300 Eggs: She’s Difficult - 2nd Place
Amy L. Clark
My mother has always been an excellent cook. Her menus wow at her frequent dinner parties. She knows how to sear and how to braise. I once watched one of my friends, avowedly adverse to vegetables, scarf down thirds of her ratatouille. I still dream about her carbonara with pancetta and peas.
Not only is she talented, for years she got dinner on the table every night for our difficult blended family of teens and pre-teens, and did it in such a way that none of us can remember ever complaining about the food more than once. She weathered our vegetarianism, and a brief vegan phase, too, with grace and an abundance of greens.
Even before that, when other six-year-olds were learning to turn bread into toast, my mother taught me to make a steak. Because of my mother’s culinary skills, I can make hollandaise, poach an egg with a runny yolk, and do omelets in both the French and American style. Because of her steady love and persistent care, I have the confidence to try a Scotch egg, Chinese tea eggs, or Acharuli Khachapuri in my own kitchen. Certainly, she inculcated in all her children a love of… Read more »