The Monday Night Cooking School

THE MONDAY NIGHT COOKING SCHOOL.

by Erica Bauermeister.

Prologue.

Lillian loved best the moment before she turned on the lights. She would stand in the restaurant kitchen doorway, rain-soaked air behind her, and let the smells come to her-ripe sourdough yeast, sweet-dirt coffee, and garlic, mellowing as it lingered. Under them, more elusive, stirred the faint essence of fresh meat, raw tomatoes, cantaloupe, water on lettuce. Lillian breathed in, feeling the smells move about and through her, even as she searched out those that might suggest a rotting orange at the bottom of a pile, or whether the new a.s.sistant chef was still double-dosing the curry dishes. She was. The girl was a daughter of a friend and good enough with knives, but some days, Lillian thought with a sigh, it was like trying to teach subtlety to a thunderstorm.

But tonight was Monday. No a.s.sistant chefs, no customers looking for solace or celebration. Tonight was Monday, cooking-cla.s.s night.

After seven years of teaching, Lillian knew how her students would arrive on the first night of cla.s.s-walking through the kitchen door alone or in ad hoc groups of two or three that had met up on the walkway to the mostly darkened restaurant, holding the low, nervous conversations of strangers who will soon touch one another"s food. Once inside, some would clump together, making those first motions toward connection, while others would roam the kitchen, fingers stroking bra.s.s pots or picking up a glowing red pepper, like small children drawn to the low-hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree.

Lillian loved to watch her students at this moment-they were elements that would become more complex and intriguing as they mixed with one another, but at the beginning, placed in relief by their unfamiliar surroundings, their essence was clear. A young man reaching out to touch the shoulder of the still younger woman next to him-"What"s your name?"-as her hand dropped to the stainless-steel counter and traced its smooth surface. Another woman standing alone, her mind still lingering with-a child? a lover? Every once in a while there was a couple, in love or ruins.

Lillian"s students arrived with a variety of motivations, some drawn by a yearning as yet unmet to hear murmured culinary compliments, others who had come to find a cook rather than become one. A few partic.i.p.ants had no desire for lessons at all, arriving with gift certificates in hand as if on a forced march to certain failure; they knew their cakes would always be flat, their cream sauces filled with small, disconcerting pockets of flour, like bills in your mailbox when you had hoped for a love letter.

And then there were those students who seemingly had no choice, who could no more stay out of a kitchen than a kleptomaniac could keep her hands in her pockets. They came early, stayed late, fantasized about leaving their corporate jobs and becoming chefs with an exhilarating mixture of guilt and pleasure. If Lillian"s soul sought out this last group, it was only to be expected, but in truth, she found them all fascinating. Lillian knew that whatever their reasons for coming, at some moment in the course of the cla.s.s each one"s eyes would widen with joy or tears or resolution-it always happened. The timing and the reason would be different for each, and that"s where the fascination lay. No two spices work the same.

The kitchen was ready. The long stainless-steel counters lay before her, expansive and cool in the dark. Lillian knew without looking that Robert had received the vegetable order from the produce man who delivered only on Mondays. Caroline would have stood over skinny, smart-mouthed Daniel until the floors were scrubbed, the thick rubber mats rinsed with the hose outside until they were black and shining. Beyond the swinging door on the other side of the kitchen, the dining room stood ready, a quiet field of tables under starched white linen, napkins folded into sharp triangles at each place. But no one would use the dining room tonight. All that mattered was the kitchen.

Lillian stretched her fingers once, twice, and turned on the light.

Lillian

Lillian had been four years old when her father left them, and her mother, stunned, had slid into books like a seal into water. Lillian had watched her mother submerge and disappear, sensing instinctively even at her young age the impersonal nature of a choice made simply for survival, and adapting to the niche she would now inhabit, as a watcher from the sh.o.r.e of her mother"s ocean.

