I made breakfast for the family this morning. A broccoli cheddar bacon frittata, with accompaniment of sausage upon request. Another secret ingredient as well that tied it all together. The tranquility astounds me. Clean up the kitchen, wipe off the counters, start preheating my pride-and-joy cast iron pan. My secret weapon against most forms of cookery.
Start the mushrooms dry, scoop out when done.
Render the bacon. Take that out too for assembly and garnish.
Get the veg going. Good sauté.
I’ve made many a frittatas in my life, most likely into the thousands by now.
It’s become a warm memory for me. I started about ten years ago. Working hard, my studious culinary training of watching tv, trial, error, and most importantly failure.
Now, I can make anything into a damn good frittata. Maybe even tortilla, sometimes a three-egg omelet.
My first frittatas were truly trials and tribulations. Nearly breaking my wrists and catching air simultaneously, every time I went to flip the pan onto a plate. My Grandmama and Aunt came to visit one time. It was the week of my birthday and they were on their day of departure for the trip back home. I made a veggie filled frittata. Just an onslaught, an absolute cornucopia to the chlorophyll senses. This was when I was in a very fit and active time of my life, over a hundred pounds lost during one of my teenage years. Back then, veggies meant healthy to me. I was persistent on getting myself healthy and my family on the right track. Find ways to get them to lean into healthier habits.
By this point in time, I was assured my Grandmama was either beating death or cheating him. I’d seen and she’d taken the time to share her tales with me. Her cancer was spreading again. How many forms of cancer in a decade? A tale that doesn’t need to be told, yet understood. This time, it was heavily affecting her eating habits. “Always picking at her food, eats like a bird.” Many memories of her favorite coleslaw piled high with double the portion, served by her regular waitress of nearly two decades every Thursday night without miss. She’d put enough black pepper on her coleslaw it looked like an ashtray was emptied atop it. Mind-boggling, this woman. Wouldn’t even mix it. Though by then, even her black pepper and coleslaw wasn’t enough to endure the discomfort [pain] of eating.
So that morning, I made my veggie filled, onslaught frittata. She ate all of it. We hadn’t seen a clean plate in years. Through rounds of radiation, chemo, almost every day at the doctor, and the worrisome hospital stays; she ate a whole piece of my frittata and asked for seconds.
I asked her how she felt about the frittata and she said “It’s damn good, Sam. I’ve never had anything like that before. Keep doing what you’re doing. Keep on cooking.“
I walked away, a new teenager, with my tears of relief and validation swelling in my eyes even if they didn’t pour. I made my Grandmama proud.
Years and years of stories and the highest culinary reviews for a woman that cooked three square meals and a 4pm snack on the dot everyday for decades, a majority of her nearly centenarian life. I came pretty late in the game, so I didn’t experience her cookery. She didn’t want to and didn’t have to cook anymore, and this was even before I came along. Though she ensured my three square meals, 4pm snack, and then some everyday. The only thing I ever got to eat that she had cooked herself was fried eggs.
They were and are the best eggs I’ve ever had to this day.
She liked my frittata.
She liked my eggs.
My humility has never waivered since then. My drive has never dropped to improve, even during the two years of burning myself out at work, committed to fast food and iced coffees. I felt trepidation to even touch a pan again. Scared it wouldn’t come out right. Even if all my mind could fixate on was a home-cooked meal, time to complete that myself. Allow myself some therapy, and not food just eaten on a dime to keep going. I had to sit down sometimes. Enjoy dinner. Take one off. Spend time with yourself, and time with the people you care enough about to cook a meal for. She taught me this too, even when I was a sidelined apprentice and prep chef always gazing by the corner of the stove wondering the day I’ll get to cook. Just aching to stir the pot. She however, supervised from her chair always, with some rounds to check on how everything is going.
Since the years in which my Grandmama has passed, I still feel this enormous pressure to make my Grandmama proud. She taught me so much, in everything. She pushed me to purse my passions in the most subtle yet significant ways.
So with every firm grip, two thumbs down, and swift flick of the wrist, I smack that cast iron pan down onto the plate. Flip the frittata. Cheese. Garnish. Accoutrement.
An air of confidence, necessary on the ingredients list.
That frittata I made for her then, looking back – was pretty dogshit compared to the ones I make now.
I just kept on cooking.
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