Still Life: Mother Tying Apron on Daughter

I never wear an apron. I love cookbooks. I love Rachel Ray. My husband, darling husband, culinary daddy, does most of our cooking. I can boil water, but can't seem to manage boiling milk for mashed potatoes (yes, instant) without it boiling over. Is this an unfinished conversation or one that never took place? You, dear reader, be the judge! Mom, you're not allowed to answer!

Still Life: Mother Tying Apron on Daughter

I remember the first time
I heard my mother's
philosophy on life.

We were making brownies
for the Troop Seventeen
Brownie Baking Badge,

a sure-shot to win
since my mother, like
all those tied by apron

strings before her, had
a secret ingredient. A
family recipe, hidden like a

skeleton in a closet
and saved for years until
just the right moment for

telling, the right moment
for tasting. This was a moment
to savor, to suck all the juice from.

It was one of our infrequent
mother-daughter cooking-
fests in her kitchen

that gleamed like a highly
polished fender. Highly
praised for its immaculate

immensity, the enormity of its
bounty, by the neighborhood stay-
at-home women. And why

shouldn't they? The sink with
its chrome-like glow, shining
back at them with the gaze

of a thousand eyes, warped
from the slant of the slender,
dripless, silver faucet.

It was here, among
her Corning and Fiesta-
Ware, her cookies and her fears,

from a stove alive with
gas heat and fire, that she
served my father. Served

him on a table ripe with
the promise of nourishment
and the scent of hunger.

And then here, among the brass
pots and braided placemats,
that she served

me with her secret
for survival. Always
follow your recipe.

If you can read, you
can cook. If you can cook,
you can live.