Women's Kitchen Wisdom

I taught my mother exactly two things. One was to line her baking pans with parchment paper. Mom baked a universe of goodies in her time and on a visit to AZ while she was baking I said, "I line my pans with parchment paper." "Foof," said Mom, "I don't need parchment paper," implying I was foolish and extravagant. I said, "You must like scraping and scrubbing pans, then."

Came back to visit two years later and she was using parchment paper. I said nothing. The other thing I taught her was to use an apron. She was 80. She never liked using the dishwasher, did her dishes by hand, and never let them air dry because she could not bear to see even a water glass on the counter or in the sink because it was not put away. Before I started drying dishes I said, "Do you have any aprons?" She said, Why? I said, "To keep my front dry. Otherwise my clothes get all damp with dirty dishwater." She had aprons never used -- people give women gifts of aprons just as they used to give lace-trimmed handkerchiefs -- and I put one on as I would at my Divine home, and the next time I visited her she wore an apron to do dishes, and that was all the effect I ever had on her.

Buy these trash cans or you do not have the right to call yourself female.

My sister and I trade practical kitchen gifts. Seeing that she had in the kitchen a horrid and fraying little cheapo aluminum sink-strainer I got her a stainless-steel sink strainer from chefs.com that would last forever. She said thank you and I said, "When you are doing dishes and you see this, if you remember, say a prayer for me." She mailed me awesome dishtowels printed with bunnies and later sent my treasured Reddy Kilowatt magnetic potholders and a faux LeCreuset enameled cast iron dutch oven that is exactly like the real thing. This past Christmas, horrified by her discolored and fragrant Rubbermaid kitchen and bathroom trash cans I pulled out my phone and ordered for her Automatic Touchless Infrared steel trash cans like mine, that open and close automatically with an electric eye and stay tight and smell-free, from Amazon Prime. 

One time my sister visited and I explained my rice cooker (a gift from another woman I thought I'd never use. I use it all the time). Now that my sister has one she serves rice much more often, and also at my recommendation buys and cooks the jasmine rice that actually has flavor.

My sister has an InstaPot now, can't praise it enough, and wanted to send me one for my birthday. I said I would rather have a microwave egg poacher. A friend I breakfast with orders poached eggs and I began making them about a year ago, but even piercing the yolk and taking all other precautions, three times out of four my egg exploded inside the microwave. The egg poacher came today. I had already eaten my egg for the day, and can hardly wait for tomorrow to try it out.

The Gall

Here's my new bae Andricus quercusstrobilanus, Mom. He's a fake pine cone that is in fact a gall, the space station of a gall wasp parasitical on oak trees. Fairly rare to see them so fresh and orange; usually they're seen and photographed in the dryish brown stage. I was just lucky, I guess. It was my moment. Their months are July and August and they seem to like wet, steamy weather. Is that more than you wanted to know, Mom?

Mom, did you ever imagine that your kid (nay, the fruit of your womb) would be curious about, like, strange growths like fungi, galls and slimes? Kind of be a geek about them? Wondering what the heck this planet has in this walk-in closet called reality? Remember spanking me with a hairbrush?

Bone China

Mom collected shelves of fancy china teacups I don't want. They're nice enough, but I lead more of a "student" lifestyle and don't want useless things nor do I give a fig for decor. (When I say that I even roll my OWN eyes.) I couldn't understand why Mom filled her house with china and fragile figurines, realizing as I sat alone, after her death, in her junque-filled living room, that through these items she was showing us her soul: full of delicate, finely wrought and pretty things, much at odds with a personality (while we were growing up) comparable to a professional wrestler's, although she mellowed, as did I, after all we kids left home.

I eyed the one shelf holding smaller, demitasse cups. Those I do use. Correctly or not I drink espresso from them. I own four. "This is pretty," I said to my sister, holding up the most baroque, ridiculously designed, four-footed gilded cup, with a saucer to match; the items are stamped "JKW Bavaria." The designs in and on the cup and saucer are not hand-painted but screened, including the vignettes of an 18th-century male-female romance, when girls wore more clothes than guys. In one scene he plays a guitar while she holds out to him a rose. Far out.

My sister, the estate executor, said "You'd better take it then."

"Can I?"

My sister lifted the pieces from the shelf and firmly handed them to me, then rearranged the other cups so no telltale gap remained between them.

The  cup's thin china walls and feet mean that hot liquids in them cannot possibly stay warm for long. I decided to look it up. This is a "chocolate cup" from JKW Bavaria's "Love Story" series, available in yellow, white, red and pink as well as green. In tiny letters the pieces are stamped "Western Germany" which indicates manufacture after 1949.

Imagine the mind of the person who designed this, then imagine the minds that desired this item without ever wanting to use it, and there is something mindful of war and survival in that.

Those Who Ironed Before Me

In 2008 I emailed Mom about the old wooden family ironing board I still use and printed out her answer, taping it to the underside: “bought for $2.00 in 1955 in a State Street junk store.” She and Dad were newlyweds, and it was the golden age of ironing. I first saw her cry, over a neighbor's rude remark, while she was ironing out on the porch (it was summer). I was between ages 3 and 5 and horrified. That’s my first memory of this ironing board.

In the '70s the heavy awkward thing became mine and I hauled it to the 10 or so places I lived until settling here in 2001, by then ironing at most four times a year. A week ago I saw the board’s butt end had been soaked and its cover shredded, and thought: Buy a new ironing board? Naw. I’ll simply buy a new cover. So I did. Stripped the old cover off--it had been stapled on--and saw the full-length crack in the board’s “table,” rendering it worthless but not useless.

Googling, I learned this three-legged style was first manufactured around 1914 and that metal legs replaced wooden ones in the 1940s, giving me the board's approximate age. I turned the board over looking for a manufacturer’s label or stamp. Nothing. But besides the note I’d taped to the underside was writing I’d never noticed before. Handwriting. Only some of greenish lettering was readable.

This much was clear:

 ________ d A. Dixon

______________________ Wis.

Probably the previous owner who’d junked the thing! With light and magnification I finally confirmed the name as “Fred A. Dixon.” No, not “Freda.” That “A.” is clearly an initial. Plus I cannot imagine any female so attached to her ironing board she’d write her name and hometown on it. What, is she taking the ironing board to camp, or worried it'll be confused with someone else's?

Where the ink had worn away, faint impressions in the wood allowed me to confirm the first letter of the town as “W,” resembling the fancy “W” in “Wis.” (My hometown with the junk shop begins with “R.”) Fragments of other letters were just visible. Might it be two words?

The town name’s final letter, I thought, looked like “h.” “Beach”? There is no Wisconsin town called anything “Beach.” Or did it say “Fish”? That was more likely. The top of a capital “t” was followed by the top of a capital “e.” The answer was probably “Whitefish”. . .

But there’s no Whitefish, Wisconsin. Whitefish Bay is in the next county to the north, but believe me, no native calls it Whitefish because then we can’t make the standard joke about that wealthy suburb, calling it “Whitefolks Bay.” There’s a Whitewater, Wis. But the final letter before the “Wis.” was not an “r.” The storm outside had knocked out my Internet, so I pursued this puzzle, thinking that “h” might be a “d.”

Then I saw it: Waterford!

Waterford is a village in the same county as my hometown.

Census records from 1940 list the household of Fred A. Dixon, 57, of Waterford, Wisconsin as himself and his wife Lulu, 56; their son and daughter-in-law, ages 31 and 29; and three children under age 4. They used the ironing board a lot. So did Mom, who sprinkled water on clothes and rolled them in towels before pressing them, and also darned socks over a light bulb.

Reflective Post

Somebody really, really wants drivers to see this wooden post at night, accommodating even the colorblind. I liked it. . .it embodies command, force, desire, communication, concern, compassion in the night.

Two ceremonies 40 days apart at the cemetery--traditional, and my stepfather wanted us there. It's the least I can do for a man who loved my mother for 31 years. For 40 days after death the soul may freely wander the earth and visit places important to it, and on the 40th day (just like Jesus) it ascends to heaven and is really, really not coming back, so the survivors hold a sendoff service at the gravesite with brandy, wine, food and bread, pouring wine into the earth, and then, all ready to faint or vomit because it's 114 degrees, go to an air-conditioned lunch. Then you're supposed to move on with life, except for the six-month observance and the one-year observance. I am eager to move on. Rest in peace, Mom.

Doing my best to move on, I had a new professional portrait taken July 25 and when I saw the photo, which is awesome, I thought, "Mom would love this, I'll send one.  . ." but she's seen it already.

