From nurturer to collaborator

My daughter probably spent more time in the kitchen than other children because that’s where I spent most of my time. When she came along, I set a still-new career as food writer on the back burner, preferring to stay home to focus on family matters. Even though it was months before I would be cooking anything for her, she was the recurring ingredient I collected on the kitchen counter during meal preparations.

From the start, she witnessed my new creations, recipes by rote, successes and failures, and was exposed to aromas, if not flavors, from vanilla to Gorgonzola.

If motherhood can be described in a word, it is nurturing. While that word covers a world of loving gifts either parent can contribute, at its start, it is the literal feeding of one’s child.

So when she began to eat solid foods and would hold mouthfuls at length, humming until she finally swallowed, I felt joy. When she had her first intestinal upset and her pediatrician had me withhold solids for a few days, I felt my hands had been tied in the most cruel way.

I took things a little too far when, for her first birthday, I insisted on making homemade ravioli (she liked the baby-food version) and then on her second, I spent days making my own hot dogs for a cookout in the park. When they starting exploding on the grill, someone went to the store for Farmer John. I was too exhausted to protest the introduction of preservatives into my daughter’s pristine diet.

We began to have more fun when, as a preschooler, she still wanted to be perched on the counter to help stir and taste. She would get my attention with, “I know, Mommy, let’s play fancy restaurant,” the rule always being, “You can be Huck Man Puck, and I’ll be your helper.”

As years passed, she began to request meals: “fruit sad dad” for lunch; escarole soup but just the “bra”; chocolate cake but just the “bread”; big pancake for breakfast, especially if her friends had slept over; and “pepperoni pie,” which was plum pie that everyone mistook for a pizza at first glance.

Later came calls for help from college when she wanted to bake a pie. Then e-mails from New York: “Mom, I can’t find the recipe for ….” While I was taking time off in the mountains a few years ago, I got a call from Tuscany, where she was exploring the cuisine with a group of friends. “Mom, it’s Eric’s birthday. Can you give me a recipe for a really gooey chocolate cake?” The phone rang last New Year’s Eve. “Hi, this is John, Sara Kate’s friend. I’m in charge of the oysters tonight, and the mignonette just doesn’t seem right. Can you help?” I’d love to.

Now I call Sara Kate for help, too. “I have beets in the garden, honey. Can you tell me how you made that salad with goat cheese and hazelnuts?”

One of the best surprises of motherhood has come with the realization that my child has so much to offer back to me. I also realize now that my own mother’s lack of joy in cooking inspired me to be different from her in that way. So I would have to say to my child, “Your grandmother taught me everything I know.”

As for her messy journal of our culinary history, that’s my doing. Maybe someday she’ll be inspired to be different from her mother in that way.