LAUREN…My mother was an extraordinary cook.  I don’t mean just very good.  I don’t mean just better than any of my friends’ mothers or my aunts or, for that matter, most of the restaurants we went to.  I mean extraordinary.  She learned boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin from Julia Child – and improved on Julia.  Really.  She occasionally spent all day pounding veal into paper thin scaloppini which she then wrapped around chopped proscuitto into individual rolls sewn closed with needle and thread before being braised in Marsala.  She was intimidatingly good.  Plus, she was a perfectionist and a crank.  She did not want help in the kitchen.  She did not want anyone in the kitchen.

Which is to say, I did not learn to cook from my mother. When I was a teen, around Lizzie’s age, my kitchen expertise was limited to cutting up a banana to put in my Rice Krispies.  Baking was not my forte either.  One Sunday when my parents were out doing something, I thought I’d make Tollhouse cookies.  The recipe was right n the back on the bag of chocolate chips.  No problem.  The problem was the oven. We had a gas range which you had to light by waving a match under the pilot light.  I had never done this before.  It took about two months for my eyebrows and eyelashes to grow back.

Slowly, over the years, I taught myself to cook.  I’m pretty good at it now.  Not anywhere as good as my mother was, but at least I don’t guard the kitchen like a fortress. Lizzie has free rein.  She makes omelettes and quesadillas, waffles and pancakes, scones and cookies.  We’ve baked bread together.  She’s planning to make pretzels this afternoon.  Pretzels! From scratch!  She feels at home in the kitchen, she experiments, she takes delight in her own creativity.  And so do I.  I also take delight in her snickerdoodles.  A little too much, in fact.

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