“Honey, I swear to god I wrote this out in ’96,” my mother sighed over the phone, digging an old slip of paper out of her recipe folder.
“You found it?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s here. I can’t believe it! It’s a sign, you know? Now you have to make it.”
I had frantically called my mother Thursday night to ask for advice. I had been assigned a paper a few weeks before where I was asked to make my perfect meal. At first I had thought this would be a great opportunity. Living with six other students in an on-campus house can get pretty stressful pretty fast. Kitchen time is coveted, and this assignment would give me the chance to kick my housemates out of the kitchen for an entire evening! And, in my opinion, a perfect meal wouldn’t have a budget, giving me
a reason to buy expensive ingredients that I knew I couldn’t afford. For just one meal, I would refuse to feel guilty about spoiling myself. I would turn my shitty, spaghetti-sauce covered kitchen into a place where I could feel good about where I was and what I was eating.
My mom began cooking when she was in college. As the mother-figure in her sorority house, she would send her friends to the grocery store with a list of all the ingredients she wanted for the week. They would pay for everything, and in return she would cook them all homemade pastas, hearty soups and delicate salads.
In my house in Kalamazoo, things are much different. We all have different appetites, different palates and different schedules. I like to eat late, around 9—which is when I usually sit down to eat with my family at home—the rest of the house likes to eat early, about 6-ish, except for Ryan who likes to eat all the time, constantly taking over the kitchen with his whole wheat flour, wheat germ, protein powder and fat free hot-dogs he cooks over the fire, making the whole house smell like burnt mystery meat.
At my home in Minnesota, I sit at the granite counter snipping the ends off of green beans and sipping wine as my mom whisks together a vinaigrette. We talk about our days and rutabagas as we cook. When my mother makes dinner, it’s an event. There’s James Taylor and Carole King playing in the background, a fire in the fireplace, flowers on the counter, and my father steps in for a dance every now and then. I knew that was what I wanted, that sense of home and simplicity, here, in Kalamazoo where meals were usually rushed and frustrating.
I called my mother because I couldn’t decide and because we hadn’t spoken in over two days, way longer than maternally acceptable.
“I think I should make breakfast. Eggs benedict or something. I’ve never made hollandaise or poached an egg on my own before.”
“Meh.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That’s not your perfect meal, Hannah.”
“I love eggs benedict Mom. You know that.”
“Yeah, but it’s not what you’ll feel proud of later.”
“You don’t know me,” I responded, knowing that she was undeniably right.
“Han. Make mushroom risotto. You’ve never made it all on your own. And you’ll remember how to make it for the rest of your life. And there is absolutely no way you can feel bad after eating risotto. Especially if you throw in a wad of butter at the very end like the Italians do.”
It was perfectly obvious. Mushroom Risotto was my perfect meal as a child, before I became a vegetarian. And now that meat was off the table, I found a lot of comfort eating it with my family, one of the only meatless-meals my parents and younger sister loved eating as much as any meat-based dish.
My mom first made mushroom risotto when she was in her early 30s, when I was just five. She wrote the recipe down from her Italian sister-in-law, Zinni, who assured her it was the way real Italians made it. Serendipitously, my mother found the piece of paper she had written the recipe down on fifteen years ago.
“I’ll scan it to you. You won’t understand my directions, it’s in the short-hand I use for all my recipes. But I’ll explain it to you.”
I thanked my mom and went to bed happy that I had made a decision, and hungry for the delicious dish I had craved consistently as a child. I resolved that I would make the dinner for my housemates the following night, and fell asleep dreaming of little button mushrooms that would soon be dancing in my belly.
I woke up Friday morning with my throat throbbing and my nose dripping with mucous.—
I’m not going to lie, I shamelessly cried about it. I think I was just worn out. I had been organizing a big poetry event on my college campus and I had been getting very little sleep to keep up with my homework and my social life.
Two of my empathetic housemates witnessed my breakdown and took pity on me. Max and Emily insisted that they stop by the local People’s Food Co-op for the majority of the ingredients and the nearby one-stop giant grocery store Meijer for the parsley and fresh mushrooms when they went to get their weekly groceries. They didn’t let me resist their kindness. Max wrote down my list of ingredients while Emily made me some tea.
As they drove off, I drifted off to sleep for the next six hours, hoping I would wake up somewhat revived.
***
Sunday was a beautiful day in Kalamazoo, and the perfect day to make my perfect meal. I had recuperated from Friday’s sudden sickness, the poetry event I had organized had gone well and I was on a high from all the beautiful sunlight coming through my house’s windows. I had invited all my housemates to my meal, knowing that Ryan would disapprove of all the butter and cream, the other Hannah wouldn’t be able to make it because of dance, and that Renjie never made it home before 2am anyway, so it would just be Max, Emily and Melissa.
