I Remember Mama

I am writing this on the day before Thanksgiving, 2013. My mother’s life ended in March of 1994 – very close to 20 years ago – and to this day, her impression remains strikingly vivid. My mirror reflects some of her too – an alarming thought – but that’s a story for another day.

That last Thanksgiving together was, as usual, at Uncle Irv and Aunt Phyllis’ on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. We’d been gathering there for more than 20 years.

My mom came to my place a few hours earlier than we were expected uptown. She said she wanted to have some one-on-one before we merged with the rest of the family. My task for that day was to bring my “famous” White Fluffies and when I welcomed her into my apartment, I asked her to come down the hall with me and join me in the kitchen so that we could talk while I prepared them. Secretly, or so I thought, I also hoped to share something else with her. Something for which I had always longed, and so, very casually, I handed her the masher and put the bowl of boiled potatoes in front of her, and she, just as casually, handed back her comment along with the masher. “I don’t do that sweetheart,” she said icily. “When are you going to realize I don’t do that?” Yes, she was talking about mashing the potatoes.

I had lured her into my kitchen, with the hope that she’d give me this shared experience just once before she died – an iconic memory for me to recall at will after she was gone – how hard could it be, I remember thinking. But once again, she just wasn’t in a giving mood. I took the masher from her hand, and purposefully sat down opposite her at the kitchen table to explain a life goal of mine. Not complicated – I just wanted to have some one-on-one kitchen time with her – conventional mother-daughter stuff. And she answered, quite sarcastically, that I’d better find another life goal.

To this day, there isn’t a time when I have a masher in my hand when that particular moment doesn’t jump out and bite me. And today, while I’m mashing, I wonder why I can’t let go of it. There were plenty of totally fabulous things she did do. For example, and, oh yes, a biggie: she was the second woman ever to win a Tony Award for Best Producing of a Broadway Play. I have the Tony Award over there on the coffee table, right next to a 1972 clipping of an article that appeared in the New York Times promoting her, and unusual for the times, her recent success. The headline in quotes: “DON’T GET MARRIED … GO TO WORK!”  And then, bingo, it hits me – the photo they paired with the definitive article on woman’s lib was not of her behind her desk in her windowed office high above the New York City skyline but rather of her in our tiny kitchen. She is at the stove, aproned, and there are pots on the burners and she’s got a spoon to her mouth – looking up at the camera in a most beguiling way, tasting what is supposed to be her cooking – with the copy line under the photos, saying “Producer of LUV samples one of her Old World dishes as she cooks in her home.” Old World recipes I remember thinking – she had never cooked for us – not even mac and cheese! Just an hour before the photo shoot and interview, I had been given the task of copying the recipes directly from the side panel of Ronzoni’s lasagna noodles onto a piece of her production company’s stationary – word for word, stir for stir, mash for mash! So once again, there she was, putting one over on the establishment and loving it.

Occasionally, I still find myself stuck in the groove of missing the act of cooking in the kitchen with my mom. But today, with a flash I realized the basic truth – okay, so I didn’t inherit her “I don’t do kitchen” gene because, in fact, I “do” kitchen. But, indeed, I became instantly aware that many, many times I have channeled other parts of her into my daily vocabulary – her somewhat clever, very savvy, somewhat irreverent, and often slightly divisive ways – common these days but not at all so back in the middle of our last century, when women were still many, many floors below the glass ceiling. And then there was my mom, marching up onto the stage to accept her award – just as much for producing a hit show as for breaking the mold, carrying the flag, and paving the way for me and for you.

Tomorrow as we sit around the Thanksgiving table and people compliment me on my delicious White Fluffies, I think I’ll raise my glass and make a tribute to my mom.

Nicky Nichtern partners with not-for-profit organizations to help reinforce their missions by developing improved graphic communications. Her website is nickynichtern.com.