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14. The Famous Recipe
- University of Wisconsin Press
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198 14 The Fa mous Rec ipe Cart wheels on the moon She might as well have said she had a photo graph of my mother turn ing cart wheels on the moon. In stead, and no less im plau sibly, Joan said she had a rec ipe my mother con trib uted to a cook book in the late 1950s. She’d been my brother’s fi an cée forty-seven years ago, and knew my mother never cooked. She may not have known my mother used the oven as an extra cab i net for stash ing pots, pans, plat ters, and dishes, all wrapped in plas tic, but she knew how un likely it was for her ever to have pre pared a dish called Veal It a lienne “Skloo tini.” My mother did, on oc ca sion, make toast. She would open a can of fruit or a con tainer of cot tage cheese or jar of jam, cut a chunk of Cracker Bar rel ched dar to eat with crack ers, pour milk into a bowl of ce real, pre pare a cup of in stant cof fee sprin kled with Sweet’N Low. But the oven and stove as ap pli ances for food pro duc tion? That was not her world. The Famous Recipe 199 She loved to eat, though. She ate slowly, ac com pa nied by dra matic com men tary and ges tic u la tions: Oh! This is di vine! She liked rich, creamy, saucy, elab orate pres en ta tions in res tau rants, or as a guest at some one else’s table, and she wanted every thing—from her brandy Al ex an der through her stand ing rib roast to her choc o late sun dae— amply pro por tioned. Ex cept on week ends, and pro vided she didn’t have to do the cook ing, she didn’t seem to mind eat ing at home, and her pref er ences re mained in tact until her death at ninety-five. One of the last mem o ries I have of my mother comes from a mo ment a month be fore she died. Bev erly and I were with her as lunch was being served in the so lar ium of the nurs ing home’s Mem ory Im pair ment Unit. Bathed in early spring light, her mem ory so shat tered that she no longer knew who I was or who she her self was, lim ited to a diet of soft bland food she barely touched, my mother waited for her mushy meal to ap pear. Though she barely spoke any more, and never seemed to know where she was, she leaned close to me and said, “The chefs at this res tau rant are very, very good.” Lo and be hold Joan also knew, first hand, about my mother’s ded i ca tion to dis as trous match mak ing, her zeal for bring ing ill-suited part ners to gether. This had re sulted in my brother’s mar ry ing some one else, some one my mother had found for him dur ing his en gage ment to Joan. Be fore long, Joan mar ried my bas ket ball coach, with out my mother’s help, and is still mar ried to him. We’d lost touch until a few years ago, when we’d begun an e-mail cor re spon dence. Now, she wrote, she’d been “dig ging deep to find a cer tain rec ipe and lo and be hold I found a VERY OLD rec ipe book from The East End Tem ple Young Mar ried Set and there was a [3.145.130.31] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 12:56 GMT) Cartwheels on the Moon 200 rec ipe from your mother.” I think she under stood the star tling na ture of her dis cov ery, which is why she pref aced it with “lo and be hold,” as in You’re about to wit ness the un imag in able! She con cluded by say ing the rec ipe was “very typ i cal of her flam boy ant per son al ity,” and of fered to send me a copy. The book, mimeo graphed and plas tic comb–bound, was called 130 Fa mous Long Beach Rec i pes. Joan had photo cop ied the cover...
