When I was little, my mum was always working, day and night, literally every day of the week and I remember her singing old hymns that talked about Jesus’ love for us whilst working… The vast majority of the time she was working in our kitchen and to be able to be around her, I was in the kitchen too. That is how my passion for cooking and the development of my cooking skills started. She taught me how to cook from a very early age, but her own story was very different from mine…
When my mum was growing up, my grandmother wouldn’t allow her to help preparing a meal. “You will learn how to cook when you get married”, she used to tell her… So, when my mum got married and became the sole responsible for all the family meals in an era where the internet and Google did not exist, she struggled a lot.
Sometimes she would make enough food to feed an army, sometimes it was not enough, sometimes the food was undercooked, sometimes she would overcook or even burn it; sometimes it would be under-seasoned, other times it would be too salty… To add stress to the whole situation, my mum had to finish every meal sharp on time because my dad had very strict working hours and many times the clock worked against her.
But my mum has always been a fighter and she rose to the challenge majestically. By the time I became part of the family, nearly a decade later, my mum was already famous for her delicious food. She not only used to feed our family with the most amazing food made from scratch, but she also became the cook of the school next door to our house, a profession that she kept when we moved from the farm to the city until she retired. If that was not enough, my mum also used to make a variety of foods by order, such as cakes, sweet breads, pies, pastas and some Brazilian snacks to help to complement our family’s income.
No matter how delicious my mum’s food would turn out, she would always find a way of making it better. “Next time I will add a bit more of this, I will put a bit less of that, I will beat it longer, I will chop it finer, I will bake it a bit less or a bit longer”… I think that is the reason why she became such an amazing cook! Then when she would find the perfect measures, the perfect methodology, the perfect timing, she would share it with everyone who was interested, despite of the fact that she was living in a society where people loved to keep their family food secrets to themselves.
There was a time that I used to feel sorry for my mum because she had a life of so much work and so little holidays, and now that she has the means to travel, she much prefers to stay home… But lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the meaning of work and I’ve been reflecting about my mum’s life… It is so disheartening to see so many people unhappy with the work they do all day long, the majority of their days. So many people trying to work with something that they were clearly not made to do, trying to become someone that they were never meant to be… That never happened to my mum! She was blessed with the opportunity of doing what she absolutely loved and what she undoubtedly excelled in: cooking!
Her generosity, her excellence and her joy of sharing good food with the people around her have had such an impact on my life and I hope this blog will become a place where I can share the amazing knowledge and values I learned from her because it would be a waste to keep it only to myself!
