Eating traditions.

 
   Christmas Eve my mother made the same lasagna every year. She would start the meat sauce in the morning and it would simmer on the stove all day, filling the house with it's aroma, warmth and promise of a delicious meal to come. Every time I make her lasagna, I think of her moving around our kitchen with care on a cold winter's day.
   On Christmas morning she made french toast and served it on a mismatched set of Christmas plates. Some of the plates were her grandmothers and some were hers from when she was little. On Christmas morning, I make french toast the way she taught me, with plenty of milk to make it moist, cinnamon and vanilla, and serve it on the same dishes. Placing the old Rudolf plate that my sister and I loved, in front of my little boy.
   For Christmas parties she made a lemon poppy seed cake and an upside down pineapple cake. I have not made them many times but I do think of them come Christmas and remember the taste of that sweet lemon filling layered with the speckled yellow lemon cake and the tiny soft crunch of the black poppy seeds. I would like to make this one again. Maybe this year.
   On Easter morning there was always an Easter basket outside my bedroom door when I woke. Little trinkets circling a chocolate bunny in the center. When I had grown old enough, I would leave her a basket outside her door too. And when she was gone, I would exchange baskets with boyfriends. Even my Jewish ones. Now I have two little boys to make Easter baskets for and I let my husband off the hook. We don't exchange baskets anymore.
   Thanksgivings at her brother's house, my Aunt would place one foil wrapped chocolate turkey on each plate. I thought they were so pretty and such a special thing. A dessert before dinner. Amazing. Any time I have made a Thanksgiving dinner at home, I have searched to find foil covered chocolate turkeys to put on each plate. I wonder if my mom brought a specific thing for Thanksgiving every year. If she did, I was not aware or can't remember now.
   My favorite baking traditions were for my birthday. Every year she made me a pink lemonade ice cream cake and moon cookies. The cake had a pale pink, frozen, lemonade whipped frosting, yellow cake and layer of pink lemonade ice cream in the center. Even when I went off to college, she made this cake and put in a cooler packed with ice and drove it from Long Island into the city to my dorm. I think she may have been a little superstitious about it.
   The moon cookies were crescent moon sugar cookies. When I was in elementary school, she would make vanilla cupcakes and dye vanilla frosting a light blue. Each cupcake would have a moon cookie and those pastel flower, almost star shaped sprinkles. When I was born I had a big round face and she said, "Ohhhh, you look like the moon...." and I looked back at her and made a little O with my mouth. And so she called me moon.
   I have made the cake a few times. I think I had made the cookies and then for a long time I could not as I had lost the recipe. Until an old and dear friend told me she had saved it for me just in case. And so I made them again. And there they were, like an old friend themselves, so happy to be reacquainted. This year another old and dear friend held out my mother's moon cookie cutter and said, "Is this yours?" I recognized it right away. I must have given it to her to hold or for some other reason. I can't remember. But had forgotten. I was so glad to see it.
   My birthday is in a few days. I am going to make the cake and maybe even some cookies. I have already made a home made organic lemonade concentrate. Imagine?
   I have been a little off kilter lately. In need of parenting. Wishing for supportive words, encouragement, guidance, a true and loyal fan. I find ways to parent myself. To take good care. I try to celebrate and encourage myself. And I find that keeping a tradition like baking a well loved and remembered cake on a birthday or preparing a meal from an old stained and familiar recipe card in my mom's handwriting is a peaceful respite.
   I was lying in bed this morning thinking about baking this cake and making the time and why it was important. How keeping traditions is like a bird flying a great distance and each repeated tradition is like the bird alighting in a tree to rest for a moment. Or a needle and thread moving into and out of fabric, keeping even stitches to hold a seam or create a pretty, even boarder. Each time we repeat a tradition, the needle touches the fabric and sends it's string through to hold time in place, to mark the days in an even pattern.
  I am the keeper of traditions in our house now. I guess most mothers are. Maybe because we feel the passage of time so deeply, watching our children grow and change before our eyes. Wanting to remind them to alight on this tree for a minute. Rest. Celebrate this life we have together. Acknowledge each other and the love we share every day through our comings and goings, moving from one thing to the next, day by day. Here. Here we are. It is a special day again. The earth has moved around the sun and we barely noticed. It says so right here on the calendar. This day has a flavor and a taste and color. And like little magnets, this cake, this dish, binds us with the day with pleasure, reminding us of all the days like it that came before.