Food = Love

I've been thinking lots about communication lately. This blog is a new form of communication for me, and now that my loyal friends are reading it and saying such nice things to me about it, it's no longer a one-way message.

For a couple of years now, I've been missing all the conversations I used to have with my son. The teenage years have taken a toll on the mother-son talks. I remember all the hours of bedtime stories, the million questions (when is that - around seven or eight years old?), and all the sweet words we exchanged. I really miss all that, so very much. My friends with older children assure me that they come around again. I'm waiting for that.

In the meantime, the best way to tell him I love him is through food. He never raves about anything I fix, but when he mutters "This is good" or asks me when I'm going to fix a particular thing again, I know I've succeeded. I'm not kidding myself - he doesn't really appreciate it now. He even prefers other moms' meals. I no longer make the best chocolate chip cookies - that honor goes to Renee K. But I know there are a hundred ways to make Maryland crab cakes and no one's will be quite like mine. And now that he's driving to school, I've been trying to have his dinner ready when he walks in from baseball practice around 7:00. I'm no June Cleaver, in fact, I'm about as far from that as you can get. No, seriously. But I do love my son. And I'm learning his language. Food.

The first picture is of the crab cake sandwich I made for him. The second picture is of the other, not-so-pretty crab cakes. They're far from perfect (the best ones went on the sandwich), and falling apart in places, unevenly browned and they caused me pain when they spattered on me while they cooked. Now, if that's not a metaphor for love, I don't know what is. Not sure what unevenly browned represents, but you get the idea.

One other thing, and then I'm going to eat. My new dream job is to be a food photographer. If anyone hears of an opening in this area, let me know. I have no credentials except I love food and I love to take pictures of food. It sits still and doesn't complain and poses for as long as I need. This makes me think of my friend Martha Hopkins' cookbook. It deserves its own post, so I'll write more about it later.

I'm off to eat the not-so-pretty crabcakes.