In this new life, Lillian"s mother"s face became a series of book covers, held in place where eyes, nose, or mouth might normally appear. Lillian soon learned that book covers could forecast moods much like facial expressions, for Lillian"s mother swam deeply into the books she read, until the personality of the protagonist surrounded her like a perfume applied by an indiscriminate hand. Lillian was never sure who would greet her at the breakfast table, no matter that the bathrobe, the hair, the feet were always the same. It was like having a magician for a mother, although Lillian always suspected that the magicians she saw at birthday parties went home and turned back into portly men with three children and gra.s.s that needed mowing. Lillian"s mother simply finished one book and turned into the next.

Her mother"s preoccupation with books was not an entirely silent occupation. Long before Lillian"s father had left them, long before Lillian knew that words had a meaning beyond the music of their inflections, her mother had read aloud to her. Not from cardboard books with their primary-colored ill.u.s.trations and monosyllabic rhymes. Lillian"s mother dismissed the few that entered their house under the guise of gifts.

"There"s no need to eat potatoes, Lily," she would say, "when four-course meals are ready and waiting." And she would read.

For Lillian"s mother, every part of a book was magic, but what she delighted in most were the words themselves. Lillian"s mother collected exquisite phrases and complicated rhythms, descriptions that undulated across a page like cake batter pouring into a pan, read aloud to put the words in the air, where she could hear as well as see them.

"Oh, Lily," her mother would say, "listen to this one. It sounds green, don"t you think?"

And Lillian, who was too young to know that words were not colors and thoughts were not sounds, would listen while the syllables fell quietly through her, and she would think, This is what green sounds like This is what green sounds like.

After Lillian"s father left, however, things changed, and she increasingly came to see herself simply as a mute and obliging a.s.sistant in the acc.u.mulation of exceptional phrases, or, if they happened to be somewhere public, as her mother"s social cover. People would smile at the vision of a mother nurturing her daughter"s literary imagination, but Lillian knew better. In Lillian"s mind, her mother was a museum for words; Lillian was an annex, necessary when s.p.a.ce became limited in the original building.

Not surprisingly, when it came time for Lillian to learn to read, she balked. It was not only an act of defiance, although by the time kindergarten started, Lillian was already feeling toward books private surges of aggression that left her both confused and slightly powerful. But it wasn"t just that. In Lillian"s world, books were covers and words were sound and movement, not form. She could not equate the rhythms that had insinuated themselves into her imagination with what she saw on the paper. The letters lay p.r.o.ne across the page, arranged in unyielding precision. There was no magic on the page itself, Lillian saw; and while this increased Lillian"s estimation of her mother"s abilities, it did nothing to further her interest in books.

IT WAS DURING Lillian"s first skirmishes with the printed word that she discovered cooking. In the time since Lillian"s father had left, housework had become for Lillian"s mother a travel destination rarely reached; laundry, a friend one never remembered to call. Lillian picked up these skills by following her friends" mothers around their homes, while the mothers pretended not to notice, dropping hints about bleach or changing a vacuum bag as if it were just one more game children played. Lillian learned, and soon her home-at least the lower four and a half feet of it-developed a certain domestic routine. Lillian"s first skirmishes with the printed word that she discovered cooking. In the time since Lillian"s father had left, housework had become for Lillian"s mother a travel destination rarely reached; laundry, a friend one never remembered to call. Lillian picked up these skills by following her friends" mothers around their homes, while the mothers pretended not to notice, dropping hints about bleach or changing a vacuum bag as if it were just one more game children played. Lillian learned, and soon her home-at least the lower four and a half feet of it-developed a certain domestic routine.

But it was the cooking that occurred in her friends" homes that fascinated Lillian-the aromas that started calling to her just when she had to go home in the evening. Some smells were sharp, an olfactory clatter of heels across a hardwood floor. Others felt like the warmth in the air at the far end of summer. Lillian watched as the scent of melting cheese brought children languidly from their rooms, saw how garlic made them talkative, jokes expanding into stories of their days. Lillian thought it odd that not all mothers seemed to see it-Sarah"s mother, for instance, always cooked curry when she was fighting with her teenage daughter, its smell rocketing through the house like a challenge. But Lillian soon realized that many people did not comprehend the language of smells that to Lillian was as obvious as a billboard.

