Mama's BFF (and our annual meal full of love, processed cheese and unfashionable wine)
- The Ladle of Love
- Aug 15, 2020
- 8 min read
I met my first ever friend at nursery school when we were both 3 years old. I am not actually sure how willingly he became my friend because, apparently, when he first came to my house for a playdate, his knees were shaking with nerves and his big, blue eyes were full of apprehension. I can’t have been that bad though because 42 years later, his big, blue eyes still regard me with apprehension but we remain friends and, for the sake of this post, I’ll nickname him “FEF” (“First Ever Friend.”) How we remain linked forever is not because I bullied him into being my friend but actually because our mothers became best friends as a result of our playdates. We’ll call his mother “BFF” as per the current term “Best Friends Forever”. . . a term thrown around so casually nowadays that it doesn’t mean too much really. However, in this case, “BFF" is entirely accurate to describe her friendship with my Mama. Both of them developed the strong, supportive friendship that would be an incredible example of the “women supporting women” movement now. Both looked out for each other and both became stronger together.
Some years later they found themselves supporting each other through their respective divorces. It was a time of upheaval for everyone. In fact, Mama and I actually moved in with BFF for around a year (I was between 9-10 years old). Moving to their house meant that there were now 2 mamas, 2 daughters (FEF’s older sister) and the 1 son (FEF) under one roof. FEF made it very clear that he wasn’t looking forward to this new arrangement one bit. In spite of that, things did work out pretty well and our Mamas created a stable(ish) and happy home for us all. I did have to put up with FEF’s big, blue eyes regarding me with not only the usual apprehension but also with the hostile weariness of a young boy who was unhappily resigned to being totally outnumbered by girls/women at home. I was prepared to ignore his “woe is me/I-can’t-stand-the-sight-of-you” face mainly because, by being there, I also inherited his extremely cool, rebellious, witty, sarcastic, older sister as a role model who I loved fan-girling over (still do). . . let’s call her “UCG” (“Ultimate Cool Girl”… because she