Life From Scratch (26 page)

Mom had only two days before her flight back to Boston. The morning before she left, we drove down to the nearest big-box store and picked up a few necessities, like shampoo and a blanket. Mom also grabbed a ten-pound bag of Granny Smith apples and hoisted it into the cart.

“It’s almost your birthday. Let’s make an apple pie.”

“Like the kind we had when we were little?”

“It’s the only kind I know how to make,” she shrugged with a smile. She sent me down the aisles to grab a couple of lemons, brown sugar, a few sticks of butter, flour, and a glass baking dish.

“Don’t we need cinnamon and nutmeg?” I asked.

She patted her purse. “Never leave home without it.”

At the apartment I leaned over the laminate island and helped Mom peel the apples, then watched as she sliced them up. The knife landed with a dull thud against the cutting board, laborious and arrhythmic. Her cuts were nowhere as thin or as even as the chefs at the CIA would have required, but rather a mishmash of wedges, rounds, and blocks.

She squeezed an entire lemon over the pieces so they wouldn’t brown, and then tossed on a palmful of sugar and the spices. Almost immediately the sugar pooled onto the apples—a syrupy condensation. She used a fork to press butter, flour, and water together into a quick piecrust. First there was too much water, then too much flour. She worked more of each into the dough until it began to shape up, and then rolled it out with a bottle. It stuck in places, but she still managed to drape the now warm parcel across the glass baking dish. In went the apples, along with their juices. She used her knuckles to crimp the pastry crust together and popped the whole shebang in the oven.

I dug out my recipe journal to jot down some notes.

“I didn’t catch how much flour you used—what was the ratio?”

“Recipes are no good when it’s this humid,” she said, her voice pinging off the hard, tile floors. “You just have to wing it and hope for the best.”

I put down my pen and stared into the oven. “I can’t wait,” I said. “Michael always asked for this pie for his birthday, remember?”

She smiled at me. “I remember.”

Thirty-five minutes later, Mom pulled the pie out of the oven and heaved it onto a thin metal trivet with a clang. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon floated through the air, the scent warm and sparkling.

“It’s too hot to cut into right now,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Mom unfolded four dramatic, wide-brimmed sun hats from her carryall, each more colorful than the last. I laughed, amazed that she owned headgear worthy of the Kentucky Derby, but even more impressed that she’d thought to bring them—and found a spot to squeeze them into her small suitcase. She chose a cherry-red silk hat to pair with her jean shorts and wide-neck sweatshirt. I chose a cream hat with long orange feathers. The feathers rose and fell with every movement, waltzing as I walked.

As we strolled along the river, all eyes were on those hats. At first the attention felt awkward, but soon I settled into the panoply. I could be whoever I wanted to be in Tulsa. Joggers dripped by us with the glow of a hundred-degree morning on their faces, yet I stayed cool.

Back at the apartment, Mom sliced into the still warm pie before either of us had taken off our hats. I stood at the counter and took a forkful. My eyes closed as I brought steaming apples to my lips. But instead of the glorious flavors I’d remembered from my childhood, I tasted a limp, chewy crust and slightly underdone fruit. The acid from the lemon juice made the inside of my mouth sour and my teeth hurt.

Mom looked at me, waiting. I took off my hat, smiling weakly while chewing, wondering what on earth to say.

Finally, I managed, “Wow, Mom—it’s good.” She beamed. I looked away, unable to keep the lie out of my eyes. I continued to eat. Slow. Deliberate. Dutiful. Eventually I scraped the juices off the plate. And truth be told, the pie wasn’t bad; it just wasn’t what I remembered.

Had the CIA ruined me, with its professionally perfect desserts? Was I expecting too much of my mother? Or had my memory been nothing more than wishful thinking?

Mom took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “It’s pretty good, considering …”

I emptied my plate. Mom beamed and cut into the pie again, sliding a new, larger piece in front of me.

I ate the second slice, too.

Mom’s Apple Pie With a Twist

I’ve updated Mom’s recipe, so I can remember the past with feet planted firmly toward the future. Though Mom likes to add several Granny Smiths, I prefer my pie granny-free, on the sweeter side. I use Pink Lady apples, though many varieties will do, as long as they are firm. To catch the spiced apple drippings, I sprinkle steel-cut oatmeal on the bottom crust. Mom doesn’t thicken her juices, but I like some cornstarch for body. Either way is delicious. But there’s plenty to keep from Mom’s recipe, too—the bewitching “sin” of cinnamon perfuming the fruit, the touch of brown sugar, and the spirit of the thing—a dessert that gets made, in the face of—and perhaps because of—all odds
.

For the pie dough:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons sugar

½ pound (2 sticks) cold butter, cubed

A little ice water

For the apple filling:

4 pounds firm baking apples, such as Pink Lady

The zest and juice of 1 lemon

⅓ cup brown sugar, packed

⅓ cup white sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

3 tablespoons cornstarch (optional, for thickening)

¼ cup steel-cut oatmeal (any kind that’s “ready in 5 minutes”)

Finishing touches:

1 egg white, beaten with 1 teaspoon water

1 teaspoon sugar

Make the pie dough by whisking together the flour, salt, and sugar, and then cutting in the butter with a pastry cutter (Mom used two knives held like an “X” and drawn across each other). When the butter is mostly pea-sized, switch to a large fork and drizzle on the ice water, tossing until a shaggy dough forms (6 to 10 tablespoons usually does the trick). Press the dough together and form two disks, one a little larger than the other. Wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about an hour.

