My mom tried to teach me many things when I was young – how to sew, how to garden, how to speak Spanish – but the one thing she didn’t try to teach is the one that really stuck: how to navigate the kitchen.
We didn’t have many things when I was growing up in rural eastern Washington state in the 1990s (the literal largest thing missing from my early years was a television), but we did have a big vegetable garden, tended by my mom and weeded – begrudgingly – by my older sister, Janessa, and me. And when mom was in the kitchen, we’d observe and help. (Or, probably more often, Janessa would help and I would play with the giant tub of flour. See earlier sentence about lack of television.)
Mom, ever a do-it-yourselfer, has always liked being able to control the quality of our food. Processed things were kept at a minimum, partly out of concern about their lack of nutritional value but also to save money. The one store-bought “food” I came to crave most was canned rainbow chip frosting: I didn’t taste it until I was about 10 years old and at a friend’s house, because at home, frosting was just a mix of confectioners’ sugar, milk, vanilla extract and a little melted butter.
Meat-and-potato dishes were more the norm in our neck of the farm fields, but my mom’s Mexican background – her father’s family had moved to the United States in the early 1920s – helped broaden all our palates, including that of my raised-on-beef stew dad, who was then a farmer. (That didn’t stop me from pouring barbecue sauce over my tacos and instantly rendering them inauthentic, but no matter.)
In the summer of 1995, my mom spent two months studying Mexican anthropology in Guadalajara, Mexico; Janessa joined her after the first month, which meant my dad and I fended for ourselves. We survived on chicken tenders, hot dogs and spaghetti with purchased meatballs, my dad told me recently. He added, “makes me wonder how we didn’t starve.”
When Mom returned, we hadn’t starved, and she had learned how easy it is to make molletes (pronounced moh-YEH-tehs), a traditional Mexican open-face sandwich of refried beans spread over halved bolillos, a type of Mexican roll, then topped with cheese and broiled until warm. The family she lived with in Mexico served them for breakfast or as an afternoon snack, and she soon followed suit when back in Washington. Molletes perfectly encapsulate the foods I most associate with my mom: simple, nutritious without being obnoxious and totally adaptable to whatever ingredients you like or have on hand.
Adaptability and confidence – in my abilities, cooking and otherwise – are some of the most important lessons my mom, however inadvertently, taught me. As she often says when extolling the virtues of homemade pie crust: “It’s three ingredients, and you’re an educated woman. You can do it!”
And so I have. But that – and a killer rhubarb custard pie recipe – is an essay for another time.
