WASP BY BIRTH, non-religious by choice, I nonetheless welcome the religious holidays that herald the start of spring. While my kids are counting down to the Easter Bunny, I’m thrilled to celebrate Passover tonight.

Passover has a special meaning for me, never mind my lack of faith or even Jewish roots. It’s a holiday when I celebrated the family I’ve formed over the years, from friends and children and shared experiences. When I lived in L.A., I spent nearly every Passover with my sister-friend Chris and her family…which is why this morning, I found the picture above in my email inbox. Chris’ email said “Brisket ‘before’ Picture.” I’ll just title it, “The Brisket I Won’t Be Eeating”.

Though I’ll miss my family-of-friends in L.A., though I’m lucky to be joining new friends for tonight’s celebration…and I’m bringing my favorite Kosher-for-Passover chocolate cake. I found the recipe thanks to Martha Stewart, and it’s a part of my ever-evolving sister, Passover story. I hope you’ll read, and enjoy, and if you need a seder dessert, cook along with me. Zissen Pesach to all.

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THIS TIME LAST year, the “25 Things” meme was ricocheting around the net, and we Sister Project sisters decided to have a go at our own lists. I decided to take a second look at mine, to see if it’s true that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Read on to learn at least 25 things, possibly a few more, about me.

1. I tend to feel overwhelmed by my life a lot of the time.

Yep, still true.

2. I know that it’s ridiculous for me to be overwhelmed by my life, which is fun, and cushy, and healthy and full of love. But I am.

Trying to go easy on myself about this. What’s the point of making myself feel worse about feeling badly? I can’t see one.

3. I love old dishes, silverware and crystal. This used to get me into trouble on eBay.

True, but I seem to have broken the addiction.

4. I recently started spinning (bike, not wool) and I’m a little obsessed with it. We’ll see if it lasts.

Oooh, the shame. At least I’ve replaced spinning with dancing.

5. When I was 7 years old, I wore bifocals.

6. I once had sex in a tree. (Sorry, Mom.)

7. I took Mandarin Chinese for a while in high school, and I loved drawing the characters.

8. When I was a little girl, I had penpals around the world: England, Japan, France, Vermont…

9. My first pet was a black and white rabbit named Scrambley. When she died, a mean kid in my eighth grade class made a crack about “the rabbit dying” (you know, the old school pregnancy test) and I neither understood it nor found it funny.

10. One of my gross habits that I don’t want anyone to know about is that I love to pick at my toenails.

11. I met my husband at an Ethiopian restaurant. He was with his girlfriend.

12. I have several first cousins I have never met.

13. I have lived in four countries and thirteen cities.

14. When I was 3, I loved a statue in the Cincinnati Museum of Art called “Eve Disconsolate.” I always thought that would be a good name for a band.

15. My favorite slow-dance song in high school was Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones.

16. My favorite Rolling Stones cover is Beast of Burden by Bette Midler.

All still hold true. Can’t erase your own history.

17. I often have insomnia. I’m writing this at 2:20 a.m.

I have more or less beaten the insomnia bug. I thank my anti-depressants.

18. I am infinitely better at starting things than at finishing them.

Alas. Yes.

19. Some of my favorite works of fiction are all of Robertson Davies’ books, but I cannot remember the plot of any of them.

I tried to start rereading them this year, and haven’t had much luck. Some books, perhaps, appeal due to time and place. But I’m going to give Davies one more try; my memories of the first time through are that good.

20. The best experience I’ve ever had in a museum was a Rothko retrospective at the Whitney about 10 years ago.

21. My favorite flowers are bachelors buttons and pansies.

22. I always think I might see a plane fall out of the sky, or drive off the edge of a bridge. Maybe that’s why I don’t travel much.

23. One of my earliest memories is walking in the woods with my mother. I must have been 3.

24. One of my biggest regrets is that my father never got to know my kids, and vice versa.

25. I have always loved poetry, and write a lot of it in my head.

And again, all of these hold true. Maybe it’s like what I wrote a few weeks ago about growing older: The tune may change, but the song remains the same. And you? Have you done your list of 25 things? Point us to it, or leave it in the comments…

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IHAD TO BREAK the news to my mother last night. A huge player in our shared history was gone. Her face went white, and she looked like she might cry. As we sat down to dinner (a dish I re-christened Cold Comfort Chicken Potpie) she looked down. “I just can’t believe it’s gone.” She was talking, of course, about Gourmet magazine.

