Karen & I are both participating in the 2010 Blogathon, Portland-area blogger & entrepreneurial writer Michelle Rafter's challenge to bloggers who want to get serious. Karen's blog is "Natural as Possible Mom", her exploration of how to raise her kids right in a society that seems to conspire against her best efforts. She and I are kindred spirits in that regard; I just did my childraising a couple of decades before her. I contributed a post to her site, looking at how I came to understand the need to be a natural parent. Her post that follows here captures of the spirit of what I want this blog to be better than anything I've written so far. It's a beautiful piece and sets me quite a challenge in the days to come. Thank you so much, Karen.

I had what you would call a tough childhood. Dad died when I was just shy of six. Mom worked two jobs to keep us all together and fed. I was shy and awkward. Nothing came easy to us. But I do have wonderful memories of that time. Some of the best memories center around food.

I’m not talking about holidays, although there’s nothing like an Italian Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve. No, I’m talking about regular dinner. In the winter my mom would come home from working at the bank and — no matter what — plan a real dinner. With a meat and vegetables and a starch. We’d have dessert, too. The table was set as if company was coming. Plates, napkins, glasses, a vase in the middle. Then we’d sit there in the kitchen with its worn-away patterned tile and peeling-off-the-wall paper and eat as a family. We’d talk about our day. And my mom would listen intently even though I know now how tired and done she must have been. (Were parents allowed to be “done” back then? I don’t know.)

The food was always warm and delicious made with real ingredients. Nothing was frozen. Veggies came from the produce department, while any sauces were made from scratch. For example, my mom’s pasta sauce had probably simmered for hours on the stove the previous weekend. The meat actually cooked in a real oven surrounded by onions and potatoes. Spinach was steamed with garlic on the stovetop. I usually watched my mom clean it, pulling off the stems and cutting what was left into coarse chunks. She would warm bread in the oven and serve it with butter — never margarine.

Summer dinner was a little different. She barbequed sometimes. Not a gas grill, either, but one where the coals got hot and glowed like chunks of red diamond. If she did cook inside it was usually on the stovetop. (We had no air conditioning, so turning on the oven would make our home even hotter.) We’d have sausages or pan-fried steak. I can also remember pork chops simmering in sauerkraut, something my mom didn’t grow up eating, but learned to cook for my dad once they got married. Side dishes were cool and refreshing taken directly from one of three gardens my grandma, my mother’s mother, planted every spring. Delicious ripe tomatoes so big they didn’t fit in an adult’s hand. Sliced into wedges and served with onions, basil, oregano, oil and vinegar. Sometimes cucumbers would make it into the mix, too. Green beans, which we picked in the afternoon would be steamed and cooked with garlic. And just because we had tomatoes didn’t mean we couldn’t have a salad, too. And corn, grown right in the backyard as long as the birds or bugs didn’t get it.

Just typing these words reminds me of that time. Of us sitting in the kitchen, the warm summer breeze blowing the kitchen curtains around. My mom would have pulled her hair up in a messy, short ponytail. Sweat beading around her face, but she didn’t care. It was her job and pleasure to cook for her family. We knew it, and my brother, ten years my senior, took advantage of this love when he’d come home at midnight. My mom was always good for a quick omelet or some type of leftover hero sandwich.

Today my mom still tries to feed me along with my two little girls and her “second son” — my husband. But I don’t let her do it all that often. I only feed my girls organic food. My mom, old school as she is, doesn’t understand why I shudder when she trots out conventional chicken or non-organic strawberries. Until now I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t get my quest for organic, but maybe, writing this, I finally have.

It was those stolen moments at the kitchen table that I was most at peace and felt safest. My mother must have felt it, too, since to this day she still cooks a full meal for herself and the many friends she has that often “happen” to be there right around dinner time. To her, food can’t be dangerous. It’s sustaining. It’s pure. Cooking is her haven. Something that she’s done and done well for more than 40 years. To acknowledge that it’s anything else is to open the door to the feeling of insecurity and uneasiness we all lived with in those lean, scary years. So I guess I should go easier on her or at the very least supply her with the right ingredients so she can keep doing what she’s always done for people: giving them peace through food. Not a bad solution, actually.