Newly married, my mother had to teach herself how to cook, so she bought Family Circle magazine and trawled for recipes, or read the sides of cans and boxes at the grocery for helpful tips on what to do with these foods once you got them home. She tuxedoed-up a loaf of Spam by studding it with cloves and slathering pineapple preserves on the top. She ventured into cookbooks and bought one for herself called "Queen For A Day" because the recipes in there were for busy women, assemblages of things that had already been made: tuna casserole with corn flakes and Velveeta; ambrosia made with Cool Whip, crushed pineapple, chopped pecans and tiny marshmallows; peach slices suspended in orange Jello; hot dogs wrapped in biscuit dough and baked in the oven; red velvet cake made with Campbell's tomato soup.

I make these dishes for Scotty and me because it's a way to sit again at her table without embarrassing us both with the particularity of my memory. She says that these foods remind her of no money, the little house in Minisink Hills, but to me they're chateaubriand. In my head is a warehouse of mother-worship, so many pretty details. She could do no wrong. Until I hit puberty and then I hated every word out of her mouth. The two of us kept accumulating memories, but they got put in a dank garage with stuff laying around in pieces, too many lousy things said. Too many meals interrupted by name-calling, thrown napkins, hasty exits. Hers. I stayed and finished dinner with my father.

(From Speeding In The Driveway)