My mom was not talented in the culinary arts. It’s a miracle I can boil water, really. Aside from her being a terrible chef, my father refused to cook and I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen to do any experimenting on my own.
There were three staple items my mom could get on the table if push came to shove: grilled cheese sandwiches with canned tomato soup; scrambled eggs with cream cheese; mashed potato pancakes with melted parmesan. The cheese theme is clear, right? I’m starting to see where my dairy obsession comes from. The sandwich was always burnt, always. The sound of her running a butter knife over the crispy bits and the ping of the charred toast hitting the tin sink, along with that acidic, dark musty smell of burnt bread and butter on the cast iron pan–smells like home. She would make the tomato soup with milk and it would get that skin on top–you know the way that happens when you overheat milk or let it sit too long? The potato pancakes were her leftover creation. We always had steamed veggies and baked potatoes in the fridge. So, she’d cut up the veggies, mash the potatoes and grate some cheese over the flattened balls, throw them in the oven and it was heavenly. My brothers would smother them in ketchup but I liked them plain or with a little sour cream.
Yes, we ate very well in our household.
For a while I was trying to eat gluten-free, upon my doctor’s recommendation (I will never do that again–I was absolutely miserable for a month) and in an effort to make myself some gluten and sugar-free desserts I experimented with rice crispies (or, rather the health food version of those). Which I don’t recommend.
Anyhow, I tried adding peanut butter and unsweetened chocolate and honey and coconut oil and all sorts of shit. And, really all I wanted was rice crispy treats. Nothing compares, let’s be honest.
Turns out they are the most ridiculously simple dessert to make. Like, hilariously easy. How had I forgotten the 3 steps? Melt butter and marshies in pot, pour cereal in, empty pot onto greased pan. Voila! A miracle dessert. Really, I’ll be making these every week from now on.
Rice crispy treats were the one thing my mom could “bake.” Every bakesale, every holiday event, anytime there was a mandatory contribution in school or at a sporting event, or for the community theater or my sister’s dance troupe, we brought rice crispy treats. Every. Single. Time.
It didn’t even occur to me that it might appear as some sort of cop out. Kind of a slap in the face to the moms who brought handmade, “chocolate, peanut butter, caramel crunch bars.” Or, that it might have been a source of embarrassment for my mother. A kind of admission of maternal failure to be unable to do the most basic of motherly duties: bake. Nowadays moms, dads, parentals, can show up to a bake sale and say, “I suck at baking. I’ll help with the cleanup.” And, I don’t think anyone would bat an eye. There might even be some sympathetic nods and confessions of having used the pre-boxed mix for brownies. But, back then and in our small little section of the world, it was not done. Every mom baked. Not every parent. Every mom. Oh yeah, it was nice and gendered back then. Who are we kidding? It mostly still is.
So, we made a lot of rice crispy treats. And, my mom showed up with our plastic-wrapped desserts and proudly placed them on the bake sale table, handing over our one aluminum pan to the downcast eyes of some volunteer, PTA, supermom. She’d give us a half-smile and place them amongst the m&m, chocolate chip cookies, and the perfect chocolate, pecan fudge squares, the beautiful coconut-cream layer cakes and vanilla cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles. They always looked so sad next to everything else. But, those suckers sold. I tell you what, we always went home with an empty pan–much to my chagrin.
And, every time my mom would look down proudly at that empty tin and say, “We did it.” As if she’d just discovered the Higgs boson.
I didn’t know that this could, or should, have been a source of embarrassment for me. In fact, it was one of the only things I felt confident my mother could actually participate in–like a normal mom. Her ability to show up every time with a handmade dessert, to participate, to contribute–that felt so normal to me. It made me feel like we were actually part of something. One of them. You know, one of the normals–not outsiders, for once. We’d all crowd into the minivan, screaming and pushing, calling dibs on the front seat and then fighting over it anyway and one of us would call out, “Mom, don’t forget the rice crispy treats!” and off we would ride. Believing that the minivan and the slogan t-shirts, the hand-me-down sneakers and thrifted jeans, and most importantly the rice crispy treats, were some symbol of normalcy. Believing that we might actually be fitting in.