Food, Family, and Memory

Red Velvet Memories

red velvet cake As my birthday approaches I can't help but think of my sisters - I'm the middle one - and my maternal grandmother. My sisters and I are born two years apart, with our birthdays all in the last week of September. If you do the math, I guess one can blame the joyful spirit of the holidays on the closeness of the timing.

My brother, as the oldest and only boy, always seemed to get special treatment over us girls. I'm sure he felt tortured by his loud, energetic sisters, but at least he never had to share his birthday party. I can't really blame my parents for lumping our "big days" all together on the middle weekend between them all. My father worked two jobs to support his young family, so lack of money paired with convenience produced - throughout our childhood - one giant party for "the girls." It was a "more-the-merrier" type of event and we were all showered with enough gifts to make us contented despite the lack of individual attention.

When we were very young my mother took care of the cake, but as we got older and began developing our own opinions, all we ever wanted was my grandmother's Red Velvet Cake. I can't remember the first time I ate it, but I can still taste it today. It was the same every time with a dense, almost chewy texture; the sweet tang of the cream cheese frosting; that distinct something-more-than-just-chocolate flavor that distinguishes this classic cake from all others.

After the Mojito

So what's the first thing to order in the Florida Keys, after the mojito and conch fritters? Key lime pie, of course. So we did. We ordered a slice just about everywhere we ate, and the hands-down best came not from a fancy waterfront restaurant or anywhere on Duval Street, but from the Key West Key Lime Pie Co.

We went to the store on Big Pine Key at mile marker 30, next to Pizza Works in the scenic Winn-Dixie plaza. The company sells pies out of about twenty other locations.

Mexicophile

freddemom My mother had a lifelong, deep obsession with everything Mexican. I mean, obsessed. Is there a word for it? I looked it up just now and it’s Mexicophile.

We never knew where my mother’s fixation stemmed from. Perhaps, her Texas roots. She was raised on a small farm in Sweetwater. Or, could it have been the Spanish house she was so proud to own? My mother would wax poetic about every detail of my childhood home. The beamed ceilings. She could stare for hours at their beauty. The stained glass window. The tiles in the foyer. The black wrought-iron railing leading up the tiled staircase. The big bay window. Her pepper tree. Even the French doors were, to her, so very Mexican. Trust me, this woman was so proud of her two story, 3,500-square foot Spanish house you might have assumed she was the architect.

She was WAY ahead of her time in this Mexican love because these were the 1950’s and 60’s. Mexican Americans were not as ubiquitous as today, where every other Californian seems to have a Latin background. I just heard on NPR that in the 1700′s the first settlers in Los Angeles were Mexicans. My mom would have been in Mexican heaven, had she stayed in L.A. And, of course, had she not died so young. Today, she’d be all over the immigration law changes.

Food Fight

Christopher Low

When I was younger my brother and I were constantly fighting. One day, my mother decided to ban swearing. We were at a loss. We stared at each other across the dining room table with enough venom to take out a tiger, but we had no words. I have no idea how it started, but we began to call each other the names of the foods around the kitchen.

"You're such a Quaker, Oatmeal." "You're a can of tuna fish that isn't even dolphin safe." "You're a carton of milk." "You're a half empty bottle of soy sauce. We threw these terms at each other every morning over breakfast and every night over dinner, somehow making the terms more and more apropos to our specific fight.

"You're Tropicana orange juice, some pulp." "You're sour cream." "You're such an apple." "You're a nectarine." "Yea, well, you're a banana." It went on for days.

Phoebe Ephron's Lox, Onions and Eggs

My mother made perfect lox, onions, and eggs. Except it isn’t really lox, onion, and eggs, it's nova scotia, onions, and eggs.

And nova scotia’s best when it comes from a deli department, loose or fresh-sliced, instead of a package at the grocery store.

Read recipe...

Food, Family and Memory