Kitchen Aid

My mother browned the porkchops carefully then laid them in a bed of sauce made of ketchup, vinegar, onions and brown sugar. The result would be perfect - sticky sweet chops, covered with a thick, tangy coating, dished out generously and served with a green vegetable. Try as I might, I never could duplicate the texture or taste.

Searching for a redeeming quality in this woman - and always half afraid that I might actually find one - I came up with the fact that she could cook and bake with the best of them. Each Sunday night she meticulously broiled steak to perfection and delivered it along with a steaming bowl of mashed potatoes made from scratch with Land'o'Lakes butter and real milk and a vegetable, usually in a cream sauce. There was almost always a plate of right from the oven brown bread, thickly sliced with meltable crusts and smelling like the best of an early morning bakery. Dessert would be an apple pie, sometimes served with genuine whipped cream ( cheese was, in her opinion, pretentious ) or blueberry with the juices bubbling over into the pastry and covered with ice cream. During the week there was always a tin of brownies or chocolate chip cookies or egg tarts - I ruined my supper religiously on those after school afternoons.

Unlike Nana, who cleaned as she went, my mother cooked and baked with a zealous chaos, leaving a wake of flour and eggshells and utensils scattered all about the kitchen. She seldom used actual recipes except as guidelines and rarely measured, seeming to know the right proportions without having to look. Ready made horrified her and instant anything was strictly forbidden - in her kitchen, a shortcut was the same as a sin.

She smoked and drank while she cooked, keeping one eye on the stove and the other on her morning game shows and afternoon soaps. If an occasional ash dropped she simply blended it right in and a touch of cooking sherry could always be counted upon to improve the flavor as well as her mood. If she was forced to substitute or improvise, she did so with reckless abandon and confidence, sure in her choice and optimistic about the outcome.

She was a harsh, bitter woman - intolerant, angry, disappointed, unloving - but in her kitchen she seemed to find comfort, security and even a little bit of pride - here, she was at her best - productive, untroubled, too busy to criticize. The creation and preparation of food satisfied some vague need that her family and her life did not and while the entire process was a mystery to me, I was glad for those cooking and baking days when life seemed very nearly normal.