Easy As Pie My Ass

My mom taught me how to make pie crust, and I always understood that it was hard and that it turns out a little different each time, so that part of eating pie is the crust post mortem. Tender or tough? Flaky or leaden? And what about the flavor? Butter probably gives the best flavor, but I've never made a butter crust that wasn't like very tasty cardboard. Lard is best for flavor and texture, but there's something unappealing about all those strange ingredients--deodorizers and stabilizers and preservatives. Shouldn't the only ingredient be: pig fat?

When my mom first learned to make pie, her mom called in a neighbor who was known to make good crusts. And my grandma Maxine was and is a great cook. It's just that crust prowess is rare, and so my mom was apprenticed.

My mom taught me the classic one cup shortening, three cups flour, one teaspoon salt, one cup ice water, though you know you won't use the whole cup of water. She taught me to use a pastry blender, but I've long since abandoned that. It takes too long, and quickness and lightness are everything when it comes to pie. I use my fingers. The purpose of the pastry cutter is to keep the fat cold while you cut it into the flour to make those fatty-flour granules that end up puffing into a thousand pockets of light flaky deliciousness. It turns out I can do that better with my fingers.

I developed my finger technique at the dude ranch where I worked as an assistant cook after college. There was no time for a pastry cutter there. I would make seven or eight pies before breakfast. And make breakfast. It was cold at night, even in the summer, and the water came out of the tap icy cold. I would wash my hands and then hold them under the cold running water as long as I could stand it, then dry my hands really well and use my freezing fingers to cut the fat into the flour, quick, quick and careless. It's caring too much that usually ruins a batch of pie crust. It makes you try too hard, and before you know it you've overworked the dough.

Cold and quick. That is pie crust. I remember an article in The New Yorker from many years ago about driving around America eating pie, and the author included a recipe for pie crust that included oil and boiling water. It was disturbing. I don't remember who wrote it, but it wasn't Calvin Trillin. That lovely man would never perpetuate such crude misinformation. And where was their fact checking department? This is not a subject on which reasonable minds can differ. Whatever that woman was making, it wasn't pie. Maybe it was wallpaper paste. My faith in the printed word was shaken.

Pretty pie crusts are usually shitty pie crusts. That's because to make dough that doesn't tear and crimps neatly at the edges, you have to overwork it and use too much water. I like an ugly patched together crust that tastes as it should. I've decided to give up crimping altogether and make what I think is called a fladen--a sort of rustic partly folded over itself crust, usually with apple filling or something else sufficiently solid. And I'm going to find good lard--honest perishable pig fat.

I just googled "lard connection Sacramento" and came up with nothing except a strong impression that I'm not the only one on a lard quest. And I learned on Wikipedia that the best fat is from around the kidneys. Goodie.

(Next day) There are subjects on which I cannot be educated. I simply can't believe anything bad about butter, no matter how much evidence to the contrary I create. I made a pumpkin pie with real pumpkin (as in not canned, though there's nothing wrong with canned) and a butter crust. And it was a failure. That means it was delicious by any reasonable standard--but not what I had in mind. The crust was flaky and crisp, and the flavor was wonderful. But it was tough. Enzo and Teresa don't understand this. They don't speak pie.

Why don't I just make tri-tip or brownies or something else that's impossible to make badly? Because pie is better. And where would be the drama? I can buy a brownie at Starbucks that's probably better than anything I could make. And what's the point of making homemade cookies when Oreos exist? But pie is indispensable, and the only good pies I remember eating were baked by my mom or myself. Sorry, world, we happen to rule.

The good news is that we went to the Farmer's Market this morning, and I asked the guy at the pork stand if he sells leaf lard. He said no, but he'd be happy to give me some. Just call the week before, and he'll make some for me. Hurrah! I am connected.

