Mama's Mix

A pinch of salt, a dash of pepper. Add more milk. Stir until it thickens. 

Most people, I’d guess, can say nice things about their mother. She’s beautiful, she’s funny, she makes the best chicken pot pie. Well, in our house, we don’t eat chicken pot pie, and the extravagant things we say about our mother are actually true. My mother is the strongest person I know, and I don’t say that because you’re supposed to say nice things about your mother, I say that because she has been through the deepest pits of hell and climbed her way back alone. 

I grew up knowing my mother is the best cook in the world. I have complete faith she could best Gordon Ramsay at his own dish. She never followed any recipe, never used the kitchen timer, never used the measuring spoons in the cabinet (those were reserved for us less talented chefs). She just…had a way with food. None of us understood it, it was almost like a superpower. She could preheat the oven, go out for a smoke, and come back inside seconds before the oven beeped. 

No one taught her how to be a good cook, just like no one showed her how to be a good mom. Somewhere along the way she became fantastic at both of those things. 

I like to think her food expertise went hand in hand with her mothering instincts. She knows when something is bothering us before we have to say anything, she knows exactly what a dish is missing without tasting it. Her instincts are so on point, that she knows what will work before she tries it: in the kitchen and with her kids. 

It’s tough to describe watching her cook or mother; she simply just knows. 

She’d been through a lot in her life. More than any of us could begin to imagine. Her thigh-sized lioness tattoo spoke for itself. She is a lioness in a field of wildflowers, a survivor with an untamable soul. Most people who had been through what she’d been through would be rough around the edges, cold, unforgiving. She can be, just like I can be; I am my mother’s daughter and we don’t like to let people in. 

She’s secretive about a lot of things–her past, her childhood, and most of all, her recipes. She keeps them coveted from everyone. Her dry rub was especially popular at the school she worked at, where teachers would beg for her recipes, her secret ingredients, her special tricks. They offer her money, she refuses. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t like those people, maybe she doesn’t know the exact measurements (you can’t teach “measure with your heart”), maybe she’s simply stubborn. Or maybe it’s because she needs to be needed. 

Dip the fork in the water, make two sets of hatch lines. Wet fork between cookies. 

Her mother was the type to go doctor shopping, searching for as many narcotics she could get her hands on, then spend her days begging her daughters to kill the purple spiders on the wall. Many days my mother came home from school to see the car packed up and ready to move on a whim. Her mother would make them hold onto the refrigerator and beat them senseless just in case you decided to act up today. 

She had fought like hell to make sure we had a better life. And she succeeded. We never wanted for anything, never went without. We never had to come home to witness our mother passed out in a puddle of urine and vomit like she did. My mother would starve herself time and time again if it meant we said goodnight, Mama with full bellies. 

It’s what a mother does–uses herself as a shield between her babies and the bad stuff. Or at least, it’s what a mother should do. What a good mother does. 

We lived in houses without heat in the winter, went without A/C in the cars in the summer, lived next to sleazy drug dealers. But it didn’t matter how poor we were–we were never poor, nowhere near the level she’d experienced in her childhood. The difference was that our mother would kill herself to provide for us, but her mother would’ve sold her kids for drug money given the chance. 

Preheat the oven to 375. Bake for approximately the time it takes you to fold a load of laundry and go out for a cigarette. 

My mother had a way of spinning any hardship into a positive. The dirt cheap hot dogs that turned a fluorescent pink when cooked were simply “princess hot dogs.” When she was stretched too thin and overstimulated, she declared a “free night,” which is an excuse for us kids to pig out on box mac and cheese and frozen Kid Cuisine. My sister and I grew up as picky eaters, and not a day went by where our mother didn’t make two dinners. 

It’s nearly every day in my house that you hear her ask what do y’all want for dinner, and the answer is usually, what do you want, Mama, which she will return with a sigh and say I just want y’all to pick something. She’s hard to read sometimes, and I’m not always sure if she actually wants us to choose or she’s so selfless that she can’t decide. 

Pour the cereal into a bowl and pick out all the oats because your Daddy doesn’t like them. Double bag and beat against the kitchen counter. 

My siblings both inherited a bit of my mother’s talents in the kitchen, but I take after my father in that aspect. My brother actually enjoys cooking, and my sister loves to bake. She made a chocolate souffle perfectly on the first try, which she won’t let us forget. But me, I can’t even cook eggs the way I like them. 

Last week, we visited my brother’s house and my mom taught him how to make gravy biscuits. Every question he asked, how much of this, how long in the oven, how long do I stir for, was answered with I don’t have an answer, I just know. 

Sprinkle the flour on the counter before you roll out the dough. Coat the spatula in flour before you move the biscuits. 

Christmas is her favorite time of year. She loves everything about it: the decorations, the music, the corny movies that all have the same ending. My mother would let all the bills go late to give us the Christmas she’d never had, Christmases that beat even the idyllic ones on the Hallmark Channel. 

It used to be a family tradition that we put up the tree on Thanksgiving night, then realize all the lights are dead and we have to fight the hordes of Black Friday shoppers. After my brother went to boot camp, traditions had to be modified and we started assembling the tree earlier and earlier. Every ornament placed by one of us would lead to a smile and how about you put that here? We all knew that what Mama wants, Mama gets, especially when it comes to Christmas. But the irritation was worth it to watch her face light up at the sight of yet another perfectly decorated, Cracker Barrel-worthy Christmas tree. 

My mother spends hours making homemade sugar cookie dough and royal icing in every color you can think of, cleaning off the kitchen table, and sitting down with us to decorate Christmas cookies. My sister and I are now adults, but we still do it every year. It’s so much fun to watch my mother hyper-focused on decorating her cookies better than ours, then (much to my gay sister’s disdain), adding her signature phallic gingerbread man. 

Her Christmas Day feast would kick Thanksgiving’s ass: brown sugar and pineapple crusted ham, mac and cheese pie that takes hours to get just right, green bean casserole, made from scratch bread rolls that sit on the washing machine to rise, sweet potato pie with sections of marshmallow and roasted pecan topping. And she does it every year, starting right after morning presents and always refusing help. 

This year I’ll help her anyway. 

Don’t use the measuring cup. Just pour. I’ll tell you when to stop.