As long as I can remember, Gourmet was a fixture in my home, and hers. It cluttered my mother’s kitchen and her nightstand, but every issue, no matter how dogeared, was carefully saved. Mom was not just a loyal subscriber, she was a true believer.

When she moved from North Carolina to California eight years ago, to be near her first grandchild (that would be the River, beautiful boy of mine), Mom started cleaning out her basement and garage, and the first of several boxes arrived at my house, things she couldn’t rationalize keeping, but couldn’t bear to see us without.

Included were many of the 40-odd volumes of bound back issues of Gourmet, dating back to 1943, the magazine’s third year. The blue-bound tomes now line the shelves in my dining room; the first time I (nervously) cooked dinner for editor Ruth Reichl, she looked around, smiling, and said that it looked a lot like the Gourmet library.

Somewhere in my basement, awaiting excavation from the towers of boxes and cartons that arrived with my mother when she moved in with me last March, is a letter written to me in 1973 or 1974. That year, I’d become immersed in the Pippi Longstocking books. An avid reader, I could handle the books occasionally awkward, translated-from-the-Swedish phrasing. But I was mystified by pepparkakor. It was clearly some kind of cookie–but what kind, exactly? In those pre-Internet days, I had two choices to solve the mystery: a trip to the reference librarian at the Chattanooga Public Library, or a letter to “You Asked For It.”

“You Asked For It” was my favorite section of Gourmet. Readers wrote in, asking the editors to please, PLEASE, intercede with the God of Fancy Restaurants to procure the recipe for the Roquefort Cheese Soufflée enjoyed while on vacation in St. Maarten, or the God of Long-Lost Recipes in hopes of acquiring the definitive method for making Iced Tea Cakes. Month after month, the editors came through. My mother knew that if anyone could not only solve the mystery of pepparkakor, but provide the best and most thorough response, it would be Mr. Mac (aka Earle MacAusland, the magazine’s original editor, who served from 1941 to 1980) and his crack staff.

Indeed, MacAusland and his elves answered, and how. The enthusiastic letter charmed even a cookie-focused 8-year-old, and along with much encouragement for a young girl to keep on cooking, those kind magazine people included a sheaf of annotated recipes and a veritable treatise on gingersnaps. As it turned out, I didn’t like pepparkakor nearly as much as Pippi did, but no matter. Like my mother, I was turned into a lifelong Gourmet devotée.

That’s not to say we were without perspective: In the 80s, we wondered at the magazine’s future, as it seemed more inclined toward high end (read: out of our reach) travel than culinary exploration. But as it shifted back to a more balanced perspective, we were reassured.

You can imagine, then, maybe, the anxiety and excitement I felt when, over the last few years, I got to know and befriend the impossibly lovely Ruth Reichl, the current, and, it appears, final, editor of my favorite magazine. As background: I used to work in Hollywood. I’ve met my share of people who are actually important, and many more who just think they are. Movie stars don’t make me nervous. Meeting Ruth for the first time? Much to my husband’s amusement, I was a mess. Luckily, Ruth is kind, and patient, and our friendship survived my initial butterflies.

Yesterday, I heard the news of Gourmet‘s closing from another friend, also a former editor at Gourmet. I was really shaken. Not only because I felt terrible for Ruth, whose passion for the magazine is profound, and whose devotion to the betterment of food for the benefit of the planet is consuming, but, frankly, for what Gourmet‘s demise means for all of us, for American culture, and arts, and letters, and yes, cooking. My mother said, as she stood stunned in the kitchen when I told her, “This is a terrible thing. For America. For American culture.” I couldn’t disagree.

There are other food magazines I read and enjoy, but none, for me, combined perfect recipes (tested until they worked, every time), excellent writing, and a deep sense of the importance of cooking and food to our communities, our heritage and our health. Gourmet was unique. Gourmet was relevant. Gourmet was a part of my family’s cooking experience, for more than 43 years. Thank you, Gourmet. For me and my mom, without you, cooking will never be quite the same.