Perhaps, Lillian thought, smells were for her what printed words were for others, something alive that grew and changed. Not just the smell of rosemary in the garden, but the scent on her hands after she had picked some for Elizabeth"s mother, the aroma mingling with the heavy smell of chicken fat and garlic in the oven, the after-scent on the couch cushions the next day. The way, ever after, Elizabeth was always part of rosemary for Lillian, how Elizabeth"s round face had crinkled up into laughter when Lillian had pushed the small, spiky branch near her nose.

Lillian liked thinking about smells, the same way she liked the weight of Mary"s mother"s heavy saucepan in her hands, or the way vanilla slipped into the taste of warm milk. She remembered often the time Margaret"s mother had let her help with a white sauce, playing out the memory in her head the way some children try to recover, bit by detail, the moments of a favorite birthday party. Margaret had pouted, because she was, she declared stoutly, never allowed to help in the kitchen, but Lillian had ignored all twinges of loyalty and climbed up on the chair and stood, watching the b.u.t.ter melt across the pan like the farthest reach of a wave sinking into the sand, then the flour, at first a hideous, clumping thing destroying the image until it was stirred and stirred, Margaret"s mother"s hand over Lillian"s on the wooden spoon when she wanted to mash the clumps, moving instead slowly, in circles, gently, until the flour-b.u.t.ter became smooth, smooth, until again the image was changed by the milk, the sauce expanding to contain the liquid and Lillian thought each time that the sauce could hold no more, that the sauce would break into solid and liquid, but it never did. At the last minute, Margaret"s mother raised the cup of milk away from the pot, and Lillian looked at the sauce, an untouched snowfield, its smell the feeling of quiet at the end of an illness, when the world is starting to feel gentle and welcoming once again.

WHEN L LILLIAN REACHED the age of eight, she began to take over the cooking in her own household. Her mother raised no objections; food had not disappeared along with Lillian"s father, but while it was not impossible to cook while reading, it was problematic, and because of Lillian"s mother"s tendency to mistake one spice for another if a book was unusually absorbing, meals had become less successful, if also occasionally more intriguing. All the same, the transfer of cooking duties from mother to daughter was met with a certain amount of relief on both sides. the age of eight, she began to take over the cooking in her own household. Her mother raised no objections; food had not disappeared along with Lillian"s father, but while it was not impossible to cook while reading, it was problematic, and because of Lillian"s mother"s tendency to mistake one spice for another if a book was unusually absorbing, meals had become less successful, if also occasionally more intriguing. All the same, the transfer of cooking duties from mother to daughter was met with a certain amount of relief on both sides.

The pa.s.sing of the culinary torch marked the beginning of years of experimentation, made both slower and more unusual by Lillian"s blanket refusal to engage with the printed word, even a cookbook. Learning the ins and outs of scrambled eggs, following such a pedagogical approach, could take a week-one night, plain eggs, stirred gently with a fork; the next, eggs whisked with milk; then water; then cream. If Lillian"s mother objected, she made no note of it as she accompanied Lillian on her quests for ingredients, walking down the aisles reading aloud from the book of the day. Besides, Lillian thought to herself, scrambled eggs five nights in a row seemed a fair exchange for a week otherwise dominated by James Joyce. Maybe she should add chives tonight. Yes I said yes I will yes. Yes I said yes I will yes.

As Lillian"s skills progressed over the years, she learned other, unexpected culinary lessons. She observed how dough that was pounded made bread that was hard and moods that were equally so. She saw that cookies that were soft and warm satisfied a different human need than those that were crisp and cooled. The more she cooked, the more she began to view spices as carriers of the emotions and memories of the places they were originally from and all those they had traveled through over the years. She discovered that people seemed to react to spices much as they did to other people, relaxing instinctively into some, shivering into a kind of emotional rigor mortis when encountering others. By the time she was twelve, Lillian had begun to believe that a true cook, one who could read people and spices, could antic.i.p.ate reactions before the first taste, and thus affect the way a meal or an evening would go. It was this realization that led Lillian to her Great Idea.

"I AM GOING AM GOING to cook her out," Lillian told Elizabeth as they sat on her friend"s front stoop. to cook her out," Lillian told Elizabeth as they sat on her friend"s front stoop.

