life in the garden of eden.

Gardens and kitchens and songs and smiles remind me of Mom. My world is a lesser place without these things, and most of all, without her. Yet I find some familiar comfort in nurturing plants, in cooking, in hearing my daughter sing. And then there are those unexpected moments when I see my mom’s warm smile in the face of my twin, my niece, my daughter — even my own. I guess these are the things that make up a mother’s legacy.

I could get all maudlin reminiscing about my mother, so this year - less of my words, more of hers.

An email from my mom after she’d set up ICQ for the first time:

Subj: ICQ authorized
Date: 4/12/01 7:22:46 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: ********
To: alysiaskye@aol.com

You are now on my contact list, hurrah! Right now you are shown as online but away and Lilithiel is offline. Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite, if they do, bite them back, till they’re all black and blue.

Love,

Mom

This is excerpted from an email she sent me early in 2001 about growing up in a Finnish community in Minnesota. I still don’t get the appeal of saunas, but I’m a native Californian; maybe I’ve never lived anywhere cold enough?

The sauna deserves more explanation. It was a two room building, about 15 by 30 feet. There was a stairstep of benches opposite the wall where the fire box was. The stove was a metal enclosure about 3 feet tall with a fire box beneath and filled to the top with big field stones. A fire was started at least an hour before bathing.

There were two styles of bathing: Mom and Dad and their kids, or men and women separately. We did both. Finnish kids never have to wonder what the other sex or all stages of their own sex look like. Since hot air rises, the top level bench was where the macho people sat or those trying to shake a cold. Water was dipped out of a bucket and sprinkled over the hot rocks. When the steam cleared and you could almost breath normally again, more water was thrown.

Some people slapped themselves with bundles of soft branches, probably beech. It felt kind of like getting your back scratched. The switches smelled nice and herbably. When you had worked up a good sweat, you came down to the bench at the bottom. Everyone had their own bucket of warm water. You take a sponge bath and soap your hair from the bucket. After rinsing yourself with the washrag and dunking your hair in the bucket, you stand up and pour the bucket of water over yourself. Feels wonderful. Then you hurry into the dressing room and get dressed before you loose the heat of the sauna.

Some of the men sometimes would, in the dead of winter, run out into the snow, bare naked. When the ladies returned to the house, the blonds would give their hair a lemon rinse while the brunetts used an appled cider vinegar rinse. During the winter, sauna might be only Saturday nights. During hay making time in July, it was every day.

My mom put together a heavy cookbook with all of the recipes she was known for at family gatherings. This was a special (easy) breakfast she made:

Finnish Pancake

4 eggs
1/4 cup honey
3/4 teaspoon salt
2-1/2 cups milk
1 cup flour
4 tablespoons butter

1. Place butter in iron skillet or 2 glass pie pans.
2. Heat in 425 degree oven until butter melts but doesn’t brown.
3. Blend rest of ingredients in blender jar, scraping down sides once or twice to mix the flour in.
4. Pour mixture into hot skillet or pans.
5. Bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Pancake will puff high but will almost immediately deflate when it is taken out of oven.
6. Cut into pizza pie wedges and eat while hot with syrup if needed.

The Finnish name is Suomalainen Pannukakku.

This version has 1830 total calories. For a low cal version use non-fat milk and 2 tablespoons of butter and it will be just as good. It’s also tasty if eaten cold, assuming there is any left. The recipe can be split in half and baked in 1 pie pan.

Yes, the calorie count is right. No, there usually isn’t any left to eat cold. It’s total comfort food.

I miss you, Mom. Thank you for giving me memories.