Sunday is Mother’s Day, just in case you forgot. If you are reading this on Friday, it’s too late for you to mail a card, or to order flowers. Which supposes that you celebrate Mother’s Day. It was always a minefield when I was growing up. My mother stated loudly, and often, that, “It’s a Hallmark holiday. It doesn’t mean anything.” And yet, she seemed to enjoy the nosegays of flowers we pilfered from her garden, and our homemade, decidedly not Hallmark, cards: the power of Cray-Pas and oaktag.

I’m sure these popularized holidays are minefields in many other homes where lives are complicated. Mother’s Day might be painful for people whose mothers have died. There’s divorce. There’s estrangement. There’s distance. There are step-mothers. There are custody issues. Mothers go away. Boyfriends. Girlfriends. Uncomfortable situations and memories abound. However you spend Sunday, be nice. Smile, even if you are wearing a mask – people can tell the difference. A home-picked fistful of flowers might go a long way. And so would a phone call.

I’m planning on a nice, simple homemade breakfast. Our children have long since flown the coop, yet sometimes we look up with surprise that it is just the two of us again. We no longer have to make acres of pancakes, use a whole loaf of bread for toast, or fry a pound of bacon. We are adapting to recipes for two. I’ll mentally thank my mother for the family recipe for biscuits, which you will find on the side of the box of Bisquick. Mom did not enjoy cooking much, just the ceremonial bits like Christmas cookies, and birthday cakes, and the annual corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day. For her, less time in the kitchen meant more time in the garden, or more time reading. It is an admirable philosophy, and one I intend to practice this weekend.

Bisquick Biscuits
• 2 1/4 cups Bisquick mix
• 2/3 cup milk
• Heat oven to 450°F. Stir ingredients until soft dough forms.
• Drop dough by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. (I like to roll the dough out, and cut it into circles, using the ancestral biscuit cutter)
• Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. (Be careful, it is very easy to burn their bottoms.)
(These freeze nicely, so you might still have some in reserve for Father’s Day.)

Our clever friends at Food52 understand the primal need for biscuits, and not just for breakfast: https://food52.com/blog/13819-13-recipes-for-when-you-just-need-a-biscuit

Over at Bon Appétit, they get a little carried away with themselves. However, my friend who worked at Bon Appétit, taught me a less complicated way to prepare bacon, which leaves more time for the Sunday papers, because it is relatively hands-free. We use thick cut bacon, so if you use thinner bacon, keep an eye on things – you do not want it to burn.

Baked Bacon
• Pre-heat oven to 425°F
• Line a sheet with parchment paper
• Lay the bacon slices on the parchment paper (We figure on 2 slices per person, and 1 for the dog)
• Put sheet pan into the oven, and set a timer for 12 minutes (It is easy to get lost in the Style section)
Sometimes Mr. Sanders, who likes to fuss, will turn the bacon halfway through the cooking process. I ignore it.
• Take bacon out when it is done enough for you. Drain the pieces on paper towels. Make the dog wait until you have finished eating.
The fancier Bon Appétit way: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/brown-sugar-glazed-bacon

Whipped Cream Pat for Fruit
You must have fresh fruit for breakfast! And fruit bathed in our latest invention at the very least. We baked some cream puffs a couple of weeks ago, and improvised the most delicious filling ever in the whole wide world. We mixed whipped cream into the creme pat. Luckily, there was a large bowl of filling left over. You can be a reasonable adult and mix some whipped cream into vanilla yogurt if you want. Or you can be a cool kid, and try our mixture with your farm-fresh, you-picked-them strawberries. Make this ahead of time. Maybe for your Saturday night cream puffs.

Creme Patissiere
https://prettysimplesweet.com/creme-patissiere/
Add 2 cups of homemade whipped cream and combine. And now you see why we had leftovers. Believe me, you will enjoy this for a while.

We never know what is going on with other folks, so remember to be kind. Holidays can be anxious events. Make a nice, simple breakfast, read the paper, get out into the garden, pick up the phone.

“It was delightful to wake up early and refreshed, and come down to this sunshiny, cheerful breakfast-table, where, though nothing was grand, all was thoroughly comfortable.”
― Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

“I sit quietly and think about my mom. It’s funny how memory erodes, If all I had to work from were my childhood memories, my knowledge of my mother would be faded and soft, with a few sharp memories standing out.”
― Audrey Niffenegger

May starts tomorrow. Isn’t that amazing? Winter is gone and spring is well and truly sprung. There are real leaves on the trees. The sun is warm in the afternoon. It is going to be nice enough to have a tiny, and socially distanced, cocktail hour on the back porch with another couple of vaxxed friends. Dr. Fauci would approve of our medicinal wine. We are coming back.

