My mother died in 2002, but she makes her presence known at this year’s Christmas eve dinner as I say: It’s so clear in my memory how mom, a’ born-again’ christian, vehemently said, “If I had a rifle, I’d kill Kevin,” my son-in-law whom I love and who sits beside me, because he impregnated my daughter out-of-wedlock.

Still, I miss mom’s cooking, as I often tell others, she’s the best pie maker, and I had even encouraged her to open a pie bakery, as a no pie-in-the-sky idea.

As a child, I picked thumb-sized black caps from the bushes surrounding the pond in our back field, for mom to make blackberry pie! UUUMMMM. Yet, my favorite pie became her rhubarb which I tried to duplicate without much success. Her pastry was always flaky (like her😊) and light…as she placed her bowl of flour and Crisco vegetable shortening under the kitchen faucet, adding just the right amount of water she never measured.

As I reminisce about 2021 Christmas eve dinner cooked by my first-born, Erin –  scrumptious, scalloped potatoes baked with Swiss chard, alongside garlic-chive-fresh ginger roasted carrots dressed in raw almonds, added to the most tender tenderloin – I still long for mom’s apple pie.