Like me, Kate enjoyed good food, as was obvious on our first date in a little French restaurant in Manhattan called Tout Va Bien. It was opened in 1948 and I am happy to say it is still there. We both ordered their always delicious coq au vin, and I think Kate finished hers, half of a baguette, and a couple glasses of wine before I’d even made a dent in my coq.
When I first met her she was a single mother running a day care center out of her home to make ends meet. Yet, no matter how tired she was after a grueling day, she cooked a well-balanced meal and had a proper sit-down dinner with her children every night. The meals were, for the most part, very simple and kid-friendly, but they were varied and nutritious, and subsequently both of her children became very good eaters. When I joined the family, Kate and I naturally started cooking together, and the number and the types of dishes we prepared changed and grew. I introduced my family’s recipes into our daily fare and eventually, exactly like my wife, Felicity, Kate usually ended up making them better than I did. Some of them much better.
I remember one instance not long before she was diagnosed when Kate made my mother’s recipe for lasagna Bolognese, a dish that was every family member’s favorite. Handmade plain and spinach pasta are layered into a baking pan with Bolognese sauce, besciamella, and grated Parmigiano. The result is an absurdly rich yet delicate dish that no one who eats it seems to be able to stop eating. Needless to say it is very hard to get right. The pasta has to be the correct thickness, just thick enough to hold its shape and the sauce but just thin enough to almost melt in your mouth after a single bite. The Bolognese sauce cannot be too meaty, as this would make it too heavy, and it must also have the proper ratio of carrots, celery, onion, and tomato to give it the necessary sweetness. The besciamella cannot be either too runny or too “claggy,” as they say in Britain, and it must all be put together with great care so as not to damage the sheets of pasta. In short, if you have a lot of time and patience, you should try making it. If you don’t, then, really, just don’t. You’ll make yourself and everyone around you very unhappy.
Kate had been experimenting with this dish for many years and succeeding brilliantly but would always ask my mother for her opinion or for tips as to how she might improve upon it. My mother is very patient and encouraging when teaching people to cook, but because of her knowledge, experience, and prowess she can be a bit intimidating. But Kate as usual was undaunted.
Because of the time-consuming and labor-intensive process of the recipe, it was usually only served on special occasions. One day, just my parents, Kate, my stepdaughter Christine, the little kids, and I were celebrating something; what it might have been I can’t remember, but it was clearly significant enough for Kate to make this coveted culinary treat. As we all tucked in, it was immediately evident that she had outdone herself. While my dad and I were moaning with delight, I noticed my mother chewing slowly, her eyes fixed in a stare as though she were trying to make the flavors of what she had just put into her mouth permeate every last taste bud. A moment passed, and Kate looked at her and bravely asked, “What do you think, Joanie?”
My mother continued to chew silently with her eyes still focused on her plate. After a slight, and not un-tense, pause, she looked at Kate and said, “I have nothing left to teach you.” And then she started to cry.
Kate was beaming as she hugged my mother. The rest of us laughed.
And then we devoured the lasagna.
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Eating with my in-laws, Kate’s mother, Dorothy, and her second husband, Brad, was a very different experience than what I have described when eating with my parents. Although I always enjoyed visiting them, they were not necessarily a couple who liked to cook. Like many people, they enjoyed food but the process of preparing something beyond baked chicken or a steak, or experimenting with new recipes, was of no interest to them. Some people have a penchant for kitchen activities and others don’t, but our visits were always enjoyable.
Dorothy and Brad lived in a lovely home on the Maine coast not far from Freeport, an old town now composed mostly of outlet stores such as L.L.Bean and Sebago. Most summers, Kate and I and my stepchildren, and then later, our children, would drive the five hours north from Westchester for a visit. We would go out on their small boat to different islands, take hikes in the woods, or spend hours in the gargantuan L.L.Bean store in Freeport buying things we almost needed, like polar fleeces, thermoses, and carabiners. During our stays, inevitably Kate and I would do the cooking, because we knew what our kids would and wouldn’t eat, cooking made us happy, and being cooked for made my in-laws happy. But there was one meal that Brad made that neither Kate nor I would ever dare attempt.