It has been such a long time since we socialized. Zoom calls, which were charming when they were relatively novel, were great for the first couple of attempts. I loved seeing whatever spot in everyone’s house had the best WiFi: Emily’s dining room with elegant molding, Daphne’s comfy and cozy front parlor, Maura’s tidy spare bedroom. But it was impossible to exchange an amused look, or arch an eyebrow, without the whole group noticing. And really, everyone was looking with horror at themselves. Those lock-down hairdos were not flattering. Black is not as slimming as one might hope. Have I always guffawed like that, or is it a habit developed during the pandemic?

The first people we will have over will not be our dearest friends, or even our relatives, so it will be a good time to practice niceties and work out the rusty kinks in our social skills. Thus the invention of the cocktail hour – it smooths away some of the rough edges, and renders us slightly more attractive for a short period of time. When we can then slink back to our lairs, and reassess our places in society.

Washington College, back in our day, had a healthy May Day tradition of streaking. I don’t think we will indulge in either real or virtual streaking this year. Maybe next year, when things are a little more normal, and we have lost the weight gained while bingeing on Grey’s Anatomy and Game of Thrones. This year we will keep our slimming black outfits on, while showing off our new haircuts, and enjoying a thankful libation. Tra la. It’s May.

It is an opportunity to drink Prosecco in the form of mimosas. Deelish. https://cookieandkate.com/2017/best-mimosa-recipe/

We won’t be entertaining a crowd, but sometimes it is nice to have a little bowl of punch all made and ready for guests. I have a vintage, thrift shop, sterling, sailing trophy that I use for a punch bowl. I like polishing silver in anticipation of an event. There is something festive about punch. Especially with floating strawberries, which are right in season now.
https://thebusybaker.ca/easy-party-punch/
https://www.thecookierookie.com/strawberry-lemonade-party-punch/

Is it too early for an icy blender drink? That is a ridiculous question. Of course not. Haul out the blender and rustle up some ice: https://www.thespruceeats.com/may-day-cocktail-recipe-760543

The best food at cocktail parties is finger food. It is hard enough to hold onto a drink, so who can manage an additional plate, napkin, and fork or knife? I know I have little inclination, or skill, for that balancing act. There are only so many flat areas on our back porch, anyway. We can line up a few platters of treats, and then retire to our respective corners during this tentative foray back into society.

With Cinco de Mayo happening next week, it is the perfect time to have a little Mexican food: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/g19876275/mexican-recipes/

I love fresh pink radishes, especially outdoors, dipped in a little Maldon salt. This recipe is more sophisticated and swish: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/radishes-with-herbed-salt-and-olive-oil-56389336

It used to be that pigs-in-blankets were essential party food, especially when we were entertaining other parents, who had their children in tow. There aren’t any children coming over this weekend, but we can remember the delightful times we had with them: https://www.marthastewart.com/1047656/pigs-blankets

A little more elegant, and very spring-y, are asparagus spears wrapped with Prosciutto ham and phyllo dough. No silverware necessary: https://food52.com/recipes/3998-asparagus-wrapped-in-phyllo-and-prosciutto

This event can be a nice little bit of practice for our re-introduction into society. I am looking forward to some real life, real-time experiences. It will be good to see your smiling face again.

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
― Ernest Hemingway

We all like fresh, seasonal vegetables that have small carbon footprints. There is nothing sadder than a hot house tomato in the middle of winter. Enjoying freshly picked vegetables out of your own garden is pure bliss. And while it’s probably too late this year to plant your own peas, it is worth putting a note on your calendar to start a pea farm of your own next March. You can even start them in windowsill containers, so you’ll have more to enjoy than just grocery store basil plants.

On a trip to Charleston, South Carolina back in the days of travel and eating in restaurants, I had an early spring salad with snap peas, radishes, fennel, strawberries and lemon buttermilk vinaigrette. The addition of the snap peas was a revelation! I had never thought of adding peas to a salad. I have tossed snow peas into stir fry, and English peas into Fettucini Alfredo, but sugar snap peas cold in a salad, lightly bathed in buttermilk dressing? Genius. They were better than bacon-fried croutons! That tasty moment was almost as pleasant as memories of childhood, eating peas from the garden.

Tiny little snap pea pods are sweet and crunchy, unlike English peas, which need to be shelled. And snow peas, while you can eat them from stem to stern, have thinner shells and are flaccid, yet are quite deelish in their modest way. https://www.thespruce.com/garden-vs-snow-and-sugar-snap-1403487

I’ve been venturing back into the garden now that we don’t have to worry about a frost. I have planted some containers with tomatoes and basil plants, and have filled the raised bed with seeds of flowers that promise to be irresistible to hummingbirds and other pollinators. It’s too early right now to tell what is a precious sown wildflower seed, and what might be a pernicious weed. I am hoping that the blue jays don’t discover the row of sunflower seeds before they have a chance to germinate and take root.

