Pittston Dispatch // PD Columnists // Maria Heck - Mother's Daze

Sunday October 04, 2009 | 01:00 AM

When my mother recently passed away, I was absolutely floored by the compassion of friends and the amount of love and food brought to me during this paralyzing time.

It was like my belly fat: it just kept coming. I hope everyone realized what a gift this was during such an excruciating time.

My own family, happily, did not know what hit them. Food! And lots of it!

Last week, I unearthed the last donation of food from my freezer, sent by a friend in Philadelphia. It was a complete meal of turkey, scalloped potatoes, beans and – yee haw!- chocolate pie. It was fully cooked, all I did was heat it and slide it onto the table.

My family slowed at the sight, stopped dead, stared, then regained their collective strength and attacked. My God, hadn’t they ever seen food before?

“Slow down!” I snapped. “It’s not going to run off your plate and hide!”

Son #1: “MOM! This is like, the best dinner you have ever, ever made. And I mean, like, ever!”

Me: “That’s phenomenal honey, because I didn’t make it. I heated it.”

Son #2: “Well, you need to ask for free food more often because I have never tasted anything so wonderful in my whole life.”

Me, supremely annoyed: “Oh, please! I cook! And not everything I cook stimulates your gag reflex, you know.”

Son #1: “Look, Mom, all we’re saying is … it’d be nice to have something different once in a while. You do ‘cook’ (insert his air quotes here) a lot of spaghetti, ham and chicken.”

Son #2: “You know, Maria, like Emeril says … let’s just kick it up a notch – shall we?”

I am going to kick my foot up his rear a notch, I’ll tell you that!

“Kids, you don’t know what a challenge it is to cook something unique every, single night. That’s about 4,000 meals I’ve prepared in your life, FYI! And let me remind you that I made Chicken Monterey last week and you all asked me if you were supposed to eat it or make a wreath for the door out of it!”

I continued my rant. “Well, anyway, Grampa likes the way I cook. He’ll eat anything I put in front of him.”

Everyone looked at each other: “Wellll…the dogs were sitting close to Grampa at dinner on Sunday for a reason, Mom. Weren’t you wondering why their poop looked and smelled like whole wheat ravioli that night?”

Damn. Foiled again.

They don’t appreciate me, not one stinking bit.

Do they know how mind-numbing it is to food shop week after week and roam the aisles of Gerrity’s in a comatose aura of indifference, praying that Paula Deen will leap out of the display of chicken carcasses and throw out some innovative recipe ideas? How many of us mothers would prefer a colonic cleansing over our weekly food run?

Every one of us. How many freaking ways is there to prepare a ham, I ask you? Two: hot or cold. Slap a pineapple slice on it and call it Easter dinner.

That’s it. The kitchen is closed. I quit.

When I was young wife, I admit, I was an abominable cook. My husband loves to share this bit of folklore with anyone who will listen. And I mean anyone: mailman, dentist, mother-in-law. Idiot.

When we were first married, I was determined to mimic my mother’s baked chicken recipe. I called her for the ingredients: buttermilk, egg, breadcrumb, parmesan and chicken parts.

So easy! I was destined to be the next Julia Child, minus about 3 feet.

However, I didn’t write down the instructions quite accurately enough because instead of coating the chicken with buttermilk and egg then dredging it in breadcrumb, I mixed all the ingredients together into one big, icky, bread-crumbed sludge puddle and spooned the coagulated crap all over the chicken.

My husband came home from work, picked up a leg, (the chicken’s, not mine) sniffed it, put it down and offered to take me for a big night out at Denny’s. So sad.

My kids were not always such picky connoisseurs. When they were toddlers, I used to be able to give them macaroni with ketchup and call it Pasta Surprise. If I was feeling especially clever, I’d throw some hot dogs into the mix. See? I kicked it up a notch.

Everyone was happy! Everyone who could not yet speak and those who only had three teeth, that is.

My, how they’ve grown, despite my sparse culinary offerings.

My daughter called today. I asked her how she liked the college cafeteria food. She said she loved it. Plus, she pointed out, there’s a lot of organic meat and dairy choices.

I reminded her that when she left here, she claimed to be a vegetarian. She replied: “Oh…heh, heh, heh. Yeah, well, um, I just told you that because if you made me eat ham one more day, I was going to grow a curly tail and start bleating.”

Damn kids.

Okay – for dinner tonight I will be serving-up an enormous helping of sarcasm, with sides of snippiness and mockery. We’ll all enjoy a tall glass of ridicule and annoyance, served with ice and a straw for quicker consumption.

For dessert, unconditional love and kisses, for even if they torture me about my wieners-in-a-can, I still adore these picky little critics.

And I only have to feed them for another ten years!

Bon appetite and God help me.