Cranberry Sauce
First, there has to be classical music. I was raised to believe that no cooking or baking happens in a quiet kitchen. When cooking for myself, I usually choose a nice jazz; but today I choose a station called “Choral Classics”. That’s what mom would have played. Second, it should be a blustery fall day, one where you’d rather cozy up inside instead of squeezing in a last round of golf or tennis before the snow flies. The yuckier outside, the better. Finally, you absolutely must NOT follow the recipe on the bag. It’s too sweet. Equal parts sugar and water- ¾ cup per bag, that’s the key.
I start by examining every single berry, rolling them around on my fingertips to make sure there are no soft spots. Cranberries can be deceiving, their beautiful exterior masking a rotten core. One bad berry can ruin the whole batch, or so I’ve been told, so I painstakingly investigate until I am through all four bags. The berries fill the colander, and I can’t help but run my fingers through them, relishing their feel and sound. I rinse them with water and dump them into my pot with a satisfying flourish. I add the sugar and water and set the burner to medium high.
Staring into the pot I am mesmerized by the vibrant colors. The warmth floating up from the stove washes over my face, the air scented with cranberry steam. I am overwhelmed by memories of this ritual. There was cranberry sauce on our table at nearly every meal, growing up. My mother loved them. They had to be her cranberries, though. God forbid anyone offer her cranberry sauce from a can, or other homemade berries that had (gasp!) orange zest, or (eek!) apples, or any hint of an intruding ingredient. There could only be cranberries, sugar, and water. Mom made pot after pot of cranberries, then ladled them into washed out peanut butter jars. Our freezer always contained enough cranberries to last through the whole year, plus a few extra jars to take to meals at friend’s or family’s houses.
I wonder how other people felt about the sauce. Gifts of cranberry sauce from my mother were always politely accepted, but was it something they got excited about like her chocolate chip cookies? For most people, consuming cranberry sauce comes but once a year. Were they disappointed when their faces scrunched up in tart surprise? I think of this as I taste the pink foam that has bubbled up around the edges of my pot. My lips pucker. It’s perfect. I fill another spoon with the foam, my favorite part.
I eat as much pink foam as I can before it cooks off, then I begin the process of smooshing any whole berries that haven’t popped on their own. If I miss any, the surprise of biting into a whole one can be quite overwhelming to the taste buds. I smoosh and pop, and I am suddenly lonely. I wish I had waited for my children to be home to make the cranberries. I wish I was back in my mom’s kitchen, making endless batches of cranberries with her. I wish she was still here. I wish…. I wish….
My mother would not be happy with me. I have added an intruding ingredient to my cranberry sauce. Several, in fact. I have added longing, nostalgia, tears. The last I wipe away so that the sauce doesn’t get salty. How many years will pass before I can make the cranberries without crying? All of them. I will always cry when I make the cranberries. The memories are beautiful and jarring and tart, just like the berries themselves; and they are something I don’t want to dull, or forget, or sweeten to make more palatable. I want to savor them just as they are, and be sad, and grateful, and happy all at once.