Food Friday: Store-Bought for Mother’s Day

Here is a little news update for you: Mother’s Day is Sunday. You might have noticed the floral displays of potted hydrangeas, and cut roses, and bunches of tulips near the front entrance to the grocery store, and thought nothing more than, “My goodness, spring has sprung.” And then bustled along to complete your original errand of fetching 2% milk, or finding a pint of blueberries. You didn’t stop to consider the calendar, because stores start celebrate holidays weeks ahead of normal folks.

The grocery store, and even Target, are trying to shock you into parting with your hard earned cash, because Mother’s Day has crept up on us all. And surely the best way to show your love to your mother is with an expensive, cellophane-wrapped bouquet of wilted peonies. It is a show of love, guilt, a careless disregard for money, and a distinct lack of planning rolled into one sad, puny love token.

At least when you were young you could get away with making a homemade card. I have recently unboxed a yellowing stack of lovingly crayoned Mother’s Day art that was in our storage unit. It is time for serious downsizing here, and I am afraid that the Pokémon and Sailor Moon manga art isn’t going to make the cut for the permanent collection in the next house. There is no Anna Wintour waiting in the wings to fundraise for the archival integrity of that childish art. I took a few photos to remind the children of their past love and devotion, and then I chucked those critters out.

And there is no ordeal more uncomfortable than a Mother’s Day brunch: in an overly warm restaurant, with the obsequious wait staff, watery mimosas, the inevitable buffet that has been sitting, curling up, in steam trays for hours. One Mother’s Day my mother-in-law even wore a corsage! There were not enough lukewarm mimosas that day, let me tell you. And it was back in the dark ages, before there were the distractions of screens and smart phones – so our children were eye witnesses. They remember that Mother’s Day meal, and it has become a trope from the family crypt.

Mother’s Day can be fraught with emotional peril. Some people can be vulnerable and delicate. Family relationships are complicated. There is death, and distance, and long-simmering wounded feelings. Try to be sensitive. We like to remember that one awful Mother’s Day with a good laugh, just to show that we, as a family unit, survived an ordeal.“Happy families are all alike…” Some folks accept glittery Hallmark cards, covered in script-y sentimentality as gospel. We’d rather laugh at ourselves.

You can avoid the steam trays of rubbery Eggs Benedict and stale bagels, and the hothouse hydrangeas or peonies, by planning a solo trip tomorrow to the grocery store, or if you are lucky, to a nice bakery downtown. Wander in and find some fresh, fragrant croissants. Be sure to test one. Feel the flaky, buttery layers disintegrate when you trowel on a gobbet of creamy, salty Irish butter, and then spoon on a schmear of raspberry jam. The best part of Mother’s Day is sharing food, that no one in the family has prepared.

I don’t recommend baking your own croissants. That is why you go to France. I barely have the skills to unroll a tube of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls for a family Thanksgiving feast. The day before Mother’s Day is not a time to experiment with lamination and manipulating super-thin layers of dough. It is time to patronize the local experts. A couple of weeks ago I went with friends to Black Water Bakery in Cambridge. They have their own shatteringly flaky croissants, but they will also have other fresh, flaky, and deelish items in their bakery case that you can bring home to gobble up with joyous abandon. I saw some blueberry muffins that looked noticeably yumsters.

Alternatively, you could make breakfast. No one ever turned down homemade pancakes on Mother’s Day. Especially if those pancakes come with bacon, and a side of the New York Times. At least around here. If anyone was interested. 86 the corsage. And no mimosas, please.

“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
–Abraham Lincoln