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Small Town Soup by Karrie McAllister Mama's Got a Brand New Spoon I used to get a little wild in the kitchen, especially at Christmas. Maybe it was the excitement of the upcoming holiday, maybe it was the fingerfuls of cookie dough I snitched every time my mom turned around. Or maybe it was just that I really loved baking butter cookies with my mom. We made them every year, always using the same recipe that was scratched on an old index card in my Grandmother’s handwriting. My mom would make the batter and when it was finished, I would help her roll the dough into little balls before I got to stick my sticky little fingers in the middle and push in a very red or very green maraschino cherry. Pushing in that cherry was what I lived for. It was one of those special memories that, looking back, makes no sense to stand out, but I think it was my favorite time spent in that childhood kitchen. But until that wondrous moment came when I could poke those cherries in, I had time to kill, and that’s where the story begins… At the age of nine I fell in love with Bing Crosby. There it was, the mid-1980s and I could have cared less if Kirk Cameron walked in and planted a giant smooch on me—I would have pushed him away and waited for that old-school crooner with the tenor voice. So while my mother worked at making a super giant batch of Grandma’s butter cookies, I armed myself with my best Bing hat and an old wooden spoon microphone that unfortunately doubled as my drumstick. I should mention that the old wooden spoon was old because it belonged to my mother’s mother. I should also mention that antique spoons don’t make the best drumsticks. There I was, singing and drumming while my mom measured and mixed, and during a particularly fast percussion solo on the pantry door, the spoon snapped in two. My mother froze, batter flung around the room, and my pre-adolescent version of Bing Crosby went as white as White Christmas. Once my mother and I came out of spoon shock, she quickly turned off the beaters, wiped up the batter, and threw the broken wood in the trash can, while I stood there with a sorry look on my face and a make-shift Fedora on my head. “No use keeping this,” she said, and then went back to creaming butter and sugar. But while I sang, I kept thinking about how my mom kept her cool after I broke her spoon. In my goofiness I had destroyed one of her memories—she had probably made butter cookies with her mother with that very spoon. In my guilt, I had my father drive me to the nearest spoon-selling store the very next day, where I attempted to replace the spoon, and the memories, that I had broken. I wrapped the spoon in the best paper I could find and presented my mother with her replacement on Christmas morning. She opened the box, smiled and said, “you shouldn’t have.” “But mom, I broke Grandma’s special spoon. I had to get you a new one.” She thanked me and hugged me and put her new spoon in the utensil holder on the counter, where it sat, untouched, for as long as I can remember. It’s not until now, when I am making butter cookies with my own children that I finally understand. My mom didn’t really need a new spoon. Sure, I may have broken a piece of her past, but making cookies together was a new memory, and precious memories like that are all that a mother can ever ask for, even if it costs you an old spoon. I can only hope that my kids and I can have our own memories of making Grandma’s butter cookies and listening to Bing at Christmas -- I’m just glad I have plastic spoons. Karrie McAllister, Webmaster and Regular Columnist, has dabbled in everything from coal mining to culinary classes. She and her family live in Northeast Ohio where conversations in the grocery store and pierogis are as common as Amish buggies. Her local column, Small Town Soup, appears in local newspapers and her writing has appeared on numerous web sites. She is slowly discovering the benefits of being a stay at home mom, including mid-afternoon naps, staying in pajamas until noon, as many leftover PBJ sandwich crusts as she wants, and being constantly entertained by her two nutty children. Read more of Karrie at her website, www.KarrieMcAllister.com.
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