I'm going to include a recipe for Shaker Lemon Pie because because it's so strange and so good. To make this pie you need either a Meyer lemon tree or a connection. I have both, but since I'm the only woman in California who can't bring a lemon to harvest, I rely on my connection--a neighbor lady with a harvest from one tree that fills grocery bags.

2 large lemons with thin rinds (Jeanne note: it takes about 6 Meyer lemons-they don’t come in ‘large’ The pie should not have heaped filling. The flavor is too intense if overfilled.)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs

Slice lemons paper thin, rind and all; flick away any seeds. Combine the lemon slices with the sugar and mix well. Let stand 2 –12 hours, blending occasionally. This is rather pretty stuff when the sun shines on it. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Beat the eggs and add the lemon mixture. Turn into a 9” pie shell, arranging the slices evenly. Cover with a top crust and crimp along the edges. Cut several slits near the center. Bake at 450F for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 375F and bake for about 20 minutes (Jeanne note: maybe longer) or until a knife inserted near the edge comes out clean. Cool before serving.

My mom emailed me that recipe. She also made the pies (pineapple pies--who knew?) in the picture at the beginning of this entry. They are beautiful. I don't trust them a bit.

*

My own fact checking department (My Mother) has informed me that The New Yorker article I was remembering was The Great American Pie Expedition by Sue Hubbell, New Yorker, March 27, 1989. This was also the source of the Shaker Lemon Pie recipe. A useful reminder that the sublime and the horrible are often found together.

Grandma Clara

Every afternoon Grandma Clara used to sit down for her Four O’clock Fix: a cup of black coffee and a cookie. The coffee was weak and very hot—real Midwest coffee. The cookie was usually one of her homemade cream cheese cookies. She would sit and rest and quietly enjoy this. Can you even imagine being that sane?

She smoked exactly one cigarette every day, in the morning with with the L.A. Times Crossword.

She ate watermelon with a knife and fork and a bit of salt.

She said that when she first came out from Michigan to California she ate half a cantaloupe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle. And you had the impression that’s why she decided to stay and marry my grandpa.

When she first got married she didn’t know how to cook. She made pea soup, but she didn’t know it was supposed to be thick, so she made a clear broth with peas floating in it. “This is pea water,” said my grandpa. And she cried. By the time she was telling us the story we were eating her wonderful thick creamy pea soup, cooked with a big ham hock.

She made the best Santa Maria style barbecue—barbecued tri-tip, pinquito beans simmered long and low with a big ham hock, potato salad and garlic bread. That was her signature meal. There were no recipes. The food was in her head and her hands.

I’ll leave out the meat, since my Grandpa did that. Barbecue some tri-tip--that’s the recipe. I’m sure there is some high art to this, but I don’t know what it is, and it’s hard to make tri-tip taste anything but great.

The potato salad. I happen to make great potato salad, and she did some things that I think are wrong—like peal the potatoes before boiling them instead of afterward. But this is the way she did it, as well as I can remember. Peel and boil some russet potatoes. While they’re still warm, cut them into large chunks, sprinkle with salt and apple cider vinegar. Mix together mayonnaise, mustard powder, salt, pepper, and chopped green onions. Add the potatoes and mix it all together, trying not to break up the potatoes. Chill. Were there hardboiled eggs in there? I’m almost sure there weren’t. I wish I could call and ask. Her number is still in my phone.

The Beans. Soak some pinquito beans. Cook slowly with ham hock, , onion, garlic, and a small can of Las Palmas chili sauce.

The garlic bread. Make garlic butter with softened butter and mashed garlic. Get a loaf of grocery store type French bread—not sourdough, not artisanal, just soft white French bread in a plastic bag. Cut it lengthwise and spread the garlic butter. Toast under the broiler. Don’t burn.

Here are a few more of her recipes.

Cream Cheese Cookies

Cream together:
1 cup butter
3 oz cream cheese
one cup sugar
one egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla.

Sift or just mix together:
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt.