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MY INTENTIONS WERE pure, I swear. My mother is one of the two best pie makers I have ever known. Ruth Reichl is the other one, so Mom is in plenty fancy foodie company. (I’m not picking favorites here. That would be stupid, and probably reduce the amount of world’s-two-best-pies in my future.) Since Ruth was in Brazil, and therefore not available for stalking for pie tips (and I suspect she’s more likely to put them on her own site, anyway) I turned to Mom. “I have a great idea!” I began. She looked suspicious. My “great ideas” and “suggestions” can be as annoying to her as hers are to me. “I want to film you making pie, and put it up on The Sister Project this week!” Her face seemed to pale, and the corners of her mouth plummeted.

“You know, it won’t be a long video,” I stammered. “Just some shots of you making your crust, mostly, you know, edited together…” I trailed off. “You make the best pie of anyone I know.” (Well, one of the two best, anyhow.) “And you make it look so easy–you could help people conquer their fear of pie crust, because yours is always so perfect.”

My compliments were sincere; my enthusiasm genuine.

“What kind of pie do you want me to make?” The tone was less, say, exuberance, than maybe, oh, suspicion. Again.

“Whatever you want, but the theme is stone fruit, so I was thinking apricot.” Her entire face puckered. “Apricot?” This time, the tone was disbelief, with perhaps a soupçon of disgust.

“Well, yeah, but, uh, I can see you don’t like that idea, so…maybe blueberry? They’re in season…”

Not an improvement: “Blueberry pie is always too sweet.”

I still wasn’t dealing with reality. I know this, in retrospect, because my tone was still sunny. “Well, you could show people how to make it not-too-sweet.”

“I never make blueberry pie. I have to go to work. Let’s talk about this later.”

Phew.

The next night, I came home from a night out with my husband; Mom had been babysitting the short people (thanks, Mom). As we came in from the garage, she flew down the stairs.

“We need to talk.”

My mind raced. What horrors could those nasty kids have unleashed on Grandma, even after being sternly warned that a bad report would eliminate the next morning’s cartoon privileges?

“It’s about the pie.” Oh, jeez. “I have to figure out what to do. I have to experiment. You know, they changed Crisco. I haven’t made a pie since. I have NO IDEA how to make the crust properly.”

“Of course you’ve made pie! What are you talking about? I ate it. The kids ate it.”

Never, EVER tell my mother she did something she said she didn’t.

“I.HAVE.NOT.MADE.PIE.”

“OK, I get it, you hate to be photographed, it’s about the video, I’m sorry, Forget it.”

“It is NOT about the video. I can’t make my crust anymore. It used to be half Crisco, half butter, but the new Crisco doesn’t work. I’ve been all over the internet tonight. Hundreds of pie bakers all over the country are in the same fix. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT TO DO. And now you’re mad at me.” Her voice was anxious, and maybe a touch shrill.

I had no idea we were in the midst of a nationwide pie crisis. But the fact that I was embroiled in a house-wide domestic crisis was becoming clear. Some louder words were exchanged, she stomped up to her room, I slammed out onto the front porch, and screamed a bit at the dog, since my actual target had removed herself from the buttery field of battle.

It’s true that when I was growing up, my mother made her pie crust with half cooking oil (she remembers Wesson, though I could have sworn it was Mazola) and half butter. Then, at some point, she switched out the oil (deemed unhealthy by Experts) for Crisco. Then the great transfat controversy unspooled, and somewhere around that time, even regular Crisco was reformulated. According to Mom, it just doesn’t work.

All this time, I’ve been making my pie crust with all butter, and though it’s not as good as Mom’s, or Ruth’s, it’s not bad. When I have it on hand, I use Plugra, the European-style butter with a higher fat content, which seems to improve my crust’s texture. I am lazy, and make mine in the food processor, instead of with a pastry blender. (My mom used the pastry blender or two knives my entire childhood, but now also sometimes uses the Cuisinart. I’VE SEEN HER, I SWEAR.) I put salt in my crust, but no sugar, because I always like a salty flavor playing off my sweets (the same reason I put sea salt in my chocolate cookies.)