How I Coped

On May 14 all is peachy. On May 15, Mom, 83, is diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer. The next day I'm paralyzed on my back like a cockroach with my first pinched nerve and the worst pain I've ever borne. I text my neighbor who takes me to urgent care and wheels me in. She lent me two canes for almost a week so I could walk. I couldn't sit up long enough to do enough work and lost a week's income and am forbidden to exercise for three months, or lift anything, exercise being my major way of coping.

Then Mom's prognosis goes from 6 months to 6 weeks. Two sisters fly alternately to my parents in Phoenix to help out, and my stepdad's panic (he's 98; Mom was his caretaker) infects them; of course both parents refused to make any plans for such as this, and suddenly chaos like it's the last act of Ubu Roi.

Then a dear friend tells me she's moving to California; a dear friend with a health problem believed we were sitting in London. My steady date, so wonderful, suddenly ghosts me for a week, and on day 8 after I text "Are you all right" comes the "I'm sorry, didn't want to hurt you" email and enter a fresh hell of shock and anguish.

Meanwhile ulcer acts up (duh) and I lose 8 pounds in two weeks because food is repulsive except for coffee; it's my turn to go to Phoenix with 121 degrees predicted and the sister with power of attorney won't call a home health aide while my stepdad and his neighbor are screaming into the phone that they can't lift Mom by themselves anymore and I don't dare say I can't lift anyone because that'll really make 'em mad. It's finals week. Lose pair of specs it costs $400 to replace. Cellphone fritzes. Medical, travel and tax bills hit just as I retire from 31 years of adjunct teaching and lose that income stream.

How I coped: Without my neighbor's help and kindness I'd still be lying here, and she took me out for pizza which I wanted to eat. Chiropractic treatments cut the pain. Lay on my back all day and kept working until I was strong enough to drive. Prayer. Tried to write poems. Saw and hugged as many friends as possible. As my sporting outlet I went target shooting, blowing hundreds of bullets .22 and .38 with admirable accuracy. Spent hours composing furious emails to the date which I erased without sending because a horoscope told me not to. At exit interview with the apologetic mansplainer I requested compensation and gave him a four-figure figure and he paid it directly into my Paypal account. I told him to leave women alone, that he should just stay home and choke his chicken. He did not know what "choke your chicken" meant and I had to tell him.

Good, Good, Really Good!

At a Chicago conference last week I heard in person a famous channeler of positive messages, author of millions of books and CDs. She might be fake, but I liked her message and echoed to myself, “I will accept that things are always working out for me, and any expansion is good.” Minutes after starting back home on the tollway, my left rear tire blew. I take the next exit and, by the grace of God, it's a suburban Chicagoland avenue lined for miles with car dealerships and car-repair shops.

The repair shop I pull into mounts my spare for free and sends me to a tire dealer where I'm told there's a two-hour wait. “Things are always working out for me,” I thought, and in entirely foreign Naperville, Illinois, I take an aimless walk and two blocks down find a wonderful nail salon in which to spend an hour and a half. Across the street is a Greek restaurant. They know how to cook fish, and the waitress is great and gives me a free dessert. Hours off schedule by now, I’m as happy as they make ‘em. The weather is gorgeous. As I’m finishing lunch the tire place calls; the car’s ready.

Back safely in Missouri, I find a client has paid me. Years ago Mom had given me a floral-type 1950s white-gold diamond ring with a mousy little diamond that Dad bought for their 25th; I never much liked it. She swore me not to sell it; but bravely telling myself, “I can afford this,” I went to a jeweler I didn’t know and said since he was the pro he could give the stones any new setting he liked. The little squirty trailer-park ring is now dazzling, classy and worth more than before, and in the same shopping plaza was a frozen yogurt shop. Saying, “Things are always working out for me,” I scheduled my ten-year-old Toyota for removal of its two little rust spots and it’s in the body shop right now increasing in resale value.

At the bank, the fun never stops.

During my weekend in Illinois, summer came to Missouri. The public pool opened for the year but I lacked a beach towel; I’ve never owned one. Goodwill—next block over from the jeweler—didn’t have any. Oh well. Stopping by the bank I find it's Customer Appreciation Day with delightful free hotdogs and model trains. I told the teller this should happen every day.