Then mix everything together and (this is not in her written recipe, but she told me) don't over mix. Shape into rolls and refrigerate for at least three hours. Slice and bake for 16 minutes. Yes, that is correct, there is no baking soda or baking powder.

White Fruitcake

This is a big recipe because she gave it away for Christmas. It was the fruitcake that you actually liked to get.

Cream together:
3 cubes margarine or butter
3 cups sugar

Add, one at a time, beating between each one:
3 eggs

Mix together:
5 cups of sifted flour
1 tablespoon baking powder

Add 1 1/2 cups milk to the butter/egg mixture, alternating with the flour until it's all combined.

Mix in:
One package coconut
1 cup walnuts
12 ounces each red and green glace cherries
12 ounces candied pineapple
1 ounce brandy.

Bake in small loaf pans for about an hour. I think she lined the pans with baking parchment. Not a bad idea.

Open & Notorious

There's a dead end alley behind our house blocked by a big dumpster about thirty feet from the dead end, leaving a wild, unclaimed patch of weeds where no one drives and no one goes. We're kitty-corner from the weed patch, so that it would be easy to run a hose, or even a drip line from our house.

It took about thirty seconds for my thoughts to go from Community Garden to...Real Estate Scheme. I could see the raised beds, the neatly mulched rows, the neighbors meeting by chance to exchange gossip and produce. And then a voice from my real property law class went though my head: open, notorious, hostile, adverse, under claim of right...the elements of Adverse Possession. I couldn't remember how long you have to occupy the land to get it for yourself, but probably seven years. Geez, if I'd started this when we moved here, it would be ours by now. In fact, MINE.

I could fence it, run drip line, build a gate in our back fence, or maybe even a short corridor from our yard to the garden. I could plant a small orchard--figs! Maybe instead of a fence, espaliered apples and pears. Raised beds, of course. Drip irrigation on a timer. Goats, chickens. Perhaps a small vineyard. A picnic table. A shed. A worm box. Hell, a gazebo. Enzo could make a fort.

Objections crowded in. You have to pay the taxes to adversely possess land. And I doubt you can adversely possess against the city. And the small patch of sunlit vegetable garden in our own yard is a weed-infested ruin. The only things I can grow are tomatoes and arugula--which have been wonderful. Those two crops can take you a long way. But how would I satisfy the open and notorious part if the lot still looks like a weed patch? And how much arugula can three people eat?

And then, it's the secret, untamed wildness that attracted me to the lot in the first place. I remember an apricot tree near the house where I grew up. It was in a vacant sliver of land between an abandoned road and the new road, surrounded by weeds and dry grass, unwatered, unpruned and unobtrusive. The apricots were small, rosy-speckled, sweet and firm--and free in every way. Free because I was free and exploring and found them myself. Free because they were a secret.

Operation Ass Wipe & Other Miscellaneous

Enzo is into apple juice popsicles. He also loves plums. So when I got a mother lode of plums from a friend, I pitted and pureed them and made popsicles with plum, yogurt, apple juice and honey. And he refuses to taste them. He wants what he’s used to. He wants the apple juice.

That’s what’s wrong with children. (One of the many things.) They are so fucking conservative. Also contrary, perverse, uncultured and ungrateful.

Plus now that he’s into peeing standing up, he keeps peeing on my Moroccan mint, spraying around with great glee.

*

Enzo’s starting pre-school in a few weeks. We knew he had to be potty trained, and he’s been that for a long time. But Teresa learned at the orientation that he also has to wipe his own ass. So Operation Ass Wipe has begun.

When he poops he usually kicks off his shorts and underwear completely. You hand him the wipe, and he just shoves it between his cheeks and then runs off with the wipe waving bravely behind, as in flag football. We chase. We wipe. He is delighted with himself.

You'll be relieved to know there is no food component to this story.

*

My ancestors left Norway about thirty seconds before oil was discovered in the North Sea. They were poor and so was Norway. Then Norway was rich, and they were still poor, but they were American poor, which is supposed to be temporary.