In the absence of a video dispelling all the mysteries of perfect pie, you’ll have to settle for the crust recipe I use, and the best stone-fruit dessert I make, the one that is not my mother’s pie. Maybe when the apples come in, I’ll convince Mom to revisit this discussion, because it’s true that there is nothing better than Mom’s apple pie. (Except maybe Ruth’s apricot pie.) Then again, maybe I’ll just have to pray my mother ever makes me a pie again, and continue to hone my own skills. Let’s just hope that what I won’t be singing, come fall, is that chilling children’s song, No More Pie.

Suzanne Goin’s Plum Tarte Tatin

(adapted from Sunday Suppers at Lucques)

The original recipe calls for a sheet of puff pastry, and you could certainly use that instead of pie crust. I prerfer to make it with a regular pie crust, because it seems more rustic to me, and because I am too lazy to make my own puff pastry, and too cheap to pay $12 for it at the grocery store. I sometimes make my crust with whole wheat pastry flour (King Arthur brand) instead of all-purpose white flour, which gives a delicious nutty flavor that is divine against the sweet-tart plums.

3 lbs. plums, halved and pitted
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 stick unsalted butter
Crust for ten inch pie (see below), or 1 sheet of puff pastry

Toss the plums with 1/4 cup sugar and let macerate at room temperature, covered, for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make a caramel:  Put a 10 inch cast iron frying pan over medium heat for one minute. Add the butter, and when it foams, add the remaining 3/4 cup of sugar. Cook 6-8 minutes, swirling (but not stirring!) often until you have a deep brown caramel. Remove the pan from the heat and cool for 20 minutes.

Drain the plums. (The syrup makes a delicious cocktail–try it mixed with vodka and a bit of soda water, perhaps with a sprig of mint, on the rocks. That should take all your pie anxiety away.) Arrange the plums, cut side down, in concentric circles atop the caramel in the pan. Overlap them slightly if you can, and pack them in–you want them tight.

Return the pan to the stove over medium-low heat, and cook for twenty minutes until the fruit begins to soften. Cool the pan, preferably in the fridge, for two hours. If the fruit seems too syrupy after cooling, you can siphon off some of the juices with a turkey baster, but remember, this is a rustic dessert, so if juice runs when you serve it, that’s ok.

When you’re ready to bake the tart, preheat the oven to 375. Top the pan with the dough (rolled into a circle slightly larger than the diameter of your pan) or puff pastry (cut into a circle slightly larger than the diameter of your pan), turning the edges in so there’s a slightly thicker layer of pastry on the outer edge. Prick the crust in a few places with a fork, and brush gently with the beaten egg. Bake for 45-55 minutes, until the top is nicely browned. Cool in the pan on a rack for thirty minutes before unmolding: run a paring knife gently around the edge of the tarte, place a plate larger than the diameter of the pan on top of the pan, and (using potholders!) flip to unmold. Rearrange the fruit if any of it sticks to the pan (doesn’t usually happen, but sometimes can.) Serve plain, with a scoop of creme fraiche, or vanilla ice cream.

Crust:

1-1/4 cups all purpose, unbleached flour
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, very cold, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup ice water

Combine flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Sprinkle the butter evenly over, and then process on and off until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. With the machine running, add the ice water a tablespoon or so at a time. Stop the machine just as the dough comes together–you may not need all the water. Turn the dough out onto a large sheet of plastic wrap, and form into a ball, using the plastic sheet to enclose and shape the dough at the same time. If the dough seems too sticky, sprinkle on a spoonful or two of flour. When the ball is formed and wrapped, flatten it slightly so that you have a disc of dough about six inches in diameter, and an inch thick. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

When ready to make the tart, unwrap the dough and roll it out on floured wax paper. It helps to have a size guide, such as a traced circle drawn onto the waxed paper. Once the dough is rolled out, if you’re not using it immediately, chill the rolled-out circle again, between two sheets of was paper, on a baking sheet.

