Hand-Me-Downs

My Mom has a habit of sending me books. Novels, biographies, memoirs. We are both passionate bibliophiles, so whenever she finds that her book collection has begun to encroach on her living space (about every six months by my calculations), she will pack many of them up, most of the time in several huge boxes, and ship them off to Boston, where I spend the next several months devouring them indiscriminately. Mr. Gastro gives me this weary, slightly amused look every time we get one of these shipments. Where exactly do I think I am going to put all of these books? Somehow I always seem to find room, but I suspect Mr. G. thinks I am becoming a bit of a hoarder.

This past shipment was over 100 pounds, and came in three boxes that were literally buckling under the strain by the time they made it to my doorstep. There were several dozen novels, but most of the books in this shipment were cookbooks, and as soon as I saw them, I began tearing through the box, stacking willy-nilly in teetering piles until I found what I was looking for at the very bottom of the very last box I opened. Volumes 1 & 2 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child.

I could have bought my own copy a dozen times over during the time that I have been waiting for this one book. But I didn't want a new copy. I wanted my mom's copy. Yesterday I decided to devote my entire day to cooking, and found that the recipe I was looking for, Boeuf Bourguignon, had already been dog-eared by my mother. Flip to the next down-turned corner and you'll find the recipe for brown braised onions that are to be strewn over the stewed beef before serving, and after that the butter sauteed mushrooms. It's like I have an invisible helper in the kitchen, guiding my fingers just a little more deftly to the next step. Each page is smeared and stained with olive oil, butter, and any number of other traces of meals gone by. It's like a spell book that's held on to the candle wax drippings and incense ash of the previous user, and therefore some of the magic as well.

I could go on and on about my morning spent serenely hand-drying and browning beef, just a few pieces at a time, or my afternoon rolling tiny onions in a pan of hot butter, and sitting back while they simmered in beef stock. I could wax nostalgic line after line about the nutty aroma that filled my kitchen while I diligently shook my skillet full of beautiful little brown mushrooms, or about the wonderful time Mr. Gastro and I had with food buddy John, drinking wine and cocktails and devouring plates of fall-apart-when-you-look-at-it beef. Instead I will control myself, and simply say that yesterday I spent the entire day cooking with my mom, and I had a wonderful time.