Flying Solo

I miss my Mom - and not because it's the holidays. I miss her cooking and baking experience, insights, how she used to be the taster for my savory and sweet dishes. I miss her telling me about family recipes and the stories that go with them.

Losing a mother is the worst pain anyone can go through.Losing a cooking buddy is also hard. I now have to ask my brother if he remembers certain steps in family recipes, handed down from our Italian and German great-grandmothers.Take for example pascoi. This was actually our great grandfather's dish, a stuffed cabbage roll from his area of San Maurizio Canavese outside of Turin. It is an elaborate cook. Savoy cabbage leaves are filled with raw or uncooked polenta and then tied up with simple sewing thread. They're then fried in a mix of garlic, butter and olive oil. My brother had forgotten this step. Luckily I remembered it, The polenta had to get cooked somehow before pickling. The  pickling itself requires red wine vinegar along with garlic and savia. The question is what is the ratio of the vinegar to the salvia, a cousin of sage. Could I use sage instead? Unfortunately there is noone to ask except maybe our cousins who still live in San Maurizio. That begs another question - do they make it?

The loss is also felt when I make her famed chili. This is a  recipe  that all her cousins wanted and made - none coming close to the perfection of hers.I have changed the recipe slightly - ever so slightly with the addition of dark honey to temper the tomatoes' tang.I also add more chili powder , a tablespoon more. It gives the chili a more vibrant color and amps up the flavor.My Mom had tasted it  as I took over the kitchen in the last few years.I would always ask jokingly "Is it better than yours?'
and she'd reply "What do you think?" I made a show of shaking my head no .and say "Nah. It'll never be as good as yours." The same with her tomato sauce. I made it last week and felt it didn't hit the mark . For one thing, I had to add granulated sugar because I didn't have any honey (and again dark honey works much better in a sauce than white sugar. it adds depth - but that's for another post). and used a larger can of tomato sauce. The ravioli were drowning in the sauce.If my Mom had been around she would have chided me for not using a smaller can  -which I now realize I have to do the next time I make sauce.

I miss my Mom more than anyone could ever imagine. I miss my cohort in the kitchen.It is a brave new world for me amidst the pots and pans, herbs and spice. She would want me to conquer it.