It's a 20 minute meal. Seasoned browned hamburger, shake in some worsteshire and soya sauce, add a can of mushroom soup and one equal can of water, throw in some rice, mix and simmer. Even more delicious, throw it in a caserole dish, top with chow mein noodles, and bake for half an hour at 350 degrees. It stirs my memory, and fills my belly, and ohhhhhhh I love it.
That's four generations now, as I have taught my kids how to make it, that know how to chef up a simple, delicious family meal. It brings to mind a little ditty I wrote up recently... I Cook For Them.
I am grateful for my love to cook, and for the generations that taught me, and for those I teach.
I Cook For Them
Not many people understand my love for cooking, and perhaps, I didn’t understand it fully until just recently. I love to spend time in the kitchen cooking. I love making new food, old recipes, comfort food, gathering food, I love it all. I love it when I can take the time, and love the science and the art of it. I love the story food tells, and the sociality that can from it all. I love that food can bring a family to the table, and that conversations can take place over it, with it, because of it.
But of all of that, today, in my cooking, I came to the realization of something quite startling. I caught a glimpse of myself, reflected in the glass pane of a cupboard door, and stopped at what I saw. Standing there, knife in hand, comfortable, and deep in thought... I looked just like them.
Memories of my childhood are filled with dinners, gatherings, and food. There was rarely a night where supper wasn’t eaten at the family table, rarely was it ever eaten before my father was home. It may have been as simple as hot dogs and Kraft Dinner, but the meal was eaten as a family. My favourite conversations were held at that table, some of my worst and best moments experienced. Plenty of laughter was heard over breaded pork chops, while choking back tears, eating after being punished, spaghetti rolled on a fork, just like grandpa taught us. My mother and father built their family around the food in our house, and thank goodness for it. Our meals built our schedules, our temperaments, and our time. And that time is something I wouldn’t give up for the world.
My momma’s cooking is something that brings me home when I have gone too far away. I may have only been five minutes down the street, or miles down the highway, but when I drifted too far, she always knew how to bring me back to where I needed to be. Roast beef, gravy, mashed potatoes. Spaghetti, pork chops, home made bread. She is where my home is, and home is ever where her heart is, in myself, and the path there is as easy as a memory.
My mother was taught well, with roots in cooking like those of a solid oak tree. They twist and turn, and reach miles and miles, all reaching up towards the heavens, branching off, leaving seeds, nourishing life and leaving it’s mark. I can count the number of memories of my grandmothers that aren’t in the kitchen. I am as sure as the sun rises, that an apron was part of both of grandmother’s wardrobes, a staple in their uniform, a knife their tool of choice. And here I stand, a woman of generational gift, staring back from the glass in front of me. I am them. They were who I am, and it’s startling.
I can hear the laughter around my grandmother’s table, stories pouring like gravy over Yorkshire pudding. I can see love in the food, and love in the family. I remember the flavour of her food. I remember thinking how talented she was to be able to cut a round cake into square pieces. Small things, such joy in a memory. I recall my grandmother making juice with her own apples, grown in the front yard, sweating herself into juice she knew we loved. Even today, on hot day, when I drink the juice she taught me to make, it makes me cry with her memory.
They are such a part of me, and I am so blessed to have them in my blood. My mother, my grandmothers, their mothers that taught them that run through my veins today...I am them. I cook with them, I cook for them, I cook because of them. Food is for my family, part of me I give to them in every meal. Food is for my friends who make me whole, and fill parts of my soul with their smiles. Food is for my dad, who proudly eats and brags for days. I cook for my children, with unrefined pallets, and screnched up faces at new flavours. They will thank me one day...when they are cooking. I cook for my husband and hope he knows how centered I am when I do, and how much the silent praise of an empty plate, or maybe two touches my heart. I don’t just cook well, I cook like home – where they are, and that makes my cooking better than that of all the gourmet cooks in the world. Ask my family- they’ll tell you it’s true, and that’s all that matters.
I remember once searching for who I am... the answer is – I am one of them.
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