All For Me
Abigail Thomas
Word Count 407
I can’t account for it, all this chopping and measuring and stirring and simmering. I haven’t cooked like this in ages, except for pound cake, but here I am, reading recipes, buying the ingredients, cooking them successfully, and eating them all up myself! Two days ago, I made seafood chowder. It’s the kind of recipe I like, handfuls of this and that, not a third of a cup of this or a fussy quarter teaspoon of that, no. Handfuls! What makes it so good is the smoked paprika. It adds not just color, but an undertow of flavor that tastes as though it’s been on the back of your stove for days. And, my heavy cream had not gone bad, as I had feared. Once the cream was in, it was time to add the chunks of cod. It said “serves 12,” but I finished it in two sittings. Then I tried the fried rice with shredded cabbage and scallions and chopped bacon, and it pretty much all goes into the hot oil at the same time, and oh, the sizzle! I forgot about adding shrimp until it was all over. When I did cook them, they began to remind me quite horribly of bugs. ”That’s what they are, mom,” my daughter Catherine says, which was not a help. So I have a cupful of them, and the dogs won’t eat them, so maybe they really are bugs, An expensive thing to waste.
The next night, and I think I invented this. I grabbed a bunch of dried mushrooms, but instead of letting them rehydrate in warm water, I dumped them into a pan of hot butter, lots of it, and stirred them around and around until they were all brown, and then I ate them. They were delicious and crunchy and totally cooked.
I even love scrubbing the pots and pans, and washing the dishes with hot soapy water. What is happening to me? It reminds me of the last days of pregnancy when you have this spurt of energy, which means the baby is getting ready to be born, but I’m eighty-one and the only baby in my life at the moment is a Dutch Baby that my daughter, Jen, gave me the recipe for. It’s really a giant popover cooked in a cast iron frying pan full of bubbling butter
Is this love of cooking because it’s winter? Except it doesn’t feel like winter. It’s already February, and so far, we’ve had two cold days and an inch of snow followed by rain. Maybe we are going to skip winter and go straight to spring. I will make one last winter beef stew, and then I can start dreaming of heirloom tomatoes and fresh corn.
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Abigail has four children, twelve grandchildren, one great grandchild, two dogs, and a high school education. Her books include Safekeeping; A Three Dog Life; and What Comes Next and How to Like It. Her new book, Still Life At Eighty, is due out this month on The Golden Notebook Press. She lives in Woodstock, NY.