"What?" Eight months older than Lillian, Elizabeth had long ago lost interest in cooking for a more consuming pa.s.sion for the next-door neighbor, who, even as they spoke, rode and then launched his skateboard dramatically from a ramp set up in front of Elizabeth"s gate.

"My mom. I"m going to cook her out."

"Lily." Elizabeth"s face was a mix of scorn and sympathy. "When are you going to give up?"

"She"s not as far gone as you think," said Lillian. She started to explain what she had been thinking about cookies and spices-until she realized that Elizabeth was unlikely to believe in the power of cooking and even less likely to see its potential to influence Lillian"s mother.

But Lillian believed in food the way some people do religion, and thus she did what many do when faced with a critical moment in their lives. Standing that evening in the kitchen, surrounded by the pots and pans she had collected over the years, she offered up a deal.

"Let me bring her out," Lillian bargained, "and I"ll cook for the rest of my life. If I can"t, I"ll give up cooking forever." Then she put her hand on the bottom of the fourteen-inch skillet and swore. And it was only because she was still at the tail end of twelve and largely unversed in traditional religions, that she didn"t realize that most deals offered to a higher power involved sacrifice for a desired result, and thus that her risk was greater than most, as it meant winning, or losing, all.

AS WITH MANY such endeavors, the beginning was a disaster. Lillian, energized by hope, charged at her mother with foods designed to knock the books right out of her hands-dishes reeking with spices that barreled straight for the stomach and emotions. For a week the kitchen was redolent with hot red peppers and cilantro. Lillian"s mother ate her meals as she always did-and then retreated into a steady diet of nineteenth-century British novels, in which food rarely held a dramatic role. such endeavors, the beginning was a disaster. Lillian, energized by hope, charged at her mother with foods designed to knock the books right out of her hands-dishes reeking with spices that barreled straight for the stomach and emotions. For a week the kitchen was redolent with hot red peppers and cilantro. Lillian"s mother ate her meals as she always did-and then retreated into a steady diet of nineteenth-century British novels, in which food rarely held a dramatic role.

And so Lillian drew back, regrouped, and gave her mother food to fit the book of the day. Porridge and tea and scones, boiled carrots and white fish. But after three months, Charles d.i.c.kens finally gave way to what appeared to be a determination on her mother"s part to read the entire works of Henry James, and Lillian despaired. Her mother may have changed literary continents, but only in the most general of senses.

"She"s stuck," she told Elizabeth.

"Lily, it"s never going to work." Elizabeth stood in front of her mirror. "Just boil her some potatoes and be done with it."

"Potatoes," said Lillian.

A FIFTY-POUND SACK FIFTY-POUND SACK of potatoes squatted at the bottom of the steps in Lillian"s bas.e.m.e.nt, ordered by her mother during the of potatoes squatted at the bottom of the steps in Lillian"s bas.e.m.e.nt, ordered by her mother during the Oliver Twist Oliver Twist period, when staples had begun appearing at the door in such large quant.i.ties that neighbors asked Lillian if she and her mother had plans for guests, or perhaps a bomb shelter. If Lillian had been younger, she might have made a fort of food, but she was busy now. She took her knife and sliced through the burlap strings of the bag, pulling out four oblong potatoes. period, when staples had begun appearing at the door in such large quant.i.ties that neighbors asked Lillian if she and her mother had plans for guests, or perhaps a bomb shelter. If Lillian had been younger, she might have made a fort of food, but she was busy now. She took her knife and sliced through the burlap strings of the bag, pulling out four oblong potatoes.

"Okay, my pretties," she said.

She carried them upstairs and washed the dirt from their waxy surfaces, using a brush to clean the dents and pockets. Elizabeth always complained when her mother made her wash the potatoes for dinner, wondering aloud to Lillian and whoever else was near why they couldn"t just make a smooth potato, anyway. But Lillian liked the dips and dents, even if it meant it took more time to wash them. They reminded her of fields before they were cultivated, when every hillock or hole was a home, a scene of a small animal battle or romance.

