If you look in our kitchen cabinets you will notice that all the glasses are parked upside down. This is a throwback to my raising, and a mother who told us to place the glasses, cups, and mugs so to “keep the bugs out.” My mom was an excellent housekeeper, but no matter how pristine the kitchen might be, in our corner of Southeast Texas near the coast, all manner of creepy-crawly things would find their way into the cupboards. And so, to avoid having one of those giant flying roaches jumping into your face when you went to get a glass of water, we flipped ‘em over for safe storage against the varmints.
Recently, I was emptying the dishwasher at my parents’ house, and my 92-year-old mother admonished me to align the berries on the sides of the cereal bowls as I stacked them in her cupboard. So maybe there is a touch of OCD-ness there, too.
Mom taught me how to scramble eggs at the age of four, standing on a kitchen chair so that I could see the iron skillet on top of a gas range. I think this was in response to my failed attempts to successfully crack an egg for frying, and the ensuing mess was only fit for the scrambled variety. Mind you, all my cooking lessons were pre-microwave. We cooked by look and smell, texture and viscosity. Dishes were washed and dried by hand by me and my siblings.
Mom can still cook, although it takes her a little longer to get around in her “modern” kitchen. There’s an island in the middle the size of Manhattan, complete with electric cooktop, power outlets, and even a small sink. She’s graduated to microwave ovens and Keurig coffee makers, but still keeps a rudimentary can opener on the counter top. She prefers to hand-ladle cherry pie filling into a dough crust instead of Mrs. Smith’s boxed variety, and freezes every meal’s left overs for later use.
Things our mothers teach us last a lifetime.
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