Anyone who knew my mother does not know how the world can go on without her.  She illuminated beauty for all of us in the smallest, most surprising of places: the robin’s eggs she kept on a piece of drift wood shaped like a bird, her Meyer Lemon tree which drooped with fruit (wet feet and acid - that’s what Meyer Lemons like, she chanted), the way she could brown meat to perfection.  The orchard she planted thirty years ago is one of the most beautiful places on earth.  Quince, plums, pears and heirloom apple trees, groaning with fruit almost every year, make a peaceful home for birds, deer, and coyote.  She laughed at how rich she would be if she marketed her quince, which sell in the grocery store for $4 each.

 

My mother, Carole Catherine Litty, married my father to be Carole Atwood.  Later, she remarried to be Carole Fitch, but none of those names made any difference; She was Carole, a luminescent personality.  She was both shy and one of the warmest, most loving people on earth.  It was easier for her to throw a dinner for thirty people than to be a guest at a small cocktail party, which was another paradox because she always would have been one of the most well-read, informed people in the room.  At the time of her death last week she’d been reading “How to Live, A Life of Montaigne.”

Whatever she was reading always meant a phone call - or many - to me, my brothers, or her sister - to let us know about it.  I promise, I haven’t read A LOT of books which I can discuss in detail only because my mother has told me about them.

She died last Sunday evening.  Two weeks earlier she had cooked our family’s Christmas dinner:  her iconic fig-studded chicken liver pate, rib roast with horseradish sauce, pureed celeriac and potato gratin, the best roasted brussel sprouts I’ve ever eaten, Christmas Trifle, and of course, the Black Fruitcake she had made a month earlier, which I wrote about in an earlier post.  The tables in her renovated barn sparkled with silver and candles.  That perfect garland she always made hung from the beams.

 

She became very sick the next day, a cancer that couldn’t have been stopped if found earlier, and which took her away completely within two weeks.  The photo of her here was taken exactly two days before she died.

Of the thousands of things I will miss about my mother is the simple phone call to ask, “Mom, what are you making for dinner tonight?”  So many conversations, so many themes on life, started right there.

 

I took some photos of her home yesterday, just because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.  Here is her house, her orchard, her potting shed (The grandchildren called her Mimi), her trellis of New Dawn roses, the shelves in her yellow dining room.

 

My mother was not a traditional cook; she was always looking for something new, and lived by Epicurious.  She had stacks of printed recipes in her pantry and on her desk.  I snitched the top of the pile;  I know these were things she was planning on cooking in January.  Here is the Epicurious version of Warm Asian Style Slaw.  I can here her saying after the deluge of English Christmas tastes, “Heathy, all I want is greens and sesame oil...”

 

Warm Asian-Style Slaw

ingredients

For dressing

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil

1 1/2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger

1 1/2 teaspoons Asian chile paste

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1 teaspoon sugar

 

For slaw

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 medium carrots, cut into julienne strips

1/2 small head cabbage, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices

1/2 large cucumber, seeded and cut into julienne strips

 

 

Instructions

Make dressing: Whisk together dressing ingredients.

Make slaw: Heat vegetable oil in a large heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté carrots, stirring, until almost tender but not brown, about 2 minutes. Add cabbage and sauté, stirring and tossing constantly, until wilted but still crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and add cucumber and dressing, tossing well to coat.