When my last haircutter, a sub for my usual, gave me a “Moe Howard” (bowl haircut) and I'd cried, a friend recommended a stylist 30 miles away, booked up weeks in advance. Saying, “Any expansion is good,” I called, and drove for my appointment far into the city, and for my efforts got a soft and flattering haircut. Because any expansion is good (by then I was playing the channeler’s CDs in my car), I bought that same day my very first eyeliner and some brow highlight called "Living Luminizer." The next day when I’m wearing them (plus my new haircut) a man approaches me, the first in almost a year. He’s not a contender (his dentures smelled), but any expansion is good!

I’d been thinking about buying or leasing a new car because I want updated safety features, and even phoned around and daydreamed at CarFax but said, monetarily, “I’ll just keep and fix the 2007 Toyota,” but while it’s in the shop I am driving an impressive silver 2016 luxury Nissan. The body shop worked out a specially cheap deal with the rental place. Things are always working out for me. . .

Towel and bathing suit

I got up at sunrise and outside bathed my new ring in the rising sun and thought, "Life is great. Life is always expanding. Things are always working out for me."

At the gym, Nissan in the parking lot, I attempt and ace the strength class that last year sent me to the cardiologist. Meanwhile, the bank phones: I have won one of their Customer Appreciation Day prizes: a beach bag with beach towel and a $25 gift card. When I pick up my prize (the bank takes my photo), I see the towel matches my bathing suit! And the bag is great, too.

Things are always working out for me!

Doing Phoenix

I had no idea that the XLIX Super Bowl was scheduled while I was visiting my parents in Phoenix. Millions of eyes fixed on the city, hundreds of thousands mobbing downtown's NFL Superfan Festival and drinking and eating in a giant street party now in its fourth or fifth day, where a ticket scalps for $5000 and up; 110,000 spectators -- 30,000 more than last year -- at the Phoenix Open with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson; but I sat watching The Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy with my parents, who haven't been to downtown Phoenix in a decade and learned only days ago who the Super Bowl teams are (like myself, who had no idea. I'm not proud of that. Never brag about your ignorance). They wonder where all these people are parking. In their back yard grow grapefruits and oranges, and yes, you can pick your breakfast grapefruit from the tree. About a mile away on a desert nature trail I saw long-eared bunnies, cacti in an alphabet of shapes, and headless doves--the work of feral cats. I prefer trees to desert, and no TV to 6 hours a day of TV in a 10x10 wood-paneled den, but I've got only one set of parents.

  

Things Mom Did That I Don't

• dust with Pledge.
• towel-dry the dishes and put them away. To this day I ask her why not air-dry the dishes. She simply doesn't like leaving them out.
• percolate coffee.
• sneezed violently all day instead of using antihistamines.
• her own taxes.
• set her hair in brush rollers pinned with pink plastic pins, and then sleep wearing the whole assembly.
• wear a real rubber girdle--a sheath with pinholes for ventilation--and when rubber ones were no longer made, she wore a spandex girdle. When I was a kid I asked her why women wore girdles and she said it wasn't nice for ladies to wiggle.
• have children. She made it look extremely difficult.
• hung clothes and sheets on a line. We used to steal the clothespins and make puppets out of them.
• make and fry doughnuts. The five of us ate them all within minutes.
• remove mice from traps. I toss the trap with the mouse still in it.
• had a cookie jar.
• darned socks and sweaters, inserting a light bulb and patching the hole over it.
• canning, always on the hottest day in August, with an electric fan whirring to no effect.
• put clothes through a wringer.

The Lost Art of Tea-Towel Embroidery

Mom embroidered these tea towels in the 1950s while waiting for me to be born, and I know that's true because afterward she didn't embroider for seven years, having three more screaming babies in short order. She used these in her kitchen, because I recall misapprehending the image as "the dish running away with the spoon," but in fact it's a saucer eloping with a teacup. I hid this towel for years after it inspired rebellion among my own teacups and saucers. The salt cellar is backed with the forget-me-nots. Salt cellars, used for centuries, were outmoded in 1911 when Morton Salt made salt shake-able by adding magnesium carbonate. These designs came pre-stamped on the towels, and I still wonder whose surreal dream-images they were.

