Food, Family and Memory

Having vowed (in writing, which makes it serious) to have a more open, less fraught relationship with my mother, I am making time at least once a week to take her to lunch and have a good talk. By that I mean that I drive, and she pays for lunch. If my mother lets me pay for lunch, and we are not sharing a meal to celebrate my new job, bonus, lottery winnings or inheritance, it’s time to begin steering her gently towards a neuropsych evaluation.

So yesterday we ended up at a lovely little sushi place where I could eat sushi, and she could have something else. She had already asked me to take her to Talbot’s, for me the retail equivalent of the Bataan Death March, and I had agreed; the whole point of our time together was that I would not look at my watch, think about what else I could be doing, or patronize her with my opinions of her taste in preppy shifts and cardigans. She is my mother, and it is not only unkind but backwards to assume that age and illness have rendered her a child requiring my guidance. As I dabbed a little wasabi on my spicy tuna, she made a second request: since my brother and his wife were going to New Orleans soon, could we stop by the book store so that she could buy them a map?

Before I could stop myself, before I could re-direct my automatic inner know-it-all, I said “no one uses maps, mom. I mean, I’ll take you if you want to go, but they both have smart phones, and he has GPS on his phone, and I just can’t see them hauling out a map.” She put down her chopsticks, and narrowed her eyes.

Cherries are especially prolific in the Pacific Northwest. Just about every variety you can think of are currently available at the markets and farm stands. They are hard to pass up since they are so juicy and sweet. 

I have such great childhood memories of the cherry picking adventures I experienced with my family in Beaumont, California. My brother and I would climb up in the trees on these really high-rickety ladders. We would pick and eat cherries until the juice was dripping down our chins, hands and necks. It was always really hot, which means we were very sticky, sweaty and extremely dirty by the end of the day. You can picture it right? And for some reason we were always wearing white, something I still don't understand.

Anyway, I had a load of fresh, sweet cherries last week and I couldn't let summer go by without making a fresh cherry pie. However, I wanted to spice it up. If you have never experienced a "spiced cherry" anything...it's time.

My Mimi told me something quite hysterically funny and dramatically morbid a few years ago…”If I die before your grandfather, he will have to eat something. I’ve taught him how to make cornbread. That should sustain him in between the three months I die and he remarries.”

Tears immediately streamed down my face at the humor and sadness that thought evoked. That is, however, a bit of my family’s humor in a nutshell… delightful and somewhat macabre running hand in hand. What has happened though is a rivalry between Mimi and Granddaddy as to who makes the better batch of cornbread. They both use the exact same ingredients, same iron skillet, and same kitchen and oven for baking, but there are slight differences I would like to address: first the title.

Since Granddaddy makes it himself, it is dubbed “Granddaddy’s World Famous Cornbread.” Mimi’s boasts simply as “Mimi’s Cornbread,” which I guess is the passive aggressive way of saying hers is best. Since everything she makes is wonderful, permitting Granddaddy to title his dish as such is totally apropos. Plus, that is Granddaddy’s personality – everything he or his children do, but especially anything his grandchildren take on, mind you, is the best, exceptional, or “world famous.” The feeling is completely mutual and reciprocating.

I’m proud of my grandparents and there’s never been a doubt they are of me or the rest of the brood. I think their only flaw is that they gave me deep roots and short wings, considering I live two doors down. The cycle continues. I digress.

So, we had this awesome carrot cake down on Cumberland Island last November for our father’s birthday…the cake was baked and smuggled onto the island by Julie, Daddy’s wife and our new personal gourmet chef! This cake is unbelievably good and it is one of those dishes that lingers in your mind long after the last crumbs have been eaten. Obviously so, since I had the cake back in November and I was still reeling about it come February. I had to make the cake…I had to make the cake Julie’s way, so, I did. I followed her tweaks and tips for a successful cake and boy oh boy was it!

One of her tweaks on the traditional carrot cake recipe is to soak the carrots in cinnamon for three days…THREE DAYS!!! I thought this was crazy, but I wasn’t going to improve upon such a phenomenal dessert. Four cups of shredded, cinnamon soaked carrots, along with oil, flour, sugar, soda, eggs, additional cinnamon and salt constitute this cake. It is easy breezy to make, but takes some thoughtful culinary twists to enhance this dish to the next level.

Another tweak is the garnish…toasted and salted pecans. Now I could eat my weight in pecans, but toasting these and any nut for that matter brings out the flavor and enhances anything they complement. Butter and salt…good butter and sea salt mind you. No skimping there. The sweetness of the cake matched with the salty pecans is delectable.

Yet, the cake’s sweetness isn’t so much of a sugary sweet, but an earthy sweet brought on by the carrot and cinnamon love fest created three days prior! What else could this cake need…well, the perfect icing…a frosting of cream cheese lightly sweetened and buttery to perfection.