Before the actually cooking started, I had to set the scene just how I wanted it. Our perpetually dirty kitchen had to be clean if this was going to be my perfect meal. So I set out scrubbing down the stove, tackling the giant pile of dishes in and next to the sink, sweeping the floors and putting away the dry dishes. My mother has similar, sometimes obsessive habits, cleaning the kitchen before our cleaning lady, Dasha, arrives and always opening the window a smidgen before she begins to cook. I also couldn’t start making my perfect meal without opening the small kitchen window a crack, grabbing a handful of berry scented candles and some music to play in the background.
I wanted that. I wanted to be at home with her while I cooked.
I lit the candles, turned on some music, poured myself a small glass of boxed wine and started to cook.
It turns out risotto is a lot harder than I remember as a kid. The ingredients are simple: arborio rice, unsalted butter, olive oil, a large onion, wine, chicken broth—which I substituted with mushroom broth—white wine, cream, Parmigiano-Reggiano, a little bit of parsley, dried porcinis and fresh mushrooms. But the process is rough.
“Risotto is always the same, except for the liquids and how you finish it,” I remembered my mother telling me as I sauteed the chopped onion in the butter and olive oil in my housemate’s beautiful red pot. I added the plump rice and coated it in the buttery mixture. I slowly poured in the white wine and stirred the golden-mixture for several minutes. I started to get anxious.
The liquids need to be hot when you add them to the risotto, that’s key. That’s where the patience comes in. I had started heating the mushroom broth, but I didn’t know if it was quite hot enough. The risotto was supposed to stay just short of boiling. I hesitantly added a cup of the broth to the rice. I was shocked at how quickly the rice absorbed the liquid. I constantly stirred the rice with one hand while the other scooped the almost-boiling liquid into the pot.
I set down my wooden spoon on the counter and saw the unopened package fo porcinis. I had forgotten to reconstitute the mushrooms! They needed to boil in water for twenty minutes in order to be ready to add to the risotto. As I reached for a new pot, three of my housemates walked in to the house.
The sun was setting and my candles were not sufficient lighting. I reluctantly switched on the fluorescent lights I hated so much. I have nightmares with bad lighting. I felt my mother’s perfect atmosphere slipping away from me as Max started stirring my rice, Emily danced to the music, and Ryan stared at his chili heating up in the microwave.
“Guys, I’m sorry to be a bitch, but I really need you all to leave the kitchen.”
I felt horrible. I couldn’t add the liquid fast enough, I had been rude to my housemates, and I was getting sweaty from all the stress.
But suddenly, as the others retreated to their corners of the house, the risotto started tasting right. It was slightly creamy, yet a bit al-dente, just like I remembered it. I was getting close.
I pulled the barnacle-esq porcini mushrooms off of the burner, strained them, and gave them a rough chop. I added some of the leftover liquid to the risotto like my mother instructed and was feeling much better.
I had forgotten to saute the fresh mushrooms.
I was so disappointed. As I watched the fresh mushrooms saute into beautiful brown clumps, I felt my risotto going from that perfect al-dente to a mushy, sticky consistency.
Pissed, sweaty and hungry, I added the mushrooms, cream, grated cheese, salt, pepper and parsley to the pot, threw in a clump of butter for good measure, and called my housemates down for dinner, embarrassed by what I was serving them. I wanted them to taste my childhood and I was certain this wasn’t going to be it.
I set the table with some lovely Michigan tulips I had bought from my favorite local coffee shop, Waterstreet Coffee Joint and lit some candles on the table. I pulled the golden rustic bread out of the oven that was also baked and purchased from Waterstreet and we sat down to eat.
As Max, Emily and Melissa ladled heaps of risotto onto their plates, I started passing the bread.
They all thanked me for inviting them and I shrugged, hoping it was edible. I wondered what I would tell mom about my failed attempt. I absentmindedly took a bite of the mush.
It may not have looked like my mothers, but it sure tasted like it.
It was just as creamy, just as mushroom-filled as I remembered it. I had been freaked out for no reason, and my friends seemed to be enjoying it. It was then I realized how silly I had been. In search of my perfect meal, I was searching for my mother, for my perception of perfection, something I now know I cannot achieve. But what I did found was friends who care enough about me to buy my groceries for me when I’m sick, who get out of the kitchen when I ask them to, who put up with my silly love of good-lighting, and who take the time out of their day to eat my mush of a meal.
We laughed throughout dinner, finishing all the bread and all of our piles of risotto. As the meal ended, we turned up the volume on my speakers and danced in our living room until our stomachs hurt from too much cream and just enough laughter.
The next day was Valentines day. I got a text from a friend saying I had a package in the mail center. It was a Valentine from my mother. Inside was a package and a plastic bag full of dried morel mushrooms and a card that read, “For next time.”