HOW OUR CROSS-BLOG SUMMER FEST WORKS

Thanks for attending Summer Fest, a four-week cross-blog celebration of fresh-from-the-garden food ideas, co-created (alphabetically listed) by A Way to Garden, Mattbites, Steamy Kitchen, and White on Rice Couple, with guest appearances from Gluten-Free Girl, Simmer Till Done and Paige of The Sister Project (hey, that’s me!). And from you—that’s critical. Your contributions are desired, and needed, whether growing tips or recipes or anything at all on topic.

So now it’s your turn: Have a recipe or tip for something wonderful with stone fruit? Leave it in the comments below, and then go visit my collaborators and do the same. The cross-blog event idea works best when you leave your recipe or favorite links (whether to your own blog or someone else’s) at all the host blogs. That way, they are likely to be seen by the widest audience. Everyone benefits.

If you wish, grab the juicy tomato badge (illustrated by Matt Armendariz of Matt Bites) and make a whole post on your blog on this week’s topic, to really jump into the sauce. Up to you: A whole post, a comment; badge, no badge—whatever you wish. (It’s meant to be fun, viral, fluid. No pressure, just delicious.)

And in case I forget, won’t somebody remind me on Twitter? Thanks. We’ll be talking it up there, too.

The Summer Fest 2009 schedule: Tuesday, July 28: HERBS. Any and all. Tuesday, August 4: FRUITS FROM TREES (also known as stone fruits, but we won’t scream if you toss in a berry or another fruit, promise). Tuesday, August 11: BEANS-AND-GREENS WEEK (either or both, your choice). Tuesday, August 18: TOMATO WEEK. How do you like them love apples? See you for the final two!

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KIDS FIGHT, RIGHT? This is not news. Not to those of you who grew up with siblings, anyway. As an only child, I think I believed that incessant sibling squabbling was like one of those subjects exaggerated by the media, say, anyone’s interest in the Brangelina brood: something real, to be sure, but perhaps not quite as culturally pervasive as the folks at Us magazine would like us all to believe.

Apparently–I was wrong. This whole summer, my formerly-loving children have been near blows, nearly all the time. They fight about the couch: who gets to sit on it, and where. They fight about breakfast: who should eat what, when, and prepared by whom. (As if, really, anyone other than me makes breakfast in my house. Ha!) They fight about playdates: who is having one, when, and with what lunch being served.

They fight about me, and their dad, and which one of them the dog loves most. They fight about things they don’t even like, like who gets in the tub first, or who gets to brush their teeth. They hit, and shove, and growl and…apparently none of this is at all unusual, and is only objectionable, really, because it’s annoying to parents and can make for embarrassing scenes, say, in restaurants.

A great friend of mine was visiting this summer, with her two boys, and they were engaging in similarly spirited mutually-assured destruction. She just laughed. She’s one of five you see, the fourth-youngest, and their brawl looked, to her, like a loving expression of familial joy.

But I remember when my kids looked like this, delighting in each other’s company, gazing adoringly (adoringly! really!) at each other.

Two mothers now have, unprompted by me (though perhaps, now that I think about it, prodded by witnessing my kids’ battles and my despair) suggested that I read the book Siblings Without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. I am a skeptic when it comes to parenting books. I tend to avoid them, which is probably foolish, but seems to save what little sanity and pride I may have left. But these mothers, with similarly hostile two-child camps in their own homes, swear by the wisdom within.

Off to the library. Meanwhile, other strategies of sibling containment management are welcome. Surely some of my fellow moms have some secrets to share? Please help, signed, Your Only-Child Sister.

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This is what an $88 bra looks like.

I DON’T REALLY REMEMBER shopping for my first bra; I’m sure I was with my mother, who insists that I remember everything. (See Mom? I don’t. Some things are better blocked right out.)

I was probably in 7th grade or so; and we probably went to Marshall Field’s in downtown Chicago, where I loved to have lunch in the pink tea room, which served cheddar cheese soup and Frango mints. Wherever, whenever that fateful trip took place, it must not have been fun, even with the cheddar soup and the chocolate. Because to this day, I loathe bra shopping.

