Casserole. It doesn’t photograph well. “I’ve heard Americans eat a lot of broccoli,” Chiara says when I tell her I’ve made mom’s broccoli & rice casserole. Technically, I don’t have my mom’s actual recipe, though I suspect my sister must. I substitute. The way I usually do. Making use of what’s in my cabinet or locally accessible. No can of condensed soup. I make roux. Butter. Flour. Milk. Adding the milk so slowly I hear Fortuny whimper at my feet. Whisking, the pan clattering against the stove. The roux bubbling, thick. I hear mom “Roux is just a fancy word for gravy.” I add Fondu cheese. What did mom use? Velveeta? It wasn’t cheddar. That’s for sure. The packaged fondu had been bought on trip to Switzerland. I roast broccoli in the oven along with cauliflower. I add half the cauliflower & the other half puree into soup for later this week. The rice is risotto. Arborio. High in starch. I stir in bouillon. I have a hard time making risotto without white wine, but mom definitely didn’t cook with wine. The roux was already a bridge too far. She was a product of the 60s. Marrying my dad in what must have been 68 when she must have been 18. Hers was the 1st generation that didn’t have to make roux. She embraced box food & I grew up on it. Kraft macaroni & cheese. Rice-a-Roni. The San Francisco treat. Mom was a cake box feminist. If Julia Childs wrote for the servantless American cook, ready made food-packaged mixes & powders, canned foods that simply need to be heated, were for women like my mom so they could focus their time elsewhere. “I don’t want to spend all day in the kitchen.” Mom says as she shingles our roof. The ranch house had a leak. This was the taste of childhood in the 70s & 80s in middle America. When I enroll in cooking school in France, mom gives me a puzzled look. “What did you learn today?” she asks when I call “Lapin au Moutard.” “Rabbit! My daddy use to kill rabbits when times were tough.” I don’t tell her what I paid per kilo. Mom starts watching Food Network & asking about certain foods.”Have you tried truffle?” she asks and when I bring it home she says “This tastes like dirt.” I laugh and she adds, “I think it’s an acquired taste.”

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