Pomegranates belong with my mother. In my mind the two are inseparable, though it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where the association came from. It may be due to the photo hanging on our dark red kitchen wall of two ripe pomegranate halves. Or perhaps because her birthday, November 1st, is also the first day of Día de los Muertos. In preparation for this day each year, we place whole pomegranates on our wooden altar alongside family photos and other small tokens. There are some photos that have always been on our altar– or “always” in my short-lived memory, since I was old enough to take in the faces of the dead. Always James, always Ron. Always the ever-glamorous Faye, Rose, and Muriel, with my grandfather Manny between his sisters. Manny, who is forever young in the few photographs I’ve seen of him. Faye and Rose of New York Auntie fame: the two who met my mother for the first time in the Russian Tea Room, to scope her out as a prospect for my father. My mother, blissfully unaware of this loaded circumstance, arrived in all her long-skirted, hippie-bloused, leather-necklaced glory, and charmed them nonetheless. The young women in that old photograph are effortlessly elegant, movie stars to whom my young mind could not believe I was related. Manny is youthful and handsome, with my father’s silly grin. I find all of my uncles in his face. I find my dad.
As I grew, so did our altar. More photos were placed around theirs, Great Aunt Louise holding her anti-capitalist protest sign, Grandma Betty and her ever-present guitar. This long year, even more photos. We light beeswax candles all around them, and slowly eat each pomegranate in the days that follow. This is how best to enjoy a pomegranate.
Those small yellow globes are lemon cucumbers. They are best enjoyed when sliced thinly and with care, placed on my favorite small plate from home (with the silver rim around the edge), and sprinkled with Mildred salt. This salt is named after my great grandmother Mildred, who lifted the recipe from the family she nannied for. My family has made it ever since, giving jars away to friends and neighbors. When they run out, we send them the recipe. It’s not too hard with the right ingredients: dried parsley, garlic, ginger, cayenne, and celery seeds. In my house we make Mildred salt by the barrel. Seeing as we don’t own a barrel, we use the deepest, widest bread bowl we have. It’s kept on the very top of our cabinets, so dad has to “one, two, three, jump!” me up onto the counter and hold me there while I get it out from under the others and pass it down to him. Even though I’ve grown almost to his height, we still do these kitchen rituals.
Onions were, for the most part, a forbidden treasure in my home growing up. Since getting pregnant with me, onion, garlic, and bell pepper all leave my mother with a terrible belly ache. I like to think I was worth it, but a tough trade nonetheless. Still, the sweetest onions, cooked down until they are soft and golden and just about see-through– those are okay. Thus, onions are best enjoyed sweet and sizzled patiently on low heat. Once suitably tender, add to everything.
Pie on the breakfast table is the sign of an evening well spent and well fed. It means that there was another pie for yesterday's dessert, and enough other delicious food that we couldn’t eat another bite, and saved this treat for the morning. Pies, in general, are for any and all occasions. Christmas and Thanksgiving of course, but also Fourth of July, Graduations, Solstice celebrations, Saturday nights. Most notably, each of my birthdays since I was old enough to request it. It used to always be cherry I wanted, but as I grew, I branched out to raspberry rhubarb, or marionberry from the backyard. These days, my whole house family can’t get together as often for casual dinners, so when we do, it's a pie occasion in itself.
Breakfast pie is best enjoyed cold. Cold pie is the alluring cousin of ‘fresh-out-the-oven, piping-hot-pile-of-crust-and-fruit’ dessert pie. If you save a pie for breakfast, the sugary fruit will set to the ideal consistency, and you will get a perfectly held-together slice.
In August and September, the cherry tomatoes come in unrelenting waves. No sooner have you filled a colander to the brim, than the plants hang heavy with another harvest. My dad and I simmer down pounds of the bright orange things with basil and sweet onion, and stand in amazement as they reduce to fit a single quart sized mason jar. These tomatoes are sweeter than you’d ever believe: candy that, much like sour skittles, will leave your tongue raw. Cherry tomatoes from the garden are best enjoyed day-of: there are more coming tomorrow.
Making fava bean ragout is a labor of love. My mother only makes it when she knows she has hands—my sister’s, my father’s, and mine—to help in the shelling of the beans. There are two steps to this prep-work: first, removing the beans from their long green pods, each fava as big as a quarter in the palm of your hand. When I was little, I always sought the biggest bean, laying aside contenders as I worked my way through the bowl and choosing a winner at the end. The pods were soft inside, almost foamy, and the beans slid right out if you applied pressure in the correct spot. Next, the beans are blanched in hot water to loosen their tough outer skins, which are then removed by the same helping hands. On warm summer evenings, we gather around our back porch table, popping the vibrantly green favas into a pan, sometimes missing and shooting them across the table. The work is tedious, but always worth it– our fingers work quick. Now, the beans are ready to cook down in delicious olive oil, Mildred salt, and lemon juice. Best enjoyed when spread thick on a slice of crusty sourdough, with a hard and salty sheep’s cheese.
When I worked at the bakery, I brought home more croissants than we could ever eat on our own. I would return from my shifts wreathed in powdered sugar, clutching my family’s requests in a seemingly bottomless paper bag. After one particularly slow afternoon, I brought home almost an entire batch of chewy cheddar lye rolls, on which we munched for days. Since I’ve moved out of Seattle, my mother has lost her free sourdough and pastry plug. Still, she is not bitter, and never fails to have a bakery treat waiting for me when I come home for a visit. These are best enjoyed like most things are: cut in many pieces, and shared.