A Mother’s Love “Made Visible"
While I often attribute a large part of my love for music to my father, my mother can take sole responsibility for a life-long love of food… and new-found love of cooking. The first to admit she couldn’t boil an egg when first married, my mother was a quick study. To my eight- or nine-year old self, the ease with which she impressed my parents’ worldly circle seemed a little magical. And I vividly remember leafing through her leather-bound issues of Gourmet as if they held a wizard’s incantations.
… which have come to mean more than ever.
Never one for tinkering in the kitchen, I grew up to be a “foodie from afar.” Relinquishing the kitchen to my partners. Dining at Morandi, Lincoln, or Union Square Café whenever the occasion (and my wallet) permitted. Savoring Ruth Reichl’s Save Me the Plumbs (which recounts her tenure as Gourmet’s Editor-in-chief) less as an epicurean than as someone who’d spent a decade in the magazine industry. And through it all, my mother’s food has held a mouth-watering place in my heart (or should I say stomach).
If there’s an upside for those moving into their parents’ basements due to COVID-19, I hope it’s the chance to regularly enjoy mom’s cooking again. It certainly is the 2nd best thing about my recent move into an apartment one floor above my mother. The menu has changed little: Lasagna, Meatloaf, Chicken Pot Pie—each more delicious than the next. That it made little sense for her to spend hours baking Pumpkin Cheesecake or Kahlua Pecan Pie for our paltry, pandemic five-person Thanksgiving only added insult to injury. (Though one phone call from me, and I don’t doubt I’ll find her at my door with one—or both—in hand!)
I say, “2nd best,” because the chance to return the favor easily tops the list. I have no idea why I started cooking with a vengeance in my mid-fifties. But the joy felt when setting a plate down in front of my mother is one reason I continue to.
The secret to my mother’s pecan pie
I’ve read that “Cooking is love made visible.” And according to Sophia Loren, “The most indispensable ingredient of all good home cooking is love for those you are cooking for.” Once you feel that love, it’s addictive. The notion that I had to cook food worthy of Tom Colicchio—if I were to cook at all—is gone. As is the fear of making mistakes. It’s not brain surgery, I’ve discovered (even when you’re cooking sweetbreads!). And losing that fear makes experimentation and tweaking recipes easy. Apple and Brie Soup and a Pumpkin Tart with Chai Whipped Cream have been recent standouts. When making a favorite Turkey Chili that calls for one can of beans (mashed), I double the recipe (using two, plus a THIRD can of refried beans), and always run half down to my mother.
Seeing the two of us masked, platters in hand, running upstairs and down makes for the kind of farcical sight gag you’d expect in a Marx Brothers movie. While proximity has allowed the two of us to connect over food, I await the day when we can ALL dine together again. (And have just the recipe for it!)
MARGO’S KAHLUA PECAN PIE
NOTE: Yields a 9” pie (Amounts for 10” pie in parentheses)
½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temp. (10” pie: ¾ stick or 6 tablespoons)
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla (10” pie: 1 ½ teaspoons)
2 tablespoons flour (10” pie: 3 tablespoons)
3 extra-large eggs, room temp. (10” pie: 4-5 eggs)
½ cup Kahlua
½ cup dark corn syrup (10” pie: ¾ cup)
¾ cup evaporated milk or heavy cream (10” pie: 1 cup)
10 oz. chopped pecans (10” pie: 14 oz.)
Pinch of salt
9” pie shell
Preheat oven to 350°
Pour Kahlua, corn syrup, evaporated milk & vanilla into a liquid measuring pitcher & set aside.
Cream together butter, sugar, flour and salt. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Slowly pour in liquids until just combined, scraping down sides of bowl periodically.
Stir in pecans. Be careful not to overbeat—you’ll add too much air to mixture.
Pour into pie shell and bake on a cookie sheet.
Start checking for doneness after 30 minutes. Remove from oven before center of pie is completely set.
Leave to cool on cookie sheet, to ensure bottom of crust is completely baked.