A Poppy's Promise

...and a recipe for mother & daughter oat cakes

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From Karyl’s Cook & Tell Newsletter (September 1999)

Dear darling daughter,

I’m walking around the house feeling as though I’m missing something and can’t remember what it is. Suddenly, I remember. It’s you.

The upstairs still smells like you, and you left for home in Arizona three days ago. All those showers and shampoos after your daily runs have left a lovely backlog of lilting, unfamiliar fragrance, a gentle reminder of your graceful presence. Downstairs, I’m afraid, the more mundane soap and shampoos your elders favor, so ordinary in comparison with your more trendy vapors, go unnoticed, day after day.

Since there was no room in my schedule for a bona fide vacation for us this summer, I gladly took your vacation with you, right here in the best little private B&B around. I shut down the computers, let the mail pile up, and didn’t even test any new recipes for the newsletter, turning instead to some of the old favorites I thought you’d like. You wanted blueberries. What fun, to make pie, muffins, and pancakes—things I hadn’t made for ages.

Tonight, we’re finishing up that vegetarian casserole. It was my unwitting homage to the runner’s love of carbs, as you, my little runner, called those layered beans and grains. And what do you suppose I’m having right now with my tea out on the deck, where the two of us lounged on the “Titanic” chairs one lazy afternoon, just reading? One of those oat cakes you loved, the one that got away after I made a sweep of the kitchen and gave you all the cakes I thought were left for your trip home.

Being on vacation was delicious. It wasn’t all about food, but food figured in. Tea and scones at Crumps. Hot dogs on the grill and Aunt Evelyn’s Baked Beans. Lobster rolls and corn at Robinson’s Wharf topped off with blueberry pie at home. It’s a long way from Phoenix, isn’t it?

Do they have deer out there? The day you met a young doe crossing the road while you were on your eight-mile run around the island and she just stood there and looked at you fearlessly while you waved her off into the woods—that was the best day of all, complete with photo ops and a gala supper by the sea. After your run, there was that dive-and-dip into the frigid waters of Love’s Cove. I won’t soon forget you calling over your shoulder as we walked across the road to the rocks at the edge of the cove, “Get the camera!” This two-minute aqua ballet was one for the album.

After another aromatic shower, there were BLT’s and a piece of Em’s pecan pie for lunch at Gussie’s. Finally, as the summer sun appeared to take its own dip into the ocean, albeit more slowly than you, wasn’t it good, messy fun to tackle the clams, mussels, lobster, potato, corn and onion at the Yacht Club clambake on Cozy Harbor that evening?

It was a kick shopping for fabric with you and then making your kitchen and living room curtains in the one day I allotted to the project. I haven’t sewed anything since you were a child, but I rather think a mother’s sewing skills, if she’s ever acquired them, are a bit like mother’s ear. They never go away.

I watched a poppy bloom this morning. The bud emerged from its sheath in exquisite slow motion, then took its own time to unfurl its four orange petals, beautiful, luminous, perfect. I left before it had completely opened; the sun was rising higher and hotter. But I knew the poppy’s promise. I never doubted it would bloom without me.

Having you with us was grand, and not just because I got a story out of it. May your lovely fragrance never go away.

I love you, little poppy.

Mum

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Mother & Daughter Oat Cakes

makes 24 

• 1 c. shortening (1/2 c. Crisco plus ½ c. butter)

• 1 c. sugar

• 1 egg

• 2 T. milk

• 1 t. vanilla

• 2 c. flour

• 1 t. baking soda

• 1 t. salt

• 1 t. nutmeg

• 3 c. old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick)

Preheat oven to 350◦F. Do all the mixing by hand: cream the shortening and sugar. Add and blend in the egg, milk and vanilla. Sift and add the flour, soda, salt and nutmeg, mixing well. Stir in the oats.

Form dough into rolls about 1 ½” in diameter, wrap each in <gasp> wax paper (we’ll be covering this archaic kitchen supply in a future issue), refrigerate several hours until hard. Or make ahead and freeze for later.

To bake, slice 1” thick (no need to thaw) and bake about 10 minutes.

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Amie’s Endnotes

Dear Mum,

When you wrote this twenty-five years ago, you were three years older than I am now. I had been sober almost a year; I was training for my second marathon; and I had just met the man who would later become my husband.

I still live in this landlocked state, Mum, aside from summers on the island where I feel closest to you. Here, I swim laps back and forth in a concrete rectangle, the odor of chlorine a far cry from the saltwater breeze that blows through the gingham-curtained windows on our island. I’ve seen a handful of deer here on the rocky trails, and coyotes and bobcats. And javelinas! They’re not exactly pigs, and a bit too unwieldy for your pig collection, but I know you’d love them as much as I do.

I’m still sober, I’m still running, I’m still married, and I still can’t sew. Now I’m the one writing about food and testing recipes for the newsletter. And the poppies just bloomed in the desert, without either of us watching.

Happy Mother’s Day. I love you more,

A