Meanwhile, peel and cut the apples into ¼-inch-thick slices. Add to a large bowl and drizzle with the lemon juice and zest, then toss with the sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cornstarch.

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Roll out the larger disk until several inches wider than the pie dish—15 or 16 inches. I like to work between two floured sheets of parchment paper so I don’t have to worry about sticking. Alternatively, dust a clean work surface with a bit of flour. Place this first round of dough on the bottom of the pie dish, sprinkle with oatmeal, and fill with apple mixture, being sure to scrape in all the accumulated juices. Press with the palm to flatten the apples (this reduces the air pocket created by an all-butter crust).

Roll out the second disk. Drape it across the apples and cut three vents in the center. Roll the top edge under the bottom edge to seal and crimp with the knuckles. Brush all over with just enough egg white to lightly glaze the pie. Sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for 30 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 325°F and bake another 30 to 35 minutes, or until the crust browns agreeably. Let cool on a rack for 3 hours before slicing. This gives the pie time to set up, though only refrigeration will make the slices perfectly firm. Serve warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or, as Mom likes, a dollop of yogurt.

Makes one 9- or 10-inch deep-dish pie; enough for 8 to 10

The next day Mom flew back to Boston, 1,587 impossible miles away. Back at the apartment, I settled into my rented love seat. I didn’t move all morning. I watched the gray laminate kitchen flicker in the fluorescents. I looked at the cabinets. A few of the doors gaped, revealing a tin of mint tea, a quart of coffee grounds, three cans of tuna, and five cases of Diet Pepsi.

Finally, as the sun towered overhead, I cut into the last slice of pie and ate it slowly while thinking about the journey ahead. Four months in Tulsa. That’s when the real tears came. I thought they’d be about missing Greg, or being alone. But more than anything else, they were about that stupid pie.

I’d been waiting to taste it for more than a decade. It wasn’t just a botched dessert. For the first time, that pie showed me who Mom
really
was, not who I wanted her to be. That pie was
her
. No matter how much I needed her to be the perfect mother, she could only be human. And though her choices had always been made with the best of intentions, the results spoke for themselves.

As I washed the pie plate and put it back on the empty shelf, I told myself that I had to love her despite it all.

As often as I’d changed homes in a life buttressed by closed doors, Tulsa was my first foray into total solitude. For four months, I’d have no boyfriend to lean on, no family nearby to check in on me: I’d washed up manless, motherless, and friendless. I felt cornered by the loneliness, the disconnect, and the dissolution into anonymity. Yet I knew this self-induced isolation was exactly what I needed.

Those first days, I operated on strict autopilot. Once the apple pie and tuna fish were gone, I survived on gas station beef jerky and hourly jolts of coffee. I shuffled to and from my internship at Bama Pie Factory, filling the required eight hours each day, trying to come up with new product ideas for our fast-food clientele. White potions and powders lined our 30-by-30-foot kitchen lab, stretching from floor to ceiling.

There was no natural light, though the shelves glowed brilliantly, windows on a chemical sunrise. Some of the potions were designed to make food last longer; others added flavor or enhanced dough elasticity. No concept was considered a success unless the scientists could find a way to integrate them into fast-food products (in the name of food safety and longevity, of course).

I soon learned to pass on the fancy ingredients I’d so loved at the CIA. Instead of Gruyère, I experimented with processed cheese in pizza crust. Instead of exotic star-fruit salads, we explored the possibilities of deep-fried cheesecake squares. Since I hated to see anything go to waste, I ate the results. After the first month, I could no longer zip my pants.

From 5:01 p.m. until 8:59 a.m., I stood in the shadows of the real work to be done: scaling the loneliness. Sleeping in my rented queen bed was a perpetual reminder that there was no man to hold me, make me laugh, make me forget.

This was my rainy season. I fell asleep crying. I woke up crying. One morning I cried so hard while jogging that I had to stop and use a leaf as a tissue.

It was ridiculous.

These were the tears of coming face-to-face with the past; of coming face-to-face with my mother and accepting who she was, instead of who I wanted her to be; of relinquishing the Dumonts; of letting Michael go. They were cleansing. Purifying. Cathartic.

I never told anyone what was happening. My co-workers were nice, but it was easier to keep my distance. Somehow Connor, Tim, Grace, and Mom knew. I wasn’t in Tulsa long before little notes began to arrive in the mail. One clipping from Mom read:

“All you can be is you. Your true self shines with more beauty than your mind can ever know.”

I framed the quotation, not because I believed the words, but because I knew that one day I must believe them. And the thought of
that
terrified me more than anything.

It was late August when the deluge finally stopped enough for me to look around. I had about two months left in Tulsa. The first morning I woke up with dry eyes, I realized Greg had been right. I was never going to get better if
I
didn’t do something to make my life better. Plus I was sick of crying. Now, I was ready for a full-to-the-brim, straight-up glass of joy—the kind I’d experienced when Mom gave us the cranberry juice in our cereal instead of milk, before I realized that the treat was born of want. I wanted to return to that feast of innocence. And yet for the first time in my life, the thought of cooking wore me out.