Elsewhere in the yard I am using newspapers and mulch again. Last year I tried that combination and for the most part, the garden beds were fairly weed-free. (Sadly, there is one corner that lets the neighbor’s invasive ivy in to roam freely, but I am game for that fight. I want to have a nice, presentable middle class hydrangea bed.)

I love this newsprint/mulch concept – supporting our local (and national) press, and recycling, without contributing to landfill. I haven’t gone too radical because I have topped the newspaper with commercial garden center mulch, but you can skip that step if you don’t mind looking at the newspaper. (Mr. Sanders is much too conventional for that approach.) I just want to control the weeds without using RoundUp and I don’t want to be like another neighbor, who eschews RoundUp, but has her yard sprayed every couple of weeks for mosquito control. I am too fond of our birds. Even the thieving blue jays. https://www.bbg.org/news/using_newspaper_as_mulch

I’m thinking of light spring-y recipes while I am weeding and mulching. It can still be pretty nippy in the morning, yet I long to make lighter foods. No more meatloaf. No more chicken pot pie. Bring on the pasta primavera, with new peas and garden-fresh farmers’ market tomatoes, please. https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a48087/lemon-primavera-bowties-recipe/

This is more interesting than a salad plate of wilting iceberg lettuce. It is redolent with springtime: https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Fresh-Peas-With-Lettuce-and-Green-Garlic/

This transcendent pea compound butter is good on toast, or spread on cooked meats: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/spring-pea-butter-with-shallot-and-lemon

This recipe caused a stir in New York City a few years ago, and I think it will make for a very nice appetizer on the back porch this weekend. Green Pea Guacamole. Something light and crunchy, to go with our newest discovery – rosé Prosecco. https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/green-pea-guacamole.html

It is time to stop thinking of peas as something stodgy that we dig out of the freezer to be a side dish for winter-y meats and mashed potatoes. They are among the springiest of vegetables. Welcome, spring!

“We lived very simply – but with all the essentials of life well understood and provided for – hot baths, cold champagne, new peas and old brandy.”
Winston Churchill

The warm weather beckons, even though over Easter weekend, not even two weeks ago, there was such a hard frost that the hydrangeas got frostbitten. I thought they were leafing a little early, but how could I warn them? Now they have tiny, curled, black leaves at their tips. I am hoping the buds are safe because I intend to continue to celebrate all the glories of spring. The mockingbirds are staging aerial combats. The dogwoods are dancing, the azaleas are flashy and vivid. The daffodils are receding. And it is warming up.

Warm weather is drawing me back outside to the garden, and to the farmers’ market. Warm weather means fresh, local strawberries. Masked and distanced, I will be stalking them. Soon. I really can’t wait much longer. In anticipation of eating warm, local fruit I caved and bought some imports at the grocery store last weekend. We were going to grill dinner, and eat out at the small table on the back porch for the first time since fall. Although sweaters didn’t enter into my initial fantasy vision, they were necessary. Luckily, a lighter weight cotton sufficed: I have put the turtlenecks away.

I am always amused that our revered secret family recipes are often versions of recipes found on the backs of boxes. My mother’s special brownies were based on the recipe on the Baker’s Secret box. Her lively spin was to omit the walnuts, thus making them her own. To this day we leave out the nuts, and feel as if that act is an homage to my mother’s home baking. She also made killer strawberry shortcake, based on the recipe on the side of the Bisquick box. Her version – was to roll out the dough, and using the ancestral biscuit cutter that had been her mother’s, she cut out trim little rounds of dough. She preferred a neat and tidy shortcake. https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/bisquick-strawberry-shortcake/370099a9-c927-4eae-93ba-ab66a455b996

Imagine my great dismay when after thoroughly searching the pantry I could not find the ever-present box of Bisquick. What kind of household do I think I run? And it was too late to run out to the grocery store – celebratory Saturday Prosecco had already been consumed. And so I turned to Google – every cook and baker’s secret weapon.

There I found this simple recipe from Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book:
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1986-08-06-8602160065-story.html

I divided the recipe in half, because there were just the two of us. If I had measured and baked according to the recipe, we would have had 16 neat and tidy, perfectly browned, divinely tasty shortcakes. As it was, there were 8, so we had to consume even more on Sunday night. But these do freeze nicely, so if you’d like to have an emergency supply for the spring nights to come, don’t do the math, just bake.

We had a yumsters dinner of the first cheeseburgers of the season, with cheap wine, and candlelight, and no mosquitoes, as yet. I related my modest tale of baking woe to Mr. Sanders, who stood up, and ambled into the pantry. He returned with a tall, fresh, box of Bisquick, that had been stashed on an uppermost shelf, and placed it, wordlessly, on the table. I think I might ditch the secret family recipe in favor of Jane Grigson’s. We need some new traditions.

Go forth and bake from scratch!

“One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe