When my mother cooked dinner, she prepared enough food to gorge the entire line up at St. Anthony’s Kitchen with ample leftovers to supply the county prison. At every holiday, her culinary achievements astounded us, but on Thanksgiving, she produced a Magnum Opus so gigantic that our digestions were destroyed until New Year’s Day. On that evening, we dined sparingly because we all had hangovers.

My mother was not one to confine her talents to a small audience. She invited everyone in the family, several neighbors who could not identify a specific place they were going for the holiday and anyone at the Old Age Home who wasn’t bedridden. One year, she invited the entire staff at the A&P on Fulton Street to join us. We thought she wanted to thank them for giving her discounts on quantity purchases but, in reality, she wanted to show them the magic she did with the food she purchased from them. Bertha, the checkout girl at counter #3 once asked me if my mother was a compulsive buyer. “Not really,” I said. “She just likes to cook.”

“She bought eight roasting hens last week and fourteen cauliflowers not to mention a ten pound bag of potatoes and when she put them on the counter she told me she was worried there wouldn’t be enough,” said Bertha. “I thought she just had the two of you and your dad to feed.”

“The dog is a very big eater,” I said. ”In fact, we all are.”

“You’d have to be,” said Bertha. “What is she going to do with twenty cans of crushed pineapple and ten pounds of cream cheese?”

“I think she puts them in Jell-O molds,” I said. “Her Canasta group meets at our house tomorrow. Can you wait a minute? I forgot the pecans.”

I had never really seen my mother construct her masterpiece meals until my senior year in high school. I came home the Monday afternoon before Chanukah and she was waiting for me with a flowered apron and an egg beater in her hand, “Put this on,” she said thrusting the apron over my head. “And hurry! We have tons to do before the first night.”

“Today is Monday, Mother,” I said. “If we start making the food now, it will rot by Thursday evening.”

My mother’s mysterious smile reminded me of the look on Rasputin’s face when he sawed his victims in half. ”You are forgetting the FREEZER, Lynn Ruth,” said my mother. “Take this beater and follow me. The eggs are ready to whip.”

“May I take off my coat first?” I asked.

“If you hurry," said my mother. “I'm going to teach you to make a pumpkin sponge with a candied date glaze.”

“I thought you made latkes on Chanukah” I said. “Why are you worrying about a sponge?”

My mother looked at me as if I was ready for a straight jacket. “We need dessert don’t we? Last year I did Angel Froth,” she said. “This year I want to do a lemon kuchen and a banana upside down tart after we make the sponge. Your Uncle Harry just loves my lemon kuchen.

"I made the cranberry sauce and the blue cheese dip last night," she said as I followed her into her field of battle. “I did the giblet and oyster stuffing for the duckling, too and put it in the pantry. You need oily foods for Chanukah but I thought it would clear our palates if I serve crabapple preserves and candied carrots with the smoked broccoli spears. Start beating the eggs, Lynn Ruth. They have to be very light before you add the whiskey and the pumpkin butter."

I beat and beat and beat ten eggs until they were golden froth. Finally, my mother pronounced the mixture ready for the cake flour, melted butter and crushed vanilla wafers. We poured the batter into a Bundt pan and put it in the oven. My mother beamed at me. “Done!” she exclaimed. “Now, while it’s baking, grate the lemon rind and squeeze the juice into that pyrex cup. I’ll start blending the eggs into the Ricotta and the minced apricots. “

She put her finger into the mix and tasted it. “Just perfect! “she said and then she paused. “I think it needs a little sherry.”

“I hope you aren’t planning to serve after dinner drinks,” I said “You have a quart of Seagram's in that sponge and a bottle of sherry in the cake and heaven only knows what you’ll put on the peaches. By the time we finish dessert, no one will have a steady enough hand to light the candles.”

“I am serving brandy,” said my mother. “After we light the candles and open the gifts. I want everyone’s stomach to settle down.”

She looked at the clock. “Start dicing the sweet potatoes and layer them with marshmallows and peanut brittle,” she said. “Your cake will be ready in about twenty minutes.”

As soon as I had arranged the sweet potatoes slices in a buttered casserole with marshmallows and candy, my mother opened a bottle of Zinfandel. “Pour this over the dish and take out your cake. It’s finished.”

I pulled the pan from the oven and looked at my creation. “Is it supposed to have those funny red streaks in it?” I asked. “It looks like the cook was wounded.”

“Sometimes orange juice has a funny chemical reaction to prunes,” said my mother. ”Especially when you add cream of tartar.”

I nodded. “I can relate to that,” I said. “But why is it rumbling?”

I backed away from my gurgling creation and shielded my eyes. . . just in case. “Maybe you should have used this recipe for your fourth of July blast off party.”

“Don’t be flip, Lynn Ruth. Now take this toothpick and….WATCH OUT!”

There was a deafening whoosh as the batter swirled in the pan faster and faster until it erupted like an orange geyser. It spattered the kitchen table and covered the ceiling light with angry foam. Splats of pumpkin and pastry landed in the lemon batter and one immense blob took refuge in my mother’s page boy bob. "Now what?" I asked.

My mother stepped around a puddle of spongy batter and reached for her spoon. “Just scoop it all up into that baking pan, Lynn Ruth,” she said. “I’ll mix this puppy with the asparagus I bought at Farmers Market and two more egg yolks. It will make a spectacular Hollandaise.”

“I think I better not marry anyone,” I said as I scraped pumpkin off the counters and crawled under the table to get a lumpy mass that had ricocheted into the air vent. “I’d probably poison my husband at our wedding feast.”

“Nonsense!” said my mother. “You have to be flexible when you plan a meal. If the cake collapses, it becomes a sauce. If the roast burns you bake hash and when everything fails, you do it all a la king.”

“But what if your husband refuses to eat it?” I asked.

“You divorce him,” said my mother. “Never saddle yourself to a man with no sense of adventure.”

And I never did.

Experience is a hard teacher because
She gives the test first, the lesson afterwards
Vernon Law