Apples and Thyme: What My Mother Taught Me

I am the youngest of seven children. We were a big, noisy family. My mother's kitchen was her escape from all of that. We were not often invited in.

My mother had MS. It wasn't diagnosed until I was twenty-five, but by the time I was about eleven, it was obvious that whatever was wrong, it was not going away.

One of the effects of MS is overwhelming exhaustion. There were days that Mum was just too tired to cope. Much as she hated to give in, on those days she was going to need help.

So one Saturday afternoon, I was invited in to her kitchen to be shown how to make spaghetti sauce.

To start, you dice up an onion and a couple of ribs of celery. Soften them in some oil and butter.

Then add a pound of ground beef. Brown it and add a can of tomatoes and a small can of tomato paste, mixed with some water. Salt and pepper and a pinch of sugar.

Let it simmer until the whole house smells gorgeous.

This was the base recipe. It could be served like that over cooked noodles for a spaghetti dinner.

A cup of rice stirred in and allowed to cook turned it into Spanish Rice.

Or you could add a can of kidney beans, some chili powder, cayenne pepper and paprika for Chili con Carne.

For a big crowd, you could add a couple of cans of baked beans and serve it on hamburger buns for Sloppy Joes (my father's favourite).

Once I was armed with this recipe and its variations, I could take over dinner on days when Mum just couldn't do it. She could have a nap and I would putter in the kitchen, adding a little of this or a little of that, just to see what would happen. On those days, the kitchen became my haven.

When I woke her up to say that dinner was nearly ready, invariably, her response would be, "Why did you let me sleep so long?"

She kept her kitchen to herself until nearly the end of her life. Even when Alan and I moved in to look after her, she insisted that doing the dishes was her job. And she preferred to do them alone.


I learned so much from my mother. Courage and grace. How to make the most of what you have.

The lessons learned in her kitchen were probably not what most daughters learned in their mother's kitchens. But you take what you find. And from that, you try to make something wonderful.

This post is for the series: Apples and Thyme - a celebration of mothers and grandmothers and time spent with them in the kitchen.