I know I’m not alone in this. (Don’t believe me? Read the stories over on Marion’s blog post on the same subject. We’re a sisterhood of lingerie-purchasing-avoiders, it seems.) But I often feel alone: alone with my too-big chest that means I can’t wear t-shirts without looking obscene, or Empire-waists without looking pregnant. (Yes: I am one of the lucky women who has been asked–too often–if I am pregnant, when I am not. It happened the first time when I was 21. “NO!” I wanted to shout. JUST FAT!!”)

Sometimes, when you feel alone, inexplicably, you rest there, and resist the urge to end your loneliness. Through the years, I avoided bra shopping so studiously, and resisted help so strenuously, that I ended up with a small collection of ratty, ill-fitting bras. Not great for your romantic life, let alone your self-esteem. A friend (small-breasted, lucky girl, but a beauty and fashion writer) told me about her favorite bra store. It took me about four years to work up the nerve to go in.

An ugly Beverly Hills storefront, Miss Stevens is one of those old-school corsetieres full of old-lady fitters right out of central casting, complete with shirt dresses and eastern European accents.  The fitter took one look at me, tsk tsk’d (I told you: central casting) and told me we needed to get my bosom up off my waist. Well, yes. We did.

She grabbed a bra or three from boxes stacked floor to ceiling behind the glass counter, and led me to a fitting room. Modesty had no place here, as she stood there, hands on hips, waiting for me to strip in front of her. Not wanting to seem awkward or ill-at-ease (ha!) I did. Lo and behold, though the first bra was a bust (sorry) the second and third were comfortable. And when I put my shirt back on, indeed, my breasts were not lurking around my waist but riding high(er). “Ahh. Much better.” She approved. So did I.

I felt like a new woman. I was so delighted to have a bra that fit (no pooching out at the top, no cutting into my shoulders, no wires digging into my chest) that I became something of an underwire evangelist, forcing friends and even my mother to endure the Miss Stevens brand of tough love.

But out of laziness, cheapness (good bras are not a bargain item, sadly) or both, I didn’t go back. By the time we moved to New York, my bras, though they more or less still fit, were starting to fray. I supplemented with a new supply of my favorite Shrek sports bras, but missed the feeling of knowing I was wearing something, well, nice, underneath it all. When we returned to L.A. for a vacation last year, I made a quick swoop through Miss Stevens, avoiding Magda the fitter, much to her dismay, but buying new versions of the same bras I’d bought and loved three years earlier.

When we got home to the farm, our puppy methodically fished each new bra out of my hamper, and chewed all but two into oblivion.

I was back where I started, until brilliant Marion tackled this topic a few weeks ago. Thanks to commenter Petra, for whom I now have an extra-special affection, I discovered an online source for all my favorite bras–and some new ones, like that break-the-bank number up above, which is the most comfortable, most flattering bra I may ever have worn. While I won’t rule out an occasional fitting (damn you, gravity and age) I can now stock up (and return!) without adding a plane ticket to the mix. (Almost rationalizes that expensive purchase.) And Petra’s endorsement of Her Room‘s customer comments is right on—as if we needed more proof that every sister has a bra story to tell.

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This is not my tattoo, Mom.

MOTHER’S DAY, A manufactured holiday that can sometimes be second only to Valentine’s Day in overpromising and underdelivering, is mercifully over, once again. This year, mine was exactly right: We went out for a nice lunch with my mom, and some good friends, and the kids mostly behaved, and my other mom friend and I toasted each other with something called a “health margarita,” so named because (in addition to the requisite tequila) it included grapefruit juice.

I got perfect presents: My son drew flowers and wrote “I love you, Mom” on a canvas grocery bag that is now my prized possession, and my daughter made me a painting, drew me a page full of hearts, and wrapped the latter, almost all by herself, in birthday paper.

I gave my mother a couple of books I hoped she’d like, one on gardening, the other a field guide to birds, both titles specific to the region of the country (mine) she now calls home. She’s lived with us now for about two months, and I think we’re all mostly amazed at how well it’s going. Mom says her goal is to not intrude and to not interrupt our peaceful home, and she’s mostly succeeded. My mother is older than she’d like me to write here, older than you’d guess if you met her, and vainer about her age than I ever expected her to be. She’s active, she still works, she’s beautiful and fit and aware and constantly learning new things. She moved to be with me, to be with our kids (ok, more the kids than me) but most of all, I think, to not live alone anymore after too many years that way.

