{"id":2256,"date":"2011-05-05T17:06:53","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T00:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chefmorgan.com\/?p=2256"},"modified":"2012-04-02T11:54:16","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T18:54:16","slug":"mothers-day-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chefmorgan.com\/engine\/mothers-day-2011","title":{"rendered":"Mother’s Day, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mother\u2019s Day, 2011<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

classic tomato sauce and a very personal
\n<\/span><\/strong>recipe from a chef to her daughters:
\n<\/span><\/strong>living women eat pasta, cr\u00eapes, and bread<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The inspiration for this week\u2019s \u201csimple pleasure\u201d is Mother\u2019s Day and my own two daughters. The recipe is not a brunch recipe but a \u201cmother\u201d sauce: classic tomato sauce. Tomato sauce is one of the five foundational sauces in French cuisine from which several \u201cdaughter\u201d or \u201csmall\u201d sauces are created. It is the perfect companion for pasta, bread, meat, calamari, vegetables (i.e., eggplant, mushrooms and squash), and even eggs. The sauce is simple to make any time of year.\u00a0 It is one of my daughters\u2019 favorite sauces and, in general, a crowd pleaser. The recipe is in a companion post for your printing convenience. The inspiration for the post is explained below.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Je vous souhaite un bon app\u00e9tit <\/span><\/em>and a very Happy Mother\u2019s Day to all mothers.<\/span><\/p>\n

LM
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span> <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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to my daughters:
\n<\/strong>living women eat pasta, cr\u00eapes, and bread<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/span>I have a special book which houses my most priceless treasures and it has nothing to do with cooking or France (unbelievable but true). This hard-bound, gold-etched book bound with delicate ribbon contains my birthday and Mother\u2019s Day gifts over the years from my children: poems they have memorized from ages 2 onward, poems they have found and cut-out, and original poems and cards they have written for me. I have been informed that the contributions for Mother\u2019s Day 2011 have already been written. I am excited beyond belief. One day the book will belong to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Inside the front cover of this book is a quote from one of my favorite people, Eleanor Roosevelt.\u00a0 It is:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience
\n<\/span><\/em>in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
\n<\/span><\/em>You are able to say to yourself, \u2018I lived through this horror.
\n<\/span><\/em>I can take the next thing that comes along.\u2019 . .
\n<\/span><\/em>you must do the thing you think you cannot do.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span>I believe she is referring to a statement by John Dryden.\u00a0 In any event, recently it was \u201cWomen\u2019s History Month<\/span>\u201d and I sat in a conference where on the wall there were drawings of several women deemed to have positively contributed to history. Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the women. To me, I have always viewed her as a woman of strength.<\/span><\/p>\n

The drawing was of her in her later years.\u00a0 The lines on her face were pronounced. When I looked at the picture I thought of the above quote. At that very moment a man in the group commented on the drawing and as he laughed he said that he did not think she [Eleanor Roosevelt] would be very happy about the picture. Two things came to mind: (1) how interesting that people can look at the same thing at the same time and have completely different perceptions of it; and (2) how his comment marginalized this woman, focusing people\u2019s attention not on her achievements, but on the lines on her face and presenting them as physical flaws that she presumably would be ashamed of (although I doubt that she would have been).<\/span><\/p>\n

The comment stayed with me because I thought of how comments like this, innocent as they may be intended, influence and shape the environment in which my daughters, and other girls, grow and live. I don\u2019t hear comments about how the President fills his suit or who designed it but how often do we focus on the First Lady\u2019s clothing or how she looked? If the adults in our childrens\u2019 lives minimize or even <\/span>appear<\/span><\/em> to evaluate women (men, too) based upon their physical appearance, if we see \u201cimperfections\u201d in the appearances of others, so too, will our children. Our securities and insecurities and our attitudes, spoken and unspoken, about our bodies and the appearances of others, impact their attitudes, habits (including eating habits) and shape their future.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I hope for a day that women\u2019s contributions to this world will not have to be brought to our consciousness by the dedication of a particular month. I hope for a day that my daughters\u2019 contributions in this world will not be pre-determined or clouded by their gender, the size of their jeans, the lines on their face, or the length of their hair. Until that time, on this Mother’s Day I offer gratitude to the women in my life who never limited my value or defined my abilities based upon my physical appearance whether seen by others as attributes or shortcomings.\u00a0 For my two daughters I offer the following personal recipe (as inarticulate and preachy as it may be) for your day-to-day lives. The ingredients are you:<\/span><\/p>\n