When the potatoes were clean, she took down her favorite knife from the rack, cut them into quarters, and dropped the chunks one by one into the big blue pot full of water that she had waiting on the stove. They hit the bottom with dull, satisfying thumps, shifting about for a moment until they found their positions, then stilled, rocking only slightly as the water started to bubble.

Her mother walked into the kitchen, the Collected Works of Henry James Collected Works of Henry James in front of her face. in front of her face.

"Dinner or an experiment?" she asked.

"We"ll see," replied Lillian.

Outside the windows, the sky was darkening. Already cars were turning on their headlights, as the light filtered gray-blue through the clouds. Inside the kitchen, the hanging lamps shone, their light reflecting off the bits of chrome, sinking quietly into the wooden countertops and floor. Lillian"s mother sat down in a red-painted chair next to the kitchen table, her book open.

"I remember," Lillian"s mother read aloud, Lillian"s mother read aloud, "the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little see-saw of the right throbs and the wrong...." "the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little see-saw of the right throbs and the wrong...."

Lillian, listening with half an ear, bent down and took out a small pot from the cabinet. She put it on the stove and poured in milk, a third of the way up its straight sides. When she turned the dial on the stove, the flame leaped up to touch the sides of the pan.

"There had been a moment when I believe I recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been another when I found myself starting as at the pa.s.sage, before my door, of light footsteps...."

The water in the big blue pot boiled gently, the potatoes shifting about in gentle resignation like pa.s.sengers on a crowded bus. The kitchen filled with the warmth of evaporated water and the smell of warming milk, while the last light came in pink through the windows. Lillian turned on the light over the stove and checked the potatoes once with the sharp end of her knife. Done. She pulled the pot from the stove and emptied the potatoes into a colander.

"Stop cooking," she said under her breath, as she ran cold water over their steaming surfaces. "Stop cooking now."

She shook the last of the water from the potatoes. The skins came off easily, like a shawl sliding off a woman"s shoulders. Lillian dropped one hunk after another into the big metal bowl, then turned on the mixer and watched the chunks change from shapes to texture, mounds to lumpy clouds to cotton. Slices of b.u.t.ter melted in long, shining trails of yellow through the moving swirl of white. She picked up the smaller pan and slowly poured the milk into the potatoes. Then salt. Just enough.

Almost as an afterthought, she went to the refrigerator and pulled out a hard piece of Parmesan cheese. She grated some onto the cutting board, then picked up the feathery bits with her fingers and dropped them in a fine mist into the revolving bowl, where they disappeared into the mixture. She turned off the mixer, then ran her finger across the top and tasted.

"There," she said. She reached up into the cabinet and took down two pasta bowls, wide and flat, with just enough rim to hold an intricate design of blue and yellow, and placed them on the counter. Using the large wooden spoon, she scooped into the potatoes and dropped a small mountain of white in the exact center of each bowl. At the last minute, she made a small dip in the middle of each mountain, and then carefully put in an extra portion of b.u.t.ter.

"Mom," she said, as she carefully set the bowl and fork in front of her mother, "dinner." Lillian"s mother shifted position in her chair toward the table, the book rotating in front of her body like a compa.s.s needle.

Lillian"s mother"s hand reached for the fork, and deftly navigated its way around the Collected Works Collected Works and into the middle of the potatoes. She lifted the fork into the air. and into the middle of the potatoes. She lifted the fork into the air.

"It was the first time, in a manner, that I had known s.p.a.ce and air and freedom, all the music of summer and all the mystery of nature. And then there was consideration-and consideration was sweet...."

The fork finished the journey to Lillian"s mother"s mouth, where it entered, then exited, clean.

"Hmmmm..." she said. And then all was quiet.

"I"VE GOT HER," Lillian told Elizabeth as they sat eating toast with warm peanut b.u.t.ter at Elizabeth"s house after school.

"Because you got her to stop stop talking?" Elizabeth looked skeptical. talking?" Elizabeth looked skeptical.

"You"ll see," said Lillian.

Although Lillian"s mother did seem calmer in the following days, the major difference was one that Lillian had not antic.i.p.ated. Her mother continued to read, but now she was absolutely silent. And while Lillian, who had long ceased to see her mother"s reading aloud as any attempt at communication, was not sorry to no longer be the catch-pan of treasured phrases, this was not the effect she had been hoping for. She had been certain the potatoes would be magic.