Anyway, I decided to reclaim my Norwegian heritage, and since I can't afford one of those fabulous sweaters, I bought a rutabaga. I put it on the counter and watched it for a while. My grandma always made mashed rutabaga for Thanksgiving. And how about a meat pie with lots of onion and rutabaga? That sounded great but also like a lot of work. So I ended up chopping it into a large dice, drizzling with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasting it all very hot for about forty minutes. It was delicious--nutty and sweet with a little radish-like bite.

There are so many foods--like rutabaga--that I like a lot but never think to cook. And they're not hard. I just forget about them. Like I used to eat fennel all the time, and now I can't remember the last time I had fennel. And soon I'll be lying in my grave, thinking, "Fennel!"

One small advantage to having Enzo around is he makes me try new things. He usually doesn't try them (see above) but the hope that he might makes me try things that I otherwise wouldn't. Like he used to love those calamari rings from Trader Joe's. You pour them frozen, straight from the bag into a pan with garlic and olive oil, and they're done in about three minutes. And they're cheap, too.

Then Trader Joe's stopped carrying them. Calamari costs a fortune at Safeway, so I decided to get whole squid, guts and all at the Farmer's Market. But the first time we went to the fish stand I saw this strange pure white squid-like fish next to the calamari--cuttle fish. I bought one big one and left the calamari for next week. And it was delicious--white flesh, delicate firm texture (less rubbery than calamari) and tasting cleanly of the sea. I'd heard of risotto with cuttle fish ink. What I bought appeared to be ink-less. Why? Never mind. It was delicious sauteed very quickly in olive oil then tossed with lime juice and a little mint and parsley. (Enzo didn't eat it. See above.)

The next week I got plain calamari. Enzo loved the guts and eyeballs part. He inspected them carefully. "Where's his mouth?" I showed him the strange beak-like mouth at the base of the tentacles. "Where did his eyes go?" I found the eyes,which had somehow receded into the body, and popped them out again. I managed to clean and cut them up and and cook them. And now Enzo doesn't like calamari anymore. These were big squid. Too big for calamari rings. And he likes the rings. They're what he's used to (see above).

*

(A week later)

Enzo and I want to the Farmer's Market this morning. "What do you want to get?" I said.

"Fish!"

"What kind of fish?"

"Big ones."

"What other kind?"

"Tiny ones."

"What other kind?"

"All of them!" But the fish stand was closed.

Crawdad Capers

Yesterday I committed the sin of buying and cooking and eating something only to write about it.

And I paid.

We went to the Farmer’s Market, where Enzo became entranced with the live crawdads. We hung out for a long time watching them.

“Crabs?” said Enzo.

“Crawdads,” I said. “They’re like tiny lobsters.” And then we bought some. I had the guy tie an extra bag around them because they’d have to ride home in the bike trailer with Enzo, and I didn’t want them escaping and crawling on him, though I suspect he wouldn’t mind.

We made it home and showed Teresa. She was horrified. "I’m not even going to be in the house when you eat those. I’ll be outside eating a bowl of cereal--nice, dead cereal.”

I poured the seething, clicking mass into a big stock pot, clapped the lid on it and put it all in the fridge. I promised Enzo we would look at them again after his nap.

I was already beginning to dread the whole ordeal. What if Enzo starting thinking of them two pounds of adorable pets? Should we set them free? But where? And what if they set off some exotic species type ecological disaster? Though surely they must be a native species, since they’re here in my house and still alive. I mean you wouldn’t fly in live crawdads from Asia for the farmer’s market. Or would you? The fish stand has frozen fish with Chinese characters on the packaging.

We were stuck with each other. I opened the fridge and stared at the pot. You could hear them moving--a faint clicking. There was something so repulsive and cruel about the mass of them all crammed together, fighting for air and escape and probably at this point eating each other. I thought this was going to be so Annie Hall, and it felt like The Killing Fields. I closed the fridge and left the house. Teresa and Enzo napped.

