I don’t feel much inspired today, and nothing really came up for me over the past week, cooking wise or otherwise. It’s been one of those time warps when you wake up and it’s already Thursday, but you would be hard pressed to say what the hell you have accomplished, or simply done, since that moment on Sunday afternoon when you really, really wanted your children to go back to school and swore that you would make the coming week really meaningful this time. Too many medical appointments were booked, I’m afraid. And there was the field trip to the museum with the first-grader class, which sucked up an entire morning and required subsequent emotional recuperation.
Whatever happened, or didn’t happen, I have found myself a little lost lately. After six months in New York, I have certainly been feeling more grounded, in no small part because of this blog. Sure, the things I write about are quite silly and inconsequential. Indeed, if that is any indication, I am still hesitant to share them with my relatives or friends. But these trivial musings have helped me maintain a semblance of sanity after a summer, and Fall, bordering on clinical madness. And keeping a record of what is going on in my life as a displaced mom, is simply what I find myself needing, and coming back to every week. This is even more true right now, as the United States seem to be going through a rapid and intense upheaval. Some will say I am exaggerating, and I really hope that I am. But it has been disheartening, and quite disorienting, to hear from family and friends back in France, wondering what is becoming of my country of adoption, and a formerly trusted ally. To most Europeans we are becoming an enemy of sorts and having that fault line go through our family is just heartbreaking. Sure, we made it through the Iraq war and the “Freedom Fries” episode shortly after I first moved here. But we had no children then, no family of six dual citizens counting on the Franco-American friendship as an unconscious given, like the air that we breathe.
Had I been eager to come back here last summer, I might have an easier time dealing with the current geopolitical turmoil. But for someone who has been longing to go back home ever since we moved back here in August, the current events do not make things easy. I know that we will be in New York until our oldest graduates from high school, a year from now. But what happens after that? Presumably we will still be here, unless a professional opportunity opens in Europe. As of now I find it difficult to imagine. Where will our family be in the summer of 2026? What will our horizon be by then? Will we be headed back to France, as I spent most of this school year hoping for? Will we be facing an indefinite future in the United States? And that will the United States look like at that point? What part of its promise, if any, will hold true? Will our son be on his way to a leafy college on these shores, as he hopes? What kind of world is he launching into? The uncertainty, and the sense of fragility of all things right now, is so overwhelming it can suffocate me. Maybe I am just scared of what my life will look like once my first born is gone, soon followed by my only daughter. Whatever the reason, I have found myself quite sensitive and weirdly touchy these days, my reactions quite overblown.
Take Wednesday night, for example. Innocently enough, my husband shared that our daughter, who is on a school trip to China, had face-timed him from her room that morning, to chitchat about her day, and how her classmate had been mocked by tourists after tripping and falling. The tourists had jeered at “the Americans”, and the mandarin teacher had yelled at them in response. I am embarrassed to be writing this, but I felt this strange quiver inside at the mention of the call. The thing is, she hadn’t called, or even texted, me. And it hurt. And when I said that American tourists might just not be welcome everywhere these days, my son erupted, accusing me of always saying bad things about the U.S. He is right, of course. I have indeed been complaining about moving back here, and how crazy everything feels in this big, unpredictable place. But that also hurt. So much so that I quietly left the table. I am not proud about this. And I was also quite surprised by my reaction, as it is certainly not the first time I have been rebuffed by my teenagers. I usually shrug and thought I had grown somewhat immune to it.
Why was I so sensitive this time? I’m not sure. But the next thing I knew, I was lying down with the crazy mom’s inner monologue going on at full speed. That I’m the grouchy, uncool one who does all the invisible work. And the dad who shows up for dinner gets all the accolades. So silly, and yet so predictable. Suddenly, I was the exhausted new mother again. The one who stayed home all day with the newborn, but the dad comes home from the office and gets the first smile. Or the first word. The one, this time, who spent her Saturday packing her daughter’s suitcase. And getting all the frustration and tears, when the dad, who barely knew what day she was leaving, gets the phone call from halfway across the world. I hate to see my thoughts reverting to these tired stereotypes. And most of all, I hate finding myself stuck in them. But this was where I was the other night, and texting my daughter about her day was a little extra hard. Talking to my son the next morning was also extra hard.
Am I really this sad, resentful mom muttering “after all I’ve done for them” before falling asleep? Am I really the one declaring that I might let my son do the next college tours with his dad? Am I really the one looking melancholically at my daughter’s bedspread and stuffed owl made by the pre-K teacher, and feeling tears rising as I’m wondering why I didn’t get a FaceTime call? Sadly, it seems like I am. Which makes me think I might not have fully readjusted to my life in New York. And that I am also not fully accepting my current status as a non-working, non-making-money mom. That the past six months without childcare help have taken their toll. The fear that my teenagers might not like me, or respect me, is just ridiculously strong. I did not see it coming, nor have I ever experienced it quite that way. You think you have found your groove as a mom, and then this happens. Feeling hurt by your own children, in a way they couldn’t have when they were little. In a way that shakes you to your core, when they are just out there, living their lives and being annoyed with their mom, as they should.
So, something to ponder this week, for sure. And I’m afraid that writing about motherhood, and cooking, and the trivialities of my home life, will not be incredibly helpful in making me feel like the accomplished investment banker, or lawyer, that I think my children might want to have as a mom. This blog helps me when I feel vulnerable as a mother. But it also reinforces the aspects of myself that I am not entirely comfortable with. I don’t have a solution to this quandary for now. So, I might as well share my Banana Bread recipe, just to close a loop I opened last week. I know, it will be two loaf cake recipes in a row. But like I said, I have had no inspiration this week, and this recipe is very, very good. A warm slice on a Saturday morning might be sufficient to calm a teenage boy’s anxieties, and a mother’s insecurities. I made this for a few years before leaving from France. And I have not made it since we returned, just because I never have chocolate chips on hand. Or muscovado sugar for that matter. However, this remains my definitive recipe. I originally found it on the internet, not directly in Nigel Slater’s second volume of The Kitchen Diaries, where it came from. But I do own the first volume, which was an inspiration for the title of my blog. So, there you go, full circle, and full comfort, for this emotionally fragile mom.
Nigel Slater's Chocolate Muscovado Banana Bread
Makes 1 loaf cake
250 grams all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
125 grams softened butter
235 grams muscovado or dark brown sugar3 to 4 ripe bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
100 grams dark chocolate
1. Heat the oven to 180°C (350 F). Line a standard-sized loaf pan with parchment paper. Sift the flour and baking powder together in a bowl.
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs into the butter and sugar one at a time until fully incorporated.
3. Peel the bananas and mash them with a fork in a small bowl. When you are done, the bananas should still be slightly lumpy and not entirely puréed. Stir the vanilla extract into the bananas.
4. Chop the chocolate finely and and fold it, along with the bananas, into the butter and sugar mixture. Gently mix the flour and baking powder into the banana batter.
5. Scrape the batter into the loaf pan and bake in the oven for 50 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through, until the cake is browned and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. Remove the cake from the oven and let sit on a rack for 15 minutes. Then, using the parchment paper as a sling, remove the cake from the pan and let it cool completely on the rack. When the cake has fully cooled, peel off the paper and use a serrated knife to slice.
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