalling a job undone. Then she is off to finish it. Miraculously, it requires only a current issue of Smithsonian or National Geographic to hold her in a chair.
It requires a good deal less to hold any of her children in a chair, especially at suppertime, and especially if we are about to dine upon the greatest spring lamb in existence, compliments of an authentic miracle worker –and not just in the kitchen.
Yes, like the TV show I watched as a kid, ”I remember mama.”
For Mother`s Day, I persuaded her to share a recipe–finally!–for a favorite meal. If you can`t smell old memories from it, it`s not my fault. But just for balance, I`ve persuaded several other fine mothers to share food recipes their children loved:
My Mom`s recipe for Sunday spring lamb, best to be eaten with babka, a Polish bread.
SUNDAY SPRING LAMB
Nine servings
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Marinating time: Overnight
Cooking time: About 3 hours
1 leg of spring lamb, about 7 pounds
1 clove garlic
2 lemons
18 new red potatoes
2 boxes (10 ounces each) frozen green peas
1. Put lamb into shallow roasting pan. Cut garlic in half. Rub lamb all over with garlic. Then cut garlic into thin slivers and insert into lamb by making a small incision with the tip of a paring knife. Rub juice from lemons into lamb. Then cut lemon into pieces and place over lamb. Refrigerate covered overnight. Turn lamb once before going to bed.
2. Start cooking after 9 a.m. Mass Sunday. Forget salt, pepper. ”My boys use so much salt at the table anyway, I never salt it,” Mom says.
3. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Cook lamb, in uncovered shallow pan, fat side up, until meat thermometer registers 140 degrees for rare, 160 degrees for medium, about 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Leave lemons in during baking. During final hour, add potatoes, washed and quartered, to the pan to make them crispy.
4. Cook peas according to package directions. Let lamb rest on serving platter for 10 minutes before carving. Serve lamb with potatoes and peas.
ARDYS LEAFSTRAND
Ardys Leafstrand raised three daughters and a son and is sure that what her children remembers most is the aroma of good things baking in the oven. Her Scandinavian cardamon coffee braid is something she had growing up, as did her mother and her daughter.
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CARDAMOM COFFEE BRAID
Two loaves
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Rising time: 2 1/4 hours
Baking time: 25 minutes
2 packages dry active yeast
1/2 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
8 cups sifted all-purpose flour, about
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons ground cardamom
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk, scalded, cooled to 105 to 115 degrees
1 cup butter, melted, cooled
1/2 cup almond slivers
1. Sprinkle yeast over warm water in small bowl. Stir until dissolved. Let stand until bubbly.
2. Mix flour, salt, sugar and cardamom in large bowl. Stir in 2 of the eggs, beaten and the yeast mixture. Gradually add cooled milk, then melted butter. Stir until a smooth but slightly sticky dough forms. Turn out onto lightly floured surface. Knead, adding more flour as needed, until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.
3. Put dough into greased bowl. Turn dough to grease top. Let rise, covered, in warm place, until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.
4. Punch down dough. Turn onto lightly floured board, knead a few minutes. Divide dough in half. Let rest 10 minutes.
5. Cut one half into 3 even pieces. Roll each piece into a rope about 12 inches long, then braid all 3 ropes together. Place braid onto greased baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough half.
6. Let rise, covered, in warm place, until almost doubled, about 45 minutes.
7. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Beat remaining egg, brush over braided loaves. Sprinkle with almond slivers. Bake until golden, about 25 minutes. Cool on wire racks.
RUTH GEARY
Ruth Geary raised seven children in South Shore on potatoes au gratin.
”I made it about twice a month for years. To tell you the truth, I`m sick of making potatoes au gratin all the time, but that`s what kids ask for,”
Geary says. ”And they taste great the second day, too.”
POTATOES AU GRATIN
Six servings
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon each: salt, ground white pepper
2 cups milk
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
4 cups diced potatoes, cooked
1/2 cup green onion, finely chopped
2 to 3 tablespoons melted butter
1 1/2 cups coarse dry breadcrumbs from stale french bread
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Butter inside of 1 1/2-quart baking dish.
2. Melt 1/4 cup butter in medium saucepan. Stir in flour, salt and pepper. Cook and stir over low heat until smooth. Gradually add milk, stirring constantly. Cook and stir, over medium heat, until smooth and thickened.
3. Stir in cheese; stir just until cheese melts. Remove from heat. Mix cheese sauce with potatoes and onion in prepared dish.
4. For topping, mix 2 tablespoons melted butter with breadcrumbs and parsley. Add remaining tablespoon butter if needed, but do not make mixture too soggy. Sprinkle over potato-cheese casserole. Bake, uncovered, until top is brown, about 20 minutes.
JOYCE PETERS
Joyce Peters of Lisle contributes her mother`s Dutch apple pie recipe.
”It`s a traditional thing for us–Christmas, Thanksgiving, everytime we have company, whatever. I made at least 20 apple pies a year when my son and daughter were young. Even now, whenever I visit them in Kansas City and Houston, my Dutch apple pie is a prerequisite. They always say, `Mom, make us a pie.` How could I refuse? Besides, I enjoy making them,” says Peters, a secretary.
DUTCH APPLE PIE
Six to eight servings
Preparation time: 1 hour
Baking time: 1 hour
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Pie crust:
1 cup flour
Dash salt
1/3 cup vegetable shortening with butter flavor
2 1/2 tablespoons cold whole milk
Filling:
2 1/2 to 3 pounds Granny Smith apples
3 tablespoons butter, melted
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon flour
Struesel topping:
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1. For pie crust, sift flour with salt. Cut in shortening with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add milk. Mix lightly with fork until mixture is dampened. Gather into ball, then press flat onto lightly floured board.
2. Roll with lightly floured rolling pin from center out in each direction until crust is about 1/8-inch thick. Fit into 9-inch ungreased pie pan and pat gently to fit pan contour. Trim edges within 1/2-inch of pan and flute. Pierce bottom of crust in several places with fork. Refrigerate while making filling.
3. Heat oven to 450 degrees. For filling, peel, core and quarter Granny Smith apples. Slice quarters lengthwise and put into large bowl. Pour melted butter over apples; toss until each slice is coated with butter. Mix granulated sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, add to apples. Toss until mixture is evenly distributed.
4. Put half of the apples compactly in pastry-lined pie pan. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon flour over apples. Add remaining apples.
5. For struesel, sift 1/2 cup flour with 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Add brown sugar, blend in butter with pastry blender until crumbly. Sprinkle over pie.
6. Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 degrees, continue baking until apples are tender, about 40 to 45 minutes. Check with fork. Cool on wire rack. Serve warm.