Hamburger Pie

My dad recently bequeathed my mom's recipe box to me. He presented it with grave concern.

"Don't change anything, Kad."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't try to organize it. Your mudder had a system."
"Do you think she still needs her system?"
"Kadrin! Your poor mudder, God rest her soul."
"Dad, I'm just saying I doubt it really makes a difference at this point."
My dad just threw his hands in the air.

"I don't know. Maybe you'll discover something about your mudder."

This conversation happened over a month ago. Mom's Recipe box has sat on my counter taped shut until this afternoon. With Mr. Brown napping at my side, I delved into the Box.

It's pretty basic looking. Small, wooden, says "Recipes" on the front. Faded blue and white flowers that are slightly psychedelic looking adorn the front. Inside were hundreds of bits of notebook paper with my mom's handwriting on it, small recipes torn out of magazines: cookies, pies, fruit tarts, stripe-it-rich cake ("how to make an ordinary cake extraordinary"), playdough (edible and nonedible versions), various meat pies, apricot delights, marshmallow candy, cold pasta salad, potica (a Slovene tradition in my family) . . . a child, me perhaps, had colored with green crayon on some of the recipes. Some recipes were faded to the point of being ilegible. Some my mom had typed on to index cards or picked up at a recipe trade in the neighborhood or at a Tupperware party.

It was a time capsule of sorts. I don't know if I maintained the integrity of the Box. So many bits of paper. My recipes are mostly printed out from various websites,placed in plastic sleeves and put into 3-ring binders. I'm not judging my mom. She did have three kids after all. It was funny to find some of the things I liked as a kid. Other things, like hamburger pie, that I didn't as much. Four different pumpkin pie recipes. Reminded me of the Thanksgiving when my mom forgot to put sugar in the pumpkin pie, yet vehemently denied that she needed reading glasses.

Towards the back of the box, I pulled out my family's recipe for cornbread stuffing. Quite a find. The handwriting was different, more uniform, more familiar. My dad's. He'd dated it. He dates everything. 11/22/91. Our first Thanksgiving without mom. I remembered my dad's weight loss. I remember the general sadness that hung around his eyes and mouth. How, even surrounded by immediate and extended family, he said later that he felt utterly and completely alone.

In other news, I'm addicted to "Rock Star: Inxs." Although most days of the week I'd like Dave Navarro to fill me with his luscious manjuice, he looks like a flaming faggot on that show. Such a waste.