I like to laugh and tell friends that what’s good enough for Michelle Obama is good enough for me. (It’s not just my multi-generational household: I’m working on my arms, and just like her, I put my vegetable garden on the front lawn.)

But after reading Marion’s memories of her and Margaret’s mother’s last years, I realize how lucky I am. I am one of the lucky members of what my friend Rebecca tells me is called the “sandwich” generation: mid-life adults smack in the middle of young children and aging parents, the meat in the familial sandwich. I am lucky because I’m a care-sharer, not a care-giver: My mom is here not by necessity, but by choice.

It’s true that having my mom here gives me a childcare backstop better than any babysitter. But it’s also a rare kind of comfort to feel as an adult: the idea that just upstairs is the person who loves me No.Matter.What. Yes, we grate on each other. Yes, we ask too much of each other sometimes and thank each other too little. But no matter how much we may annoy each other (and, yes, we do), right here: I have my mama.

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IHAVE A SECRET to share. I was not always an only child. Once upon a time, I had a Baby Brother. I’m pretty sure I hated him.

I’m not talking about an imaginary friend. I’ve had those. They are way, way better.

No, Baby Brother was a bird. Read that again: a bird. He was a red-bellied woodpecker who was raised by his mother in our Tennessee backyard, when I was about 7 years old. He was a shameless flirt, and my mother adored him. She adored him so much, she named him Baby Brother.

She built a special woodpecker feeder, and stocked it with homemade food from her own recipe. When the little darling chased away his mother and sister, the better to keep all the food my mother served, he wasn’t satisfied. He still had competition, and he knew it.

Every afternoon, Baby Brother waited in the woods, watching for my school bus to stop at the bottom of our hill. From the bus stop, I had a 10-minute walk up a steep, windy road to get to our front door. All I wanted when I walked into my kitchen was my very own after-school snack. Every afternoon, Baby Brother flew to the back feeder just as I turned the knob of the door, and started calling out for more food. I’m quite sure, from the snippy tone of my writing, you’ve already figured out who got fed first.

This year, my mother moved in with me. I’d been planning to build one of her special woodpecker feeders with my son, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet, so I suggested that they do it together. We heard woodpeckers every morning last spring, and spot them constantly–their urgent, swooping flight patterns always give them away. I was pretty sure we’d have some takers for my mom’s special blend.

Sure enough, within a week, a young red-bellied woodpecker, a male, made an appearance. I called to my mom to come downstairs to see him. “He looks just like Baby Brother,” I said to her. “He must be his seventh cousin.”

She turned to me, genuinely surprised. “I can’t believe you remember him.” She laughed. “You know, he used to try to beat you home every day after school so I’d feed him first.”

Oddly enough, I remember.

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from "The Betty Betz Teen-Age Cookbook" (Henry Holt, 1953)

IT SEEMS THAT in every ancient recipe box or ladies’ auxilary-style sisterly cookbook I find, there’s a recipe (or several) for tuna casserole. I didn’t grow up eating it, though I do remember having it once at a friend’s house. Unlike my mother, who taught herself to cook by following along with Julia Child and seemed a bit suspicious of convenience-food casseroles, my friend’s mom, Mrs. Marsh, swore that she couldn’t cook anything without a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. Hmmm…

Kevin's Mom's Tuna Casserole (photo courtesy of Kevin Dorff)

That would no doubt be sweet music to the Campbell’s Soup folks, who likely invented the tuna casserole (for the purpose of selling Cream of Mushroom) in the 1930s or ’40s. According to the (completely fascinating) website The Food Timeline, the first recipe for tuna casserole appeared in a Campbell’s cookbook in 1941.

