Danielle Ramos

How a mother’s love lives on in a recipe

This was one of the last things I’ve written about my Mom before she crossed.

I sit in my damp kitchen and smear mustard on two pieces of wheat bread. My daughters are out with their boyfriends, and my son is strumming his guitar upstairs. I hear the vibrations of Debaser by the Pixies reverberating throughout the house. The rain pelts the sliding doors as I wait for my father to visit. He tells me my mother couldn’t make it. She just doesn’t feel up to it, and hasn’t been eating well lately. I carefully cook and package up her favorite foods to send a decent lunch back with my Dad. Homemade potato salad, cheese and pickle sandwiches, and a can of mixed nuts.

My mom taught me how to make potato salad when I was about eight. The main thing was to wait for the Idaho potatoes to simmer, not cook them too long so that they exploded, but long enough so that a fork could easily slide through them. It would be a skill I’d use time and time again with my own family. Back then, cutting the onions was always a challenge as my eyes instantly teared up at the first slice, so my mom would happily take over that task. While waiting for the potatoes to cook, we would go out in the yard with Schatzie, our Rottweiler mix, or take a box of crayons and color, or watch All in the Family on the black and white TV on our kitchen table. I slide the knife back and forth against the doughy Arnold slices as I realize these would become the quiet memories I now treasure.

My mother always said that food made by someone who loves you just somehow tastes better. I confess it’s something I haven’t always remembered on many busy mornings, when I’m trying to get kids to school, myself to work, and our dog outside on time. When I look back on my early parenting years, I wonder what few select my kids will remember from their childhood. They have all asked me to make them food that they can fully make themselves, saying it tastes better when I make it. When I’m in a rush or just tired, I hem and haw and reluctantly make the sandwich or the salad. Yet when I remember how quickly the years go and how I will soon be wishing they were home to cook for, I put my all into preparing that meal or snack.

Today, I take my time preparing lunch for my mother, the same way she did all those years ago when I was a kid. Back then, we were allowed to come home from school for lunch, but she worked as a nurse in Manhattan, so she wasn’t able to be there most days. With my house key hanging around my neck on the chain that my mom placed it on so it wouldn’t get lost, I’d let myself in the house each day, make a quick cheese sandwich, and then head back to school. On special days (few and far between), she had off and would make me hot dogs or a grilled cheese when I came home for lunch, so happy to be able to make me something I would enjoy, so thrilled to be able to take care of me in the small (yet big) way that nourishing someone you love brings.

I’m more than happy to return the favor to her all these years later.

My Dad comes over and we have a lovely visit, and discuss our plans for growing tomatoes this year. He has transitioned in how he uses his gifts of healing hands from being a hardworking surgeon to becoming a diligent farmer in the past couple of years. His harvesting skills are stellar. Afterward, he leaves and brings home the food to my Mom.

Later that day, my mom calls and tells me that the sandwich was “absolutely delicious, could not have been better. Where, oh, where did you get those pickles?! And the potato salad, well, that is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

Then she ends the phone call as she always does, “I love you. Have a good night, kiss the kids for me, you are a great daughter and a great mom.”

“Well, I learned it all from you,” I say.

“Oh, stop,” says my mother, too modest to take credit for anything.

She doesn’t see what I see in her. Everything good that I learned about being a mom, I learned from her. From the ways she took care of me as a little girl and the encouragement I received from her as a young adult to the early days of each of my children’s infancies, and the pride she has for my kids today, I tried my best with my kids to replicate her kindness, affection, and love. I come nowhere close on many days, yet keep on striving.

But that potato salad, well, I can surely recreate that recipe to perfection. Just ask my mother.