When Enzo woke up we got out the crawdads. Enzo ran to get his chair, pulled it up to the counter, climbed up and peered into it. “We cook them?” he said.

I poured the crawdads into a big bowl and filled the stock pot with water, garlic and salt. Enzo had his elbows on the counter, chin in hands, peering at the crawdads, which were moving even more now that they were warming up. He poked one.

“Be careful,” I said.

“They bite me?”

“No, but they can pinch you with their claws.” I showed him how to pick them up, by the body. He tried that. Then we put one on the counter and studied it. They are beautiful creatures. It lifted up both claws to the sky in what seemed like a desperate, defensive fighting motion.

Enzo picked it up and put it in my grandma’s bean pot, which was standing by, mostly as a prop. (Too small for cooking crawdads.) “Enzo’s a good helper today?” he said. I said he was a very good helper. I was still dreading the moment when the seething mass went into the stock pot. Then I had an idea. I filled a plastic tub with water and poured the crawdads in so they could move about in the water.

Then they started killing each other. The water was a boiling, thrashing mass. And I realized that now I couldn’t just pour them into the stock pot. The cold water would cool down the pot. And I didn’t have a colander big enough to pour them into—I’d have to take them out one by one, by hand--or with tong, yes, tongs, thank god for tongs. Then I remembered the big salad spinner insert. I poured them into that.

By this time two very good things had happened. Enzo had lost interest and wandered off and the water was boiling. I poured the crawdads into the pot, hating them by now, which made it easier. Four spilled onto the stove top. I picked them up with oven-mitted hands and popped them in the pot, slammed the lid on and set the timer for six minutes.

When I poured them out they were bright red, extraordinarily beautiful. I liked them so much better dead. Two of them went into the sink, halfway down the drain, and while I was frantically looking for the tongs, they went down into the garbage disposal.

The problem with tongs is that it’s hard to open them to grab something when they’re thrust down a drain. I finally got a purchase on one crawdad and brought it up, slowly, slowly so that it wouldn't break apart. And then I got the other.

Enzo came back and helped me pick them apart. He picked one up and looked at it closely.

“Eyes see in the dark?”

Hell if I know.

We pulled the tails off and then prized them apart to get the meat out.

Is there a consensus on whether you eat the crawdad crap? I mean the stuff in their guts that looks like baby poop--yellowish-brown and liquidy. I tasted it, and it tasted like nothing, but I still decided to rinse off as much as the crap as I could. By the end of all this we had two small handfuls of crawdad meat. Enzo tried a bite.

“What does it taste like?” I said.

“Cai,” he said, which means calamari.

I tasted one. It tasted like pond water. We slid the carcasses into the trash.

Never again.

Who's Your Daddy?

Yesterday on the light rail, Enzo asked Teresa, “Is that my daddy?” pointing to a big black guy across the aisle. (Enzo’s anonymous sperm donor-dad is Chinese, and I am white.)

The guy gave Teresa a look like, who me?

Teresa said, “No, that’s not your daddy.”

“Who is my daddy?”

“Let’s ask mama Kate when she gets home.”

When I got home we conferred. I said we could tell him his daddy is a really nice man that we don’t happen to know personally but someday when Enzo’s grown up, he will know him. (Enzo’s donor is “identity-release” meaning that when Enzo turns eighteen, he can find who he his and get in touch with him.) Teresa said that’s way too complicated. Let’s just tell him some people have two mommies and some people have a daddy and a mommy and some people have two daddies. Thank god we live in a place where that is actually true. Besides, Enzo’s sperm donor isn’t really his daddy. Enzo doesn’t have a daddy. There are going to be times when he is incredibly sad about that. Guilt, guilt.

