Passing it Along

Yesterday evening, our son Haru left for his annual school-run outdoor education trip. He and his friends were, for the first time, responsible for compiling their meals for the week (in previous years, the school had provided the food). Being teenage boys, none of them wanted to cook, so the ice chest departed for the wilderness filled with Cheerios and boxed macaroni and cheese. It made me a little sad, and although the motherly part of me wanted to prepare meals for them, this was my son’s trip and his time to grow alone, so perhaps it was okay that I let them do as they wished.

And yet, at the bottom of Haru’s personal backpack, I noticed some of the beef jerky he had made himself only a week ago; upon seeing him put it in his bag, I couldn’t help but smile. This act was his small rebellion against the processed consumer products his friends adamantly advocated for, just a little hint of home to bring with him.

Today I received a call from my daughter in New York who, after going apple picking in the orchards upstate (a first-time experience for a California-raised girl), desperately wanted to turn her enormous stash of apples into some kind of dessert. All she had was a pot, a spoon, and a lounge kitchen shared by a hundred other students, but she still determinedly headed to the nearby market and purchased her first ever frozen puff pastry sheet (all she had ever had was my homemade pie crusts). I knew that what she could make with only granulated sugar and a puff pastry was limited, and my inability to be there and help out was frustrating, but watching her reach out for some taste of home flooded my heart with joy.

Over the next hour, I received about twenty phone calls as she went through the process of creating her dessert, often panicked that the apples were turning brown or that there wasn’t enough sugar or that the oven wasn’t working. With no butter, no cinnamon, no baking pan, and only a two inch paring knife, the situation wasn’t looking up. Yet somehow, after a few hours of struggled improvisation, Sakura sent me photos of what she had created. Looking at the finished product, I could see her as she carefully peeled and sliced the apples at the tiny kitchen counter, lining the slices up on the pastry, watching patiently by the old, badly manufactured electric oven while her dessert baked; what she had created was so simple, but in it I could see her heart and all of her treasured memories of home.

Right now, both my children, alone in their own new environments, are tasting what they have created together with their friends so have been any part of that growth, that creativity, that meal that they have made, is the greatest gift I could ask for.

昨日、息子の春が学校のアウトドアトリップに出かけました。１週間分の食料は自分たちで持参するのですが、グループの仲間はとにかく楽（らく）がすきなようで、キャンプサイトで調理をする、という息子の案は却下され、シリアルやインスタントのマカロニチーズなどパッケージの箱を山ほど持っていくことになった、と息子が先日話してくれた時には、少し寂しい気もしましたが、これも息子の旅行です。私は話だけ聞いてあまり考えないことにしました。その出かけて行った春のバックパックの中には１週間ほど前に自分で作ったビーフジャーキーが入っているとは仲間の誰が想像しているでしょう！ これなら家で作っていけるし現地で火を入れる必要もないし、仲間の意見を尊重しながらも、本当の自分を見せたい、春の小さな主張のように私には見えて私は嬉しくなりました。

そして今日、次は娘の桜が週末りんご畑で取ってきたりんごをなんとかデザートにしたい、と私に相談を持ちかけて来ました。自家製しか知らなかった パイシートを初めてマーケットで買い求め、持っている材料はりんごと砂糖のみ。完璧にはできないかもしれないけれどそれでも寮生活で疲れた気持ちを癒そうと、何か手作りのデザートを友人にふるまいたい、と思う娘の気持ちを応援したくなりました。バターもシナモンもない、ベーキングパンもない、それでも果物ナイフ一つでコツコツとリンゴの皮を一人でむきスライスしりんごをパーシーとの上に並べる桜の姿を想像するのは、娘の心を見ているようでもありました。

きっと今子供達はそれぞれの場所で今までに‘感じたことのない’格別な味を友人と味わっていることでしょう。 きっと！