Photo courtesy of Robert Jones

It must have struck a chord, because post-World War II, the ladies auxiliary cookbooks that we love so here on TSP are rife with riffs on the original.

from "A Book of Favorite Recipes" Compiled by The Community Cooks of The Sisters of Christian Charity Motherhouse at Wilmette, Illinois (1967)

There’s Tuna Casserole, plain and simple; Tuna Noodle Casserole (the version I remember from my friend’s house); Company Tuna Bake (fancy!) and even Tuna Peanut Casserole (which, can I just say it, sounds disgusting, though I’ve included the recipe so you can judge for yourself).

from "A Book of Favorite Recipes" Compiled by The Community Cooks of The Sisters of Christian Charity Motherhouse at Wilmette, Illinois (1967)

My friend Kari, an inimitable writer, crafter, stylist and all around great sister-friend, swears by tuna casserole. For her and her husband, it’s serious comfort food. Sister that she is, she agreed to share her recipe.

Kari’s Old School Tuna Casserole (courtesy of Kari Chapin)

Kari says: “While you can class or health this up, I like it best the old fashioned way. This is a true comfort food for me. I tried it with wheat shells and fancier, healthier soups and without the gross fried onions, and let’s just say, I only want to eat this the ‘bad’ way. I’m pretty sure it’s not meant to be healthy.”

1 box of whatever pasta shape you like best for holding onto sauce–we go for small shell pasta
1 can Campbell’s cheddar cheese soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup (Cream of anything works really. Broccoli and cheddar soup is very good too.)
1 large can of chunk light tuna in water
1 bag of frozen peas (or 1 can of canned peas, if you prefer)
salt and pepper
For the topping some people like crumbled potato chips but I like French’s fried onion bits.

Boil the noodles. Drain tuna.
Rinse peas (if you are using frozen) so they are not all clumped together.

Put cooked noodles, drained tuna, soups and rinsed peas into a dutch oven. Mix it all up really well and salt and pepper to taste. Cover with fried onion bits. Or if you use chips, smash them up and sprinkle on top.

Bake in oven. I usually use a 2.5 quart dutch oven and bake it at 350 F for 1/2 hour or so.

Serve it up in bowls with more fried onions on top.

Enjoy.

Do you and your sisters partake of a tuna bake? We’d love to have the recipe.

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JUST THE OTHER morning, sipping my green tea and surfing The Sister Project, I was transported in a flash to a backyard I haven’t visited in nearly 40 years. It’s all Marion’s fault.

Like Marion (maybe) and her daughter (for sure), I had an imaginary friend as a child. Her name was Mary, and I particularly liked to play with her in my backyard. She liked to perch with me on the rocks overlooking my mother’s fish pond. We may have talked to the goldfish, but I’m not sure–I was only 3.

Sometimes, I think, she took me to her backyard, too, where she had a swing set, something I lacked, and coveted. I talked to her, a lot, out loud, and sometimes in front of my parents, who tried hard to hear her side of the conversation. I think, if I’m not mistaken, Mary also had a pet bear, but I don’t believe that I ever met him.

As an only child, much younger than any of the neighbor kids, I needed Mary. She kept me company, answered my questions, and gave me a scapegoat for misdeeds. (Though I’m pretty sure the time I Crayola-ed my parents’ bedroom walls floor to 3 feet high as punishment for my mother taking an escape-the-toddler daytime bath, I didn’t even bother trying to foist the blame on Mary.)

When we left Cincinnati, my second of several childhood homes, for Chattanooga, Mary decided not to come with us. To this day, I don’t know why, though I think I do remember discussing her decision with my (very understanding) mother. Not so long after we arrived in Tennessee, I managed to replace my pretend friend Mary with a real friend Mary. Real Mary didn’t have a bear, but she did have a beagle named Happy and two real sisters of her own. Those brilliant, beautiful girls became the standard against which all future sister-groups would be judged, and though Mary and I lost touch for many years (we moved again when I was 10, leaving Tennessee for Chicago) we recently reconnected thanks to the miracle of Facebook, and I’ve been able to ask her all the questions I could think of about life as the middle of three incredible sisters.

My kids have yet to reveal any imaginary friends to me, though my daughter does often talk to her feet (the left one is Finn, the right Kiki) and play with them as though they are babies.

I suppose I could have done that with Imaginary Mary. But probably not with the bear…

Do you or someone you know need an imaginary friend? You could make your own–the Imaginary Friend doll above is available online. (Her name is Mona.)

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