Bringing them out of storage perhaps ten years ago, at first I was careful with these towels, as a new mother is very very careful with Baby #1. They proved sturdy and colorfast. I now use them regularly and think of Mom. For a Scout badge in Embroidery, a Scout leader--not Mom--taught me running stitch, cross-stitch, French knots, and huck-a-back stitch. I haven't done embroidery since, but a keyboard is a kind of sewing machine.

A Piece of Cake

The 3-2-1 Cake recipe makes one serving of cake in one minute. Mom sent me this modern folk recipe and I tried it and sent it on to my friend Marsha. She expressed disbelief, so I made and served her a 3-2-1 cake. That convinced her!

1. Take a box of angel food cake mix and a box of any other cake mix of your choice, pour both into a ziploc bag and shake well. One of the two mixes absolutely must be angel food, because of the egg whites.

(Here's the 3-2-1 part:)

2. Put 3 Tablespoons of this dry mixture in a ramekin or flat-bottomed custard dish.

3. Add 2 Tablespoons of water and mix until smooth.

4. Microwave for 1 minute. Now it's ready to eat! No pans to wash either!

Put the ziploc bag away until the next time you want cake. My  3-2-1 cake (pictured) is a lemon cake mix, mixed with the angelfood. You can see the fluffy texture. I chose lemon because it's versatile. Sliced fresh peaches topped this one because that is just who I am, but one could eat it plain or put ice cream, berries, sauce or whatever. Sometimes I stir lemon zest into it; I bet I could put some poppy seeds in it. Try it and then experiment and fine-tune for your microwave. I found that my 3-2-1 cake is really best nuked for 50 seconds rather than 60.

A Humble Needful Thing

This two-wheeled folding grocery cart is one of the oldest items I own. In the 1970s when I left home and started working, before I owned  a car, carrying home groceries or schlepping laundry to and from the laundromat was troublesome. A backpack was not spacious enough. A duffel bag I could only drag along the sidewalks until it tore. I lived in a mean city far from anyone I knew, and it wasn't very smart for a tiny woman to carry in her arms through the night streets 30 pounds of stuff stacked so she couldn't see ahead of her. One terrible evening -- youth is full of such moments -- I was carrying three paper grocery bags and on the two-mile walk home a sudden thunderstorm soaked and shredded the bags. Items spilled and rolled all over the sidewalk into the gutters. It was awful; I couldn't afford to lose any of the items. There was no one to call. I have never felt so alone in life as at that moment. I knocked at some doors thinking to ask for some bags, or maybe for someone to call a cab. Don't remember what happened next except....

I told my mom about this and next time she visited she brought this folding grocery cart, which cost $20. It had a bright orange plastic liner. I thought it was for old ladies but it saved me much misery. It has been dragged behind me on city streets, on gravel road shoulders, through snowy shortcuts, and during moves (I lived in 10 different places in 10 years). Somewhere the liner tore and was discarded.

I got my first car when I was 34 and my own washer and dryer, finally, when I was 44. The grocery cart has been neglected in the Divine garage for 11 years, getting a bit rusty and bent, used only to contain broken-down cardboard boxes for recycling. Tonight I took it out, cleaned it, unbent the rods and oiled the wheels for tomorrow's outdoor market. I'm bringing a friend who's just had her hip replaced. Because she can't carry heavy things and I'm no good at it either, I am glad I kept this because now, as an old lady, I can appreciate it fully. Thanks, Mom. And you can still buy one for $20.

Mom's Roosters

I'm told Mom's rooster collection began with a pair of salt and pepper shakers...and this aint all of em, either. I can understand why people like roosters: confident, crowing, pretty, winged, masculine, symbol of the daytime.

My Mom for President

Elect my mom president of the United States and the budget will be balanced in five days. The occupation of Iraq will end when she says so: no ifs, ands or buts about it. Osama Bin Laden will quake in his boots, and if he bombs anything she will clean his clock and show him who is boss. There will be no shenanigans in the Oval Office. You'd better believe the White House will be tidy and there will be no eating at the desks. Rich folks will be taxed until they're in the same boat as the rest of us.

President Mom's cabinet will be working women who know how to juggle everything in the world and get things done. She will award medals to stay-at-home mothers, nurses, cancer patients, and graduate students. Dick Cheney will soon be laughing out of the other side of his mouth. When the Democrats and Republicans have stupid arguments she will say "Cut it out or I'll knock your heads together."