The Great Consolidator

“Mary, You’re gonna go broke saving money!”  That’s what my grandfather used to say to my grandmother, ribbing her for that gallon jug of shampoo in the corner of the shower stall.  But he was the one responsible for the cases of undrinkable No-Cal chocolate soda in the coat closet. And now this is what my own mother tells me, thrusting a jumbo jar of dried thyme in my face: “Maria, you’re gonna go broke saving money!  You know, spices lose their flavor when you hold onto them too long.”

The jar of thyme leaves is still ¾ full. So is the mustard powder.  Mustard powder is sinus-clearing hot. I use it sparingly. I bought this jar six years ago at the Awja Deli in Little Pakistan, the nickname for my Brooklyn neighborhood. Maybe it’s lost some flavor, but not its heat.

It’s MLK weekend and Mom has come to stay with me.

Three days alone together. Wow. I want to suggest we go get our nails done together at the salon on Church Avenue, the best one around, with the tropical fish tank and goldfish the size of mangoes. But mom doesn’t have nails; she works too hard. Mom is the least vain person I know. It was a big deal to get her to join me for a pedicure last summer, and for God’s sake, she has a pool, and she’s barefoot from May to October. We think about visiting the historical rooms on the 4th floor of the Brooklyn Museum, but with her arthritic spine it’s hard for mom to get around art museums and antique shops these days. Besides it’s cold out. We stay close to home, and do home projects.

It’s good domestic policy to line up projects for mom’s visits. My household invites organizational aggression and if I fail to pile up tasks like sandbags, mom-the-tsunami will soon flood corners I’d like to keep off-limits.  She will plunder my catch-all drawer and toss corks, medicine droppers, twisty ties and duck sauce. Admittedly, I don’t need any of these, but in the process, a claim ticket from the cobbler, or a slip of paper with an uplifting quotation I jotted down somewhere, will also be swept away. She will talk me into recycling my rusting tea kettle. I love the way it whistles. Worst of all, my mother will bleach my coffee mug.

So, for months now, I’ve been collecting unmatched socks. I dump the basket on the dining room table before her. In mom’s mind, people and socks should all find mates. Within ten minutes, the pile is reduced by half.  Now she’s out of matches and turns accusatory: “You must have a lot of money to waste Maria.” “No, why?” She waves a lone cashmere knee-hi.  “Some of these are expensive socks. You better look under the beds and find the mates.”  So she’s got me looking under mattresses and running half-loads of laundry, on the off chance we may scare up strays to match the remaining, single socks.

Pairing up argyles and tucking them deep into top drawers appeases mom’s sense of order, of setting things right in a world which displays so much wrong. But her satisfaction is short-lived. Mom’s real field of battle is the pantry. She is boots on the ground at my snack shelf:  she dumps out a half-full box of granola bars, tosses the box, then forces the bars into another half-full box of Fig Newton cookies. She does the same with graham crackers and Rye Krisps, nesting them side by side in an old Saltines crackers tin.  She dismantles my spice rack, and orders me to bring up baby food jars from the basement. She takes the mortar and pestle she gave me, which I rarely use, and mashes spices: cumin, Krazy Salt, paprika, cloves, and yes, the mustard powder. Voila: Mexican pork rub. She pours it into a baby food jar, and labels it with masking tape.

I was a teen when I dubbed my mother: “The Great Consolidator.” In the wee hours, before the garbage trucks even turned onto our block, she was in the pantry, consolidating cereal boxes: Total and Special K, Corn Flakes and frosted pillows of shredded wheat. And Muesli. You never knew what you were getting in your cereal bowl. It was always a Chex Party Mix at breakfast, minus the peanuts. There was nothing off-limits in the pantry. You’d reach for a handful of raisins and get mostly cranberries. You’d pour syrup on your pancakes thinking you’re getting pure Grade A maple, but instead you got mostly honey, with Karo dark corn syrup. 

 Nothing was as it appeared in the icebox either.  The true fat content of milk wasn’t reflected on the cartons.  Mom combined quarts of skim, low-fat and whole, which made creaming your coffee complicated, and .annoyed Dad who always watched his waist-line, and

Today, deployed in a corner of my kitchen, behind a fortress of Barilla pasta boxes, I wonder “What does she get out of this?”  To be of joyful service to her children has always been Mom’s aim. Her arthritic hands don’t open cans or peel potatoes anymore, but they can still shake out that last half cup of buttermilk biscuit mix from the bottom of a box of Bisquick and top off the box of Aunt Jemima (renamed rather unspectacularly, Pearl Milling pancake mix). With her strategic mind and commanding voice Mom makes up for physical limitations and still manages to reduce clutter and simplify my life, every time she visits—and that is something.

We’ve been at it for hours . Just when I thought it was quitting time, suddenly, Mom’s eyes shine. “Let’s make soup,” she says, putting on my apron. which I never use. The Great Consolidator, the Kandinski of the Kitchen, the Seurat of the Stovetop. Anyone who cooks understands it’s high art to cook from what’s on hand; to throw wide the cupboard doors and make a meal from what you find. Mom is a supremely creative person.  Cooking from the pantry is a game with only one rule: you’re not allowed to run out and buy an ingredient.  Substitutions are the name of the game. Not only a colossus of consolidation, Mom is the world’s best at making do: powdered milk for fresh, green onions for red, til everything shriveled and forgotten at the bottom of the refrigerator’s crisper drawer is dredged up. That’s how to win at this game: use it all up and make it taste great. “You’ve got a lot of black beans,” Mom says, pulling three cans from a lower shelf. Black bean soup it is!  Fifteen minutes later the stock pot bubbles, and mom adjusts the seasonings. Her caramel-colored eyes flash:  “Got an open jar of salsa in the fridge?” I rifle through the refrigerator door shelves. I do! A good one third of a jar. She dumps it in.  What else?”  I find a take-out clamshell of leftover basmati rice from the Gyro King. In it goes.

Tomorrow, after breakfast, I will set Mom up in front of her Sunday morning political shows and hop in the shower. She will grow restless with the roundtable on “Meet the Press” and when I return, I will find my kitchen sink full of brown leaves. She will have pruned my peace lily—all my houseplants in fact.

For now though, I stand behind Mom’s chair at the kitchen table, invigorated by hot black bean soup. I rub her neck while she plays solitaire. “Put the cards down mom, and just enjoy this moment.” She lays down her hand and sighs softly under my fingertips. “We were very productive today, weren’t we?” she says.  “Yes Mom, we were.” “Good enough to keep the Board of Health away for another day anyway! We’ll hit that refrigerator again tomorrow.”

Discover the Great Consolidator's recipes for black bean soup and granola.