A Spell For Nostalgia

My mom died when she was only 53 from Ovarian Cancer. I was the eldest of my siblings at 23, and though the time we had her with us feels far too little far too often, I often feel lucky to have known her the longest. I was the only one whose college graduation she got to attend. Her favorite hobbies in life were working out and making food- whether that was cooking or baking. For someone in as good a shape as she was in to die so young just proves that fate is unfair and how long we have is completely unpredictable even if we take good care of ourselves.

I don't enjoy working out (or moving very much, period, haha), and I never really developed an affinity for making food though I've always loved eating it! One of my brothers cooks a little and my sister bakes, but I never seemed to get a piece of that talent- or more importantly- that will. The kitchen was my mom's domain, after all- anyone else in there only got in the way of her magic.

After her death, a lot of her recipes were scattered among my sister and brothers, or otherwise lost and misplaced. A lot of her best recipes are things I haven't tasted since she was alive, which gives them a sort of mythical, hallowed place in my mind. This feels right in a strange kind of way, even though I'm sad we couldn't keep everything more together and organized.

When I saw this challenge I was going to pass it by- as I said, I don't really cook or bake- but I decided to see if I could find and recreate one of my mom's best hits (I found this recipe in a box on my sister’s refrigerator.) Coffee 'nib' muffins were something I remember bagging up and taking with me to high school on mornings when it was too early for me to entertain eating immediately. If you've never had cacao nibs, you're in for a treat. they're a chocolatey, slightly nutty delicacy that blends so perfectly with the various layers of coffee flavor included in these muffins. To me, they taste of nostalgia, of the type of home one can maybe only find in a mother.

I cut the recipe I found in half, since my mom was known for making enough to feed a small army (and with four kids, we were a small army, to be fair). The muffins she made were about half the size of my head, and all I had were mini muffin trays. I used the oat milk I had on hand instead of regular milk (sacrilege!). But overall I was stunned how closely I was able to replicate the taste I remembered. I was also surprised that when writing about the experiment, a sort of poetic prose kept wanting to come out of me. It occurred to me how many basic ingredients have had deeper meanings prescribed to them in various cultures over the years, and how the marking down of a recipe is a little like the recording of a spell. You gathered your symbolic components and then you conducted your ritual. The result: certainly a type of magic.

.

A SPELL FOR NOSTALGIA

.

You will need:

.

0. the aspiring baker-

A grown child, one-half orphaned, in an 36-year-old body beginning to manifest it's own aches and pains.

A card clutched in hand, scrawled with your distinctive handwriting.

A covered smoke alarm in a musty apartment with a cramped kitchen. Concentration.

Courage.

Is it strange for so much of one's ghost to haunt a set of ingredients, an at-times cryptic set of instructions made for one pair of eyes only?

Is it strange for me to hesitate to wake it?

.

1. flour-

for hospitality. Everyone who came in and out of your door rarely left empty-handed.

Food was the currency of love,

an outward expression that filled me so much inside.

.

2. sugar-

for the sweet tooth we both shared,

something the rest of the family never quite understood.

This craving I still cannot sate,

that I have yet to tame and temper as you did.

.

3. baking powder-

for reaction,

for the energy of your laugh,

for the glue to hold the recipe the way you held all of us together, made a family and four walls a home.

.

4. espresso -

for your ancestors,

from the hills and valleys of Italy that birthed you

like a masterpiece long in the making,

your bronze, unburnable skin, your dark eyes and hair.

.

5. salt-

for purity,

to keep sacred the space in which I work.

A pinch over the shoulder,

a circle drawn around the place the magic happens.

.

6. cinnamon-

for healing,

for the rich scent of holidays past.

A reminder that loss burns on the tongue

but it is always worth the wealth that preceded it.

.

7. milk-

for the love of motherhood,

which was what you called your calling.

Thankless at many turns but rare and irreplaceable.

I stopped drinking milk after it stopped being yours.

.

8. butter-

for nourishment,

for the extra helping at a family dinner,

the generous scoop you'd hear no complaints about, for the way

soft love of you could melt me into compliance.

.

9. eggs-

for rebirth and resurrection,

the promise you believed in especially near the end.

The lines of familiarity I catch in the voice of a sibling,

my own smile.

.

10. coffee-

for creativity,

the art you applied to the page and to baking alike.

The pictures you'd draw at my whim when I was younger,

rabbits bickering and dancing.

The curving script of your exacting calligraphy,

the fresh smell of that ink seeping into the page.

.

11. vanilla-

for comfort,

for every time I thought of home

and it was the sound of your voice I heard,

the image of you mulling around a warm kitchen,

pulling pans from the oven with bare, dexterous hands,

asking about my day.

.

12. liqueur-

for indulgence,

for the days I'd come home from high school and we would sit at the table pouring bailey's into our afternoon coffee,

perusing the paper and talking about anything.

The beginning of a kind of friendship,

an understanding beyond mother and child that some take forever to reach and others never do.

.

13. cacao nibs-

for love,

and the connection to the spirit realm.

For the feel of those rich little nuggets of bitterness

and sweet alike that crunch between my teeth,

the sense of completion when I take the first bite.

Communion.

.

RECIPE I USED

(original full recipe- this, x2!- as I found it is featured in the picture below. I provided links to anything I found on the internet as opposed to my grocery store. YMMV)

3 C Flour

3/4 C Sugar

1 T & 3/4 tsp. baking powder

1 T espresso powder

3/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 C milk (warmed)

1 1/2 sticks butter

1 1/2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 tsp. coffee flavor

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/4 C coffee Bailey's*

3/4 C cacao nibs

-Add all wet into dry then add nibs before completely stirred.

-Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes

*Regular Bailey's also works if you can't find the coffee kind- they didn't stock it in any stores near me! 1/4 cup is just over one 50 ml. nip, for reference.