Andrea smiles. “Like I said, you learn things. A good recipe makes all the difference, I think. Do you like to cook?”
Lauren uses her paintbrush to cut in a straight line against the window. “Not really. I’m hoping to learn, though. We have to feed our kids more than hamburgers, right?”
“My kids would have loved hamburgers every night! Miriam says you bought a really cute table.”
Lauren stops her work, looking up at her. “It probably sounds kind of stupid but I imagined me and Travis and our kids sitting around the table, eating together.”
“That doesn’t sound stupid,” Andrea says, peering at Lauren over her shoulder.
“I don’t remember doing that with my mom and dad, and I’d like to do it with my family.” Lauren doesn’t recall mealtimes with her own mom and dad. She has hazy memories of her dad before he went to prison, sitting on the sofa in their cramped apartment and eating a bowl of cereal now and then. Her mom never cooked, and when she began her jail stints, Lauren began the rounds of foster homes. She did have a couple of foster moms who were good cooks, especially Lori, from the last house she was in, but she remembers eating a lot of sandwiches and hot dogs growing up. To this day, if she never ate another hot dog again it would be fine with her.
“And you will enjoy lots of meals together around your table,” Andrea says. “In a beautiful green kitchen.”
“It’s gray!” Miriam yells from the next room. “What is wrong with you people?”
Andrea and Lauren laugh out loud as Gloria hoots from the living room.
EIGHT
June 2012
When she finishes her shift in the floral department at Clauson’s Supermarket, Lauren shops for ingredients she needs for some of the recipes she and Travis discovered inside the table drawer. “These are more groceries than you’ve ever bought,” Ben says, bagging them. He drops one of the handwritten notes that has made him famous in Grandon into one of the sacks and places it inside her cart. “Are you having a party?”
“If I was,” Lauren says, “you would be invited!” She leans closer to him, whispering. “I’m learning how to cook.”
“Is someone teaching you?” Ben asks, his face lit up with the childlike wonder she loves most about him.
Lauren thinks for a moment. “Actually, yeah. Someone is teaching me.” She gives him a quick hug before leaving. “Hopefully I’ll be having you over real soon for dinner!” She loads the groceries into her car, finds the sack that includes Ben’s note, and reads it: New things are ahead. Just be sure your eyes are open so you don’t miss them! Have a great day, Ben. She smiles, tucking the note inside the glove compartment, where she has kept every single note from Ben since she first met him.
She loves the way the kitchen now makes her feel with the fresh paint over the once-bland walls, and the cute table positioned right in front of the small bay window. The groceries are soon put away. Lauren pulls out the recipe for chicken enchiladas and sits down at the table, reading through the card once again.
Hello, my sweet girl! Your grandma and I worked together on these enchiladas and finally got the recipe to where it was a winner for all of you. Remember how many your dad ate each time I put these on the table?
Lauren looks at the handwriting with its perfect slant to the right and soft tails that trail the m and n and the curlicue atop the o and imagines a mother so unlike her own, a woman who obviously made dinner for her family each evening and then took the time to write down favorite recipes for her own child. She envisions them sitting down at the dinner table that now sits inside her own kitchen and wonders where they lived and in what era. She glances at the card.
These are nice and plump and perfect for company! The key is making sure that the chicken is tender and not overbaked or overboiled. Follow these cooking instructions to a T and you’ll have moist, tender chicken every time. And whatever you do, don’t use milk, use whipping cream!
Lauren moves to the refrigerator and pulls out three chicken breasts, places them on a cutting board, and uses the bottom of her smallest pot to flatten them. She peeks at the recipe again:
Sprinkle each side with a little salt and pepper. Heat a skillet and when a sprinkle of water sizzles and hisses on top of it, add one tablespoon of butter. When the butter has melted, swirl it around in the skillet and place the chicken breasts into it. Cook for one minute only! Flip them over, turn down the heat to low, and put a lid on the skillet. Now this is important … do not lift that lid for ten minutes! When the ten minutes are up, you won’t find any pink inside the chicken, but you will find a moist and tender breast. But only if you leave that lid in place for ten minutes! While the chicken is cooking, move on to making the sauce.
Lauren preheats the oven to 350°F and pulls the blender that she and Travis found at a garage sale to the front of the counter. She opens a four-ounce can of green chilies and dumps it into the blender, along with a fifteen-ounce can of diced tomatoes, an eighth of a cup of fresh cilantro leaves, an egg, three-quarters of a cup of whipping cream, and a dash of salt. She blends it together. With time remaining before she needs to check the chicken, she opens the packages of cheese and shreds two cups of the Monterey Jack and a half cup of the sharp cheddar. When the timer goes off on her phone, she lifts the lid of the skillet and stabs one of the chicken breasts with a fork, using a knife with the other hand to cut into it. “No pink,” she says, impressed with herself. She places the chicken breasts onto a plate and lets them cool for a few minutes. When they are cool enough to touch, Lauren shreds each chicken breast with a fork and puts it into a bowl. She dices half an onion into small bits and scrapes it off of the cutting board and into the bowl, along with one cup of the Monterey Jack, and stirs it all together. Opening a package of small flour tortillas, she pulls one out and holds it in one hand while using the other to fill it with half a cup of the chicken mixture. She wraps the tortilla around the chicken mixture, and places it seam-side down in a nine-by-thirteen-inch pan, filling the pan with enchiladas and then pouring the sauce over all. She sprinkles a cup and a half of the Monterey Jack and cheddar cheese mixture over the top and places it inside the preheated oven. She reaches for the recipe.
I always serve these with sour cream, guacamole, Mexican rice, and salsa. I’m including the recipes for the Mexican rice, guacamole, and salsa, but you’ll need to make the salsa way ahead of time. Remember how much time that always took? But remember how fresh it tasted and how much we’d laugh at Dad’s impersonations? His Johnny Carson would leave us in tears! Now that you kids are grown, I haven’t made this in ages. With just your dad and me here at home, meals are much smaller and quieter, but he still makes me laugh with his horrible impersonations. My sweet girl, I hope you have a noisy kitchen like I did! I loved those days. They went so fast. Enjoy these with your family!
Lauren feels a pang of sadness as she reads the words and can’t imagine how the owner of these cards feels, no longer having these recipes. She reasons that maybe these cards are much older than she thinks and perhaps “sweet girl” has passed away. While the enchiladas bake, she moves on to making the Mexican rice and guacamole. Homemade salsa will have to wait until another day, along with any impersonations that Travis might try.