Like Mama Used to Make
One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2020 was to become a vegetarian. I upheld that resolution for three months.
My mom likes to share my reason for calling it quits: I loved her cooking too much. People always say that mama makes it best. Well, mine actually does, and I am proud to have failed on my resolution if the reason for doing so makes her proud.
My mom is a fabulous cook, though she will never come out and say so herself, so we all say so on her behalf. Rarely using recipes, she has produced Hill family staples such as Orange Chicken (not the American Chinese kind), Ugly Meatballs (look like s**t but taste like heaven), and Saucy Meat (meat sauce with a renewed ratio). And you always knew at our dinner table that you would rise satisfied, because she still does not understand portion control—with the five of us, she’d cook to feed ten.
So, when I decided it was time to move out, the realization hit me like one too many helpings of Loaf (our affectionate name for turkey meatloaf): I would also be moving away from her home cooking. One thing born from this realization was that without the temptation of her food, I could resume my resolution and vegetarianism (and I have). But another thing: there is no way I can go home for the holidays and sit around eating kale while my family digs into Saucy Meat right beneath my nose. Or maybe I can… Bottom line is that this vegetarian thing is in flux and dependent on my physical location. It’s a new kind of diet, folks. Jump on the wagon.
But as many people my age know, when you move away from home for the first time, one of the hardest things to learn is how to feed yourself healthfully and without breaking the bank. Sure, I can pop over to Sweetgreen for lunch every day, but then we would never afford a living room couch. Sure, I can pop over to McDonald’s (aka Don’s in the Hill house) for dinner each night, but then I would likely break this precarious IKEA bed my dad blistered for.
The next best thing: weekly jaunts to Trader Joe’s to buy a bunch of fruits and vegetables I know I should eat but have little idea what to do with, some of which end up rotting, “forgotten,” in the corner of our near-empty fridge.
Let me be clear, I can manage in a kitchen. Will it taste like mama used to make? No. Will it taste good? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Will it be edible? Sure. My specialty is chopping up every vegetable and potato I can find and throwing them in a roasting pan with some EVOO and salt. Then make some quinoa, and you have dinner for the week.
When I mention my own ventures into cooking, my mom likes to bring up the time I asked, “How do you know if water is boiling?”. First of all, that is a very valid question coming from someone who had never boiled water. Secondly, I was quite young, thank you very much. I know how to boil water now. In fact, I do so to steam veggies, make pasta, poach eggs, etc. I can sauté, pan fry, and broil. I own a zester, for crying out loud. That should mean something!
I am also learning not only how to cook healthfully for myself but also to do it without meat. It’s very easy to buy some chicken breasts and call it dinner, but now I need to make sure I am satisfied and protein-full using everything but. Maybe I will buy a cookbook? I actively question that because, man, it’s a journey. At this point I am patting myself on the back for eating something green each day and not ordering in but once.
I think of my parents back home in our kitchen, empty nesters, grappling with how to cook for only two. They can keep on keeping on the way we had been, just without the family packs. I don’t have the luxury of “keeping on.” I’m starting from scratch. Seems like a nice place to put a metaphor, but I won’t.
When you have to survive and thrive on your own, you come to appreciate so much more what it took to raise you (and two sisters, and a dog, and a dad who can cook on his own but needs prompting). In my mind, my mama’s cooking will always be held in on that metaphorical pedestal (there it is). So unless I can become the Bobby Flay of vegetarian cuisine, come the holidays, my resolution will likely break until next year.