The Great Consolidator

“Mary, You’re gonna go broke saving money!”  That’s what my Grandpa used to say to my Nana, ribbing her for that gallon jug of Breck shampoo in the corner of the shower stall.  But he was the one responsible for the cases of undrinkable, saccharine-sweetened No-Cal chocolate soda in the coat closet. And now this is what my own mother tells me, thrusting a jumbo jar of 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 quart jar of thyme leaves is still ¾ full. So is the mustard powder.  Mustard powder, unlike prepared mustard, is sinus-clearing hot. I use it sparingly. I bought this jar six years ago at my favorite Pakistani deli. Maybe it’s lost some flavor, but it’s still hot as hell.

Our family has decided to split up for MLK weekend: Granddad and my older son to Texas to shoot at quail, my husband and my younger son to Georgia to pick pecans from the cousins’ tree, and Mom has come to stay with me.

Three days together. Wow.  I don’t get my nails done with mom. She doesn’t have nails; she works too hard. She 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. It’s turning cold too. 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 her organizational aggression and if I fail to pile up structured tasks like sandbags, mom-the-tsunami will soon flood areas I’d like to keep off-limits.  She will plunder my catch-all drawer, purging it of corks, medicine droppers, twisty ties and duck sauce. Admittedly, this may be for my own good, but she will also toss scraps of paper with essential numbers and 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 I’ve been collecting unmatched socks for months, and now 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 stuck and turns accusatory: “You must have a lot of money to waste Maria.” “No mom, 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 a few stray socks and make more matches. 

Pairing up a riotous mob of argyles and tucking them deep into drawers, pleases her, but Mom’s real theatre of war is the pantry. She is boots on the ground in the snack shelf:  granola and fig bars squeezed into the same box, graham crackers and Rye Krisps, side by side in a vintage Saltines tin.  She dismantles the spice rack, and orders me to bring up baby food jars from the basement. She mashes cumin, Krazy Salt, paprika, clove, and yes, the mustard powder into a Mexican pork rub. She pours it into a palm-sized jar, and labels it with masking tape.

I was a teen when I dubbed her “the Great Consolidator.” She started in the pantry in the wee hours, where she secretly consolidated cereal boxes: Total and Special K, Corn Flakes and pillows of shredded wheat. You never knew what you were getting when you shook a box over your cereal bowl—but it was some Chex Party Mix, minus the peanuts. She graduated to syrups and dried fruits. You’d reach for a handful of raisins and get mostly cranberries, and instead of Grade A pure maple, you’d find yourself pouring out a fraudulent “pancake syrup” mixed from very little maple, some honey, and a lot of Karo corn syrup. 

 Nothing was as it appeared in the icebox either.  True fat content wasn’t reflected on milk cartons.  Mom thought nothing of combining quarts of skim, low-fat and whole, which annoyed waistline-watching Dad, and made creaming your coffee complicated

Today, deployed in a corner of my kitchen, a fortress of Barilla pasta boxes before her, I wonder “What does she get out of this?”  To be of joyful service to her children has always been her aim. Her crippled hands can’t open cans or peel potatoes anymore, but they can still top off the Aunt Jemima mix with a scant cup of Bisquik. They can reduce clutter and simplify my life—and that is something.

Suddenly, Mom’s eyes shine. “Let’s make soup,” she says, putting on my apron.  The Great Consolidator, the Kandinski of the Kitchen, the Seurat of the Stovetop. To anyone who cooks, you understand it’s a creative act, to throw wide the cupboard doors and make a meal from what you find… and mom is, above all, a supremely creative person.  Cooking from the pantry is a game with only one rule: you’re not allowed to run out and buy a missing 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 is used up. That’s how to win at this game: use it all up. “You’ve got a lot of black beans,” she 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 eyes flash:  “Got any open salsa in the fridge?” I rifle through the refrigerator door shelves. I do! A good 1/3 of a jar, medium heat. She dumps it in.  What else?”  I pull out a styrofoam clamshell of leftover basmati rice from the Gyro King. In it goes.

Tomorrow, after breakfast, I will set her 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 peace lily leaves. She will have pruned all my houseplants.

For now though, I stand behind her, invigorated by black bean soup. I rub her neck while she plays solitaire. “Put the cards down mom, and just enjoy this.” She lays down her hand. “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 tomorrow.”

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