See, that’s what I like about food. It’s simple—I mean morally simple. You get hungry, you figure out what to do about it. Here’s an egg. Here’s piece of bread. Scrambled eggs with toast are good. Or you could add milk to the egg and make French toast. Or you could boil the egg and make an egg salad sandwich. And what about English muffins? It’s all wonderfully practical and (unlike child rearing) you’re unlikely to do anyone lasting harm.

But then there’s that awful book—you know the one I mean, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, about how every time you buy a porkchop at Safeway, you’re feeding an agricultural industrial complex based on corn that makes half the world die of terminal fat while the rest die of starvation. Oh, and the whole thing takes so much fossil fuel that you might as well just kill yourself right now. And I’m thinking, “But it’s only a porkchop.”

In a fit of rebellion against that book--which I haven’t even read, but it’s gotten so much media attention that I feel as if I have—I went out and bought a Twinkie. He heard the author, Michael Pollan, on the radio saying mean things about Twinkies. He called them An Edible Food-Like Substance. I hadn’t had a Twinkie in about thirty years, but I remembered them as perfect. So I bought a Twinkie, and it was awful. Twinkies are one of those childhood memories that should be left undisturbed.

So I made a plan to bake the perfect Twinkie. It’s a sponge cake, right? It says so right on the package. An extra sweet, extra salty, extra junky sponge cake. I found something in The Cake Bible that looked perfect, and here it is:

Bert Green’s Special Sponge Cake, from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Orange Juice 2 tablespoons

Grated lemon zest 2 teaspoons

Vanilla ½ teaspoon

Superfine sugar 1 cup + 7 tablespoons

Sifted cake flour 1 cup

Eggs 5

Egg whites 3

Cream of tartar 1 teaspoon

[The directions for this are not obvious to me, and I doubt they are too others, so I’ll put them in too, though it’s a lot of typing.]

• Preheat oven to 350. Get out one ungreased 10-inch two-piece tub pan, and preheat it for at least 5 minutes.
• In a small bowl combine the orange juice, lemon zest and vanilla.
• Remove 2 tablespoons of the sugar and reserve to sprinkle on to raw batter.
• Remove 3 more tablespoons of the sugar and whisk together with the flour.
• Rinse a large mixing bowl with hot water and wrap the sides with a hot towel. (If using a hand mixer, place the bowl in a sink partially filled with hot water.)
• Beat the yolks, gradually adding the remaining 1 cup sugar, on high speed for 5 minutes or until the mixture is very thick and ribbons when dropped from the beater. Lower the speed and gradually add the orange juice mixture. Increase the speed and beat for 30 seconds. Sift the flour mixture over the yolk mixture without mixing in and set aside.

• Beat the whites until foamy, add the cream of tartar, and continue to beat until soft peaks form when the beater is raised. Gradually beat in the 2 tablespoons of reserved sugar, beating until very stiff peaks form when the beater is raised slowly. Ad 1/3 of the whites to the yolk mixture and with a large skimmer or rubber spatula fold until incorporated. Gently fold in the remaining whites in 2 batches.

• Pour the batter into the hot pan. (It will be a little more than ½ full.) Sprinkle the top evenly with the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. Bake 35-40 minutes or until golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean when inserted in the center. Invert the pan, placing the tube opening over the neck of a soda or wine bottle to suspend it well about the counter, and cool the case completely in the pan (this takes about 1 hour).

• Loosen the sides with a long meal spatula and remove the center core of the pan from the sides. (To keep the sides attractive, press the spatula against the sides of the pan and avoid any up–and-down motion.) Dislodge the bottom and center core with a spatula or thin, sharp knife. (A wire cake tester works well around the core.) Invert onto a greased wire rack and re-invert onto a serving plate. Wrap airtight.

• Understanding: One of the secrets of this cake’s exceptional moistness and tenderness is using 1/3 cup less flour than classic sponge cask and a very high proportion of sugar (almost ½ cup more). For additional volume, Bert applies heat while beating the yolks and uses 3, sometimes ever 4, extra egg whites to compensate for structure usually provided by a higher quantity of flour. To ensure that the cake will not collapse during baking, he preheats the empty pan so that the batter starts to expand and set immediately.

Rose says that the cake is sweet enough that you don’t really need anything extra, but no creamy filling would totally defeat the purpose, so I thought quite a bit about whether to use stabilized whipped cream or vanilla butter cream. And I decided the creamy filling really needed to be inside, not on top, to recreate the Twinkie experience, so I decided to use the same batter to make cupcakes and then fill them with a pastry bag, so that the cream filling would be inside but also peep out of the top.

And then I realized I’d have to buy a pastry bag and superfine sugar and cake flour and all new clothes. And the conversion to cupcake form might not be foolproof—how to invert them? And the hopelessness of trying to recreate childhood memories dawned on me again. It might be wonderful, but it still wouldn’t be the Twinkie I remember. So I never made my homemade protest Twinkies, and it’s very sad. I have to be content with writing about thinking about it--a completely unsatisfying substitute.

*

I just had an overwrought fantasy about Enzo’s donor reading this entry and somehow figuring out that he’s our guy. Then he made the Twinkie cupcakes, following the recipe above. Or better yet he owns The Cake Bible--that’s the kind of guy he is--so he bakes it right out of the book. And then he leaves a comment on my blog with his name and phone number.

If that actually happened, I’d be completely freaked out, but in the fantasy it was perfect. We got together. He was adorable. We ate cake. Enzo loved it.

P.S. If you’re out there, I think the stabilized whipped cream would be better than the buttercream. But either one would be fine. Also don’t forget to put a little extra salt in the cake. Twinkies are pretty salty.

My Inheritance

When I was in high school I had a boyfriend whose mom hated to cook, and she did it every night, and it tasted like oppression. My boyfriend turned out to be dangerously mentally ill. I think it was the food.

I like cooking (which really means I like eating) but I can’t imagine how anyone can cook every single night. I think about food all the time, but most nights I can’t think of a thing to fix for dinner. Last night Teresa had nothing, I had a bowl of tomato slices with olive oil, salt and mozzarella cheese, Enzo had Stouffer’s Swedish meatballs and frozen red/yellow/and green bell peppers straight from the bag, crunch, crunch. You can’t fault it for nutrition (or at least it could be a lot worse), but thinking about eating as nutrition is like thinking about reading as education or sex as procreation—a grim doctrine if there ever was one.

My mom always liked cooking (which really means she liked eating). Me too. I remember her showing me how to cut cold shortening into flour for piecrust, how to beat egg whites so they’re fluffy but not dry and how to fold them gently into the pancake batter. I helped her make enchiladas, taking my place in the assembly line, stuffing the tortillas with cheese and the onion-cumin-olive mixture. She taught me how to make pesto and bread and hummus and how to roast and peel eggplant for baba ganoush. She showed me about how much salt to put in the pasta water. She let me make awful and complicated salad dressings in the blender.

My mom taught me—or I absorbed—that pretty much everything starts with sautéd onions. They’re the demi-plie, the simple fist step from which you can go anywhere. She never told me this, certainly not in those words. But you absorb patterns and do what works. So it’s a sad commentary that at this moment I have no onions in the house. Of course I also have no clean underwear.

It’s a piece of luck that my mom and I both liked to eat. And when you’re a kid you just absorb things. You don’t even know you’re learning to cook or learning each other. I picked up not just how to cook particular dishes (that you can get from a book) but how to think about food, how things go together, how things don’t have to be perfect to be good. And how to use a recipe in a strictly advisory capacity.

I don’t know if Enzo and I will have anything like that. He likes trucks, and I just don’t. He likes hacking at things in the kitchen, but I think he’s just humoring me. We both like books, but his taste is terrible.

He likes eating, though. That we have in common.