ON HER WAY home from school, Lillian took a shortcut down a narrow side street that led from the main arterial to the more rural road to her house. Halfway down the block was a small grocery store that Lillian had found when she was seven years old, on a summer afternoon when she had let go of her mother"s hand in frustration and set off in a previously untraveled direction, wondering if her mother would notice her absence. home from school, Lillian took a shortcut down a narrow side street that led from the main arterial to the more rural road to her house. Halfway down the block was a small grocery store that Lillian had found when she was seven years old, on a summer afternoon when she had let go of her mother"s hand in frustration and set off in a previously untraveled direction, wondering if her mother would notice her absence.

On that day years before, she had smelled the store before she saw it, hot and dusty scents tingling her nose and pulling her down the narrow street. The shop itself was tiny, perhaps the size of an apartment living room, its shelves filled with cans written in languages she didn"t recognize and tall candles enclosed in gla.s.s, painted with pictures of people with halos and sad faces. A gla.s.s display case next to the cash register was filled with pans of food in bright colors-yellows and reds and greens, their smells deep and smoky, sometimes sharp.

The woman behind the counter saw Lillian standing close to the gla.s.s case, staring.

"Would you like to try?" she asked.

Not where is your mother, not how old are you, but would you like to try. Lillian looked up and smiled.

The woman reached into the case and pulled out an oblong yellow shape.

"Tamale," she said, and handed it on a small paper plate to Lillian.

The outside was soft and slightly crunchy, the inside a festival of meat, onions, tomatoes, and something that seemed vaguely like cinnamon.

"You understand food," the woman commented, nodding, as she watched Lillian eat.

Lillian looked up again, and felt herself folded into the woman"s smile.

"The children call me Abuelita," she said. "I think I hear your mother coming."

Lillian listened, and heard the sound of her mother"s reading voice winding its way down the alley. She cast her eyes around the store once more, and noticed an odd wooden object hanging from a hook on one of the shelves.

"What is that?" she asked, pointing.

"What do you think?" Abuelita took it down and handed it to Lillian, who looked at its irregular shape-a six-inch-long stick with a rounded bulb on one end with ridges carved into it like furrows in a field.

"I think it is a magic wand," Lillian responded.

"Perhaps," said Abuelita. "Perhaps you should keep it, just in case."

Lillian took the wand and slid it into her coat pocket like a spy palming a secret missive.

"Come back anytime, little cook," Abuelita said.

Lillian had returned to the store often over the years. Abuelita had taught her about spices and foods she never encountered in Elizabeth"s or Margaret"s houses. There was avocado, wrinkled and grumpy on the outside, green spring within, creamy as ice cream when smashed into guacamole. There were the smoky flavors of chipotle peppers and the sharp-sweet crunch of cilantro, which Lillian loved so much Abuelita would always give her a sprig to eat as she walked home. Abuelita didn"t talk a lot, but when she did, it was conversation.

SO WHEN L LILLIAN walked into the store, a week after making mashed potatoes for her mother, Abuelita looked at her closely for a moment. walked into the store, a week after making mashed potatoes for her mother, Abuelita looked at her closely for a moment.

"You are missing something," she noted after a moment.

"It didn"t work," Lillian replied, despairingly. "I thought I had her, but it didn"t work."

"Tell me," said Abuelita simply, and Lillian did, about cookies and spices and Henry James and mashed potatoes and her feeling that perhaps, in the end, food would not be the magic that would wake her mother from her long, literary sleep, that perhaps in the end, sleep was all there was for her mother.

After Lillian ended her story, Abuelita was quiet for a while. "It"s not that what you did was wrong; it"s just that you aren"t finished."

"What else am I supposed to do?"

"Lillian, each person"s heart breaks in its own way. Every cure will be different-but there are some things we all need. Before anything else, we need to feel safe. You did that for her."

"So why is she still gone?"

"Because to be a part of this world, we need more than safety. Your mother needs to remember what she lost and want it again.