butter is my love language: four somewhat unrelated thoughts on food

Starting at about the age of nine, I would regularly grab a stack of old Southern Livings or Better Homes & Gardens from the basket in the office, seat myself at the counter, and flip about three quarters of the way back, past colorful maps showing when to plant your tulips and articles about Charleston restaurants til I found what I thought was the only redeeming section of the whole publication - the recipes.

It was poetry. A list of every day ingredients, sometimes with something exotic sounding mixed in ("Mom, what are bing cherries?"), followed by a step-by-step set of instructions, ending with a glossy, staged picture with a well-placed garnish, a structure which repeated with different combinations of ingredients for four or five more pages. It was from these magazines I learned how accessible cooking was. All you had to do was gather what's on the list, follow the instructions, and add a little something to make it pretty. 

As a wife and functioning adult, I get to experience this poetry in my life everyday, although now it's less "sonnet in iambic pentameter" and more "free-form hippie poetry with the occasional couplet". I borrow from the poetry of others and add a little something of my own. Roasted garlic. Browned butter. Raw sugar sprinkled for a crunch. I am the queen in this kingdom. If I choose to use a heavy hand with the vanilla extract or add a pinch of cayenne to the candied pecans for good measure, so be it.

I love people with the food I make. Through it, I get to simultaneously delight and meet a primal need. With pies and cakes, I am giving my time and gentleness. With soups and hearty dinners, I give my care and attention to detail in the form of a chopped onion, smashed garlic cloves and almond-crusted chicken breasts. With every chocolate chip cookie and oatmeal cream pie, I give my joy and and love. With any yeasted dough, I knead in a triple dose of my patience.

Cooking is a communion with the past, the most delicious form of memory. When browning ground beef, I see my mother, standing barefoot in the kitchen stirring spaghetti sauce with a wooden spoon. Cinnamon rolls smell like childhood Christmas mornings and with each apple I peel, I remember a Thanksgiving Day pie. While making sweet tea, I am swept back to a late-summer picnic in Grant Park with a boy I loved but hadn't told yet. Peanut butter pie reminds me of sweet roommates and how lucky I am for friendships that pick back up right where they left off. A BLT on warm toast has me smiling at jokes told in ridiculous accents that have (somehow) only grown more funny with time. Corner brownies and crispy potatoes remind me of my dad. Whole roasted chicken tastes like triumph. Banana bread, home. Brie and green apples on a baguette, adventure.

I wonder what memories my children and their children and their children will have of me after I've had my ashes scattered in some great body of water (morbid, whatever). Will roasted sweet potatoes with broccoli or raspberries on oatmeal remind them of me? Will they hear my voice saying "boxed mixes are for quitters" as they rub citrus zest into sugar? I hope so. If I get to have any say in these things (which I don't think I do), I would like my legacy to be one of never measuring the vanilla extract, always encouraging a second serving of lemon cake and not skimping on chocolate chips. I want to be remembered with my oven mitts on and smiling, a barefoot queen in her kingdom. Take note, unborn children. Take note.