Watching Anta Cook

Mother and Son

Well, so far, so good.  I am referring to mother-in-law, Anta’s, visit with us.  Our refrigerator is full to the brim with vegetables, ground walnuts (for baking), meat, French bread, special margarine (Smart Balance with olive oil), half and half.  The cupboard now has Crisco Oil and Uncle Ben’s Rice in it.  The counter has lots of new things on it--a coffee cup filled with cold coffee and topped with a paper towel; a paper plate with a plastic bag full of fortune cookies; a round box of little nutty cookies; a sugar bowl topped with a saucer.  We have the number of the Turner Movie Classics channel memorized and the times of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.  There is a lawn chair with a blanket installed in the garage with a tin can for cigarette ashes and butts.

We have taken Anta (short for Antigone) to the Snoqualmie and Muckleshoot casinos where she had moderate luck at the video poker machines.  She was through with Snoqualmie pretty quickly because the machine “wasn’t giving”, but liked Muckleshoot better.  I had better luck with my machine of choice, something about Neptune, at Snoqualmie and the view there is infinitely better, but serious video poker players don’t give a hoot about the view, except as a nice place to smoke.

The first full day Anta was here we took her to Costco, where she was in paroxysms of delight over the meat section and bought lamb chops with top sirloin reserved for next week’s shopping and then to Central Market in Poulsbo where she fondled the artichokes and bought peaches, pears, strawberries, peppers, Italian parsley and five bags of Stonebridge cookies.  Michael and I kept eyeing the growing pile in the grocery basket and wondering where we were going to store all the stuff and more importantly, who was going to eat it.

Yesterday, Anta made her “famous Greek Coffee Cake”, which is a huge slab of spices, nuts and cognac soaked raisins held together by a half white flour, half wheat flour batter, moistened with orange juice, eggs and olive oil.  This is the same cake I make for my husband for his birthday—he loves it better than all others.  Anta knows how to please her boy.  The cake is so huge it might still be around when his birthday comes in November.

And her boy has been trying hard to please his Mom, too.  He gave her his iTouch, loaded games on it he thought she would like, and taught her how to use it.  Now she is playing Solitaire on the little device when she’s not cooking, smoking or at a casino.  She even plays it while she’s got the old movie channel on, but she does stop for the game shows.  Playing a game while watching a game is too much for an 82-year-old.  Today Michael is taking her for a ride in the little red Miata.  They will go to the commissary and buy cigarettes and maybe some Retsina and I’d bet, more food.  Even at 82 a Greek woman is always thinking about what she wants to cook next.

Tomorrow night we will bring my Mom over to visit with Michael’s Mom.  They know each other pretty well.  They shared a cabin when we took them on a cruise to Alaska a few years ago.  They are both the same size, tiny, and it’s fun to listen to them talk.  My Mom is always interested in Anta’s stories about WW II and how it affected her and Greece.  I guess I’m on tap for making dinner for them, but it's scary to cook in front of the expert.  I’ll have to do something Anta never cooks—Mexican food maybe.

Before mother and son go on the convertible ride we are scheduled to make cookies—Melomakarona—Greek honey cookies.  I’ve had them every Christmas, but I’ve never watched Anta make them—it’s a complicated process of baking and soaking in a honey mixture, and rolling in nuts, so I’m anxious to learn.  I will not be able to stand on my step stool and help pour the ingredients into the bowl like granddaughter, Ali, does with me.  I’ll have to keep my distance and watch closely, maybe even take notes.

Sometimes visits from mother-in-law, Anta, or to her house, can be a little bit fraught.  She, like her son, (and like her daughter-in-law, truthfully) has strong opinions and voices them loudly, like all hot-blooded Mediterranean’s. There have been times when I have not bitten my tongue and dared to enter the fray, but that has never turned out well.  I lack that ability to yell without getting truly angry.  So my tongue is being bitten, but this visit seems a little mellower.  There hasn’t been so much opinion being flung around, just a lot of flour and meat.