Mama-san, #1

This last week was both Mother's Day and my mother's birthday. I WAS going to write a Top 5 Things I Learned from My Mom post, but every time I tried to narrow it down to 5 clearly definable points, my mind swirled and threatened to shut down on me. What my mother taught me was more than a string of lessons, an entire world philosophy. So I'm not going to write that post. At least, not the whole thing. And I'm not going to limit myself to 5 things. As the woman who carried me for 9 months and then brought me into this world, she deserves more than 5 tongue-in-cheek summaries of what her life's work means to me, the recipient of that work. Instead, any time I feel like it, I'm just going to pick something out of the pensieve (nerd alert!) and tell you all what a rockin' mama I got.

What My Momma Taught Me:

#1. How to Read a Recipe: Perhaps there are more important life skills. Perhaps not. There was a process to following a recipe, I found out around the age of 11 or 12.

First, you read over the entire recipe before getting started. Make sure you know what you're getting into. Turns out, there are some cooking skills that are pretty advanced, which I have learned over the years mostly translates into paying a great deal of attention to what you are doing; anyone can do it, if they're disciplined enough to be precise. I have saved myself from many a cooking faux pas from simply reading through what I ought to do beforehand. I believe this simple skill is what gave me the ability to manage my time effectively in all aspects of my life. There are a LOT of recipes out there, where, if you were to follow them as written, it'd take you all day because you didn't realize that you could move on to step B while step A was taking care of itself. And furthermore, you can prep for steps C, D, and E well in advance so that when you get there, you're ready to go. You don't accidentally burn your risotto waiting for your chicken stock to simmer. During college, this skill may have been the most important in contributing to my success. You put first what comes first, organize your time, and get to work. Consider the profundity of these lessons for just a moment, please. They are more than just words on this digital page.

Second, check your cupboards. Maybe you want chocolate chip cookies in the worst way. But if you're out of sugar or flour or baking soda, it's not going to happen--at least not without a trip to the store first. And if you DON'T read through the recipe first, you could waste a LOT resources (time and otherwise) when you finish the dough and reach for those chocolate chips, which (gasp!) are not there. Crushing disappointment, which might all have been avoided by a little prep work.

Third--and this is pretty crucial, however obvious it might seem--do what the recipe tells you to. A few months ago, I was hooked on Food Network's Worst Cooks in America show. Invariably, the problem with each of the contestants was that they simply didn't actually follow a recipe. The recipe would tell them to bake their chicken for 45 minutes--they'd leave it in the oven for 30. Raw poultry. Or it would tell them to grate an ingredient, which they would choose to coarsely chop instead. Nasty texture. I was horrified watching this show, the ticker tape in my head perpetually reading, "Are there REALLY people out there who don't do what they're told?" This skill taught me that many (most?) rules are more than arbitrary. There are laws that keep the universe intact. There are commandments that keep our lives sanctified and directional. There is a reason the recipe asks you to grate instead of chop. Sometimes you don't know why until the finished product is rolling around in your mouth. Any time I make a recipe for the first time, I follow it precisely. I need to know first if the recipe is good as-is, and once I've tasted the product I was actually supposed to make, I can make adjustments accordingly for future cooking/baking experiences. Translation: I love rules. I do, I love them. Call me a suck-up or a goody two-shoes, I don't care. Rules have served me well my whole life. I feel very comfortable relying on them, because they have never steered me wrong or made me unhappy. Furthermore, they are what they are, independent of the people who preach them or violate them.

And this all brings me around to the one unifying lesson about reading a recipe: you only ever get what you give. I don't mean this in the self-serving way. This is not a creed for a selfish person. Rather, the basic knowledge that nothing comes from nothing. If I do not add chocolate chips, I will not get chocolate chip cookies. When you create anything from scratch, you need the necessary raw materials, and you've got to add them up in the proper amounts, in harmony with the laws that exist. This lesson hit home big time when I was pregnant with W, and I realized how crucial certain nutrients were to a developing human--and that if I didn't provide them, they wouldn't just magically appear and create a healthy baby. I had to actively take them in. You can't have a happy marriage without living by the rules of a happy marriage. You can't know the Gospel unless you study it and live it. You can't drive your car if it has no gas or electricity.

And all of this learned because one Sunday afternoon my mom took some time to show me how to properly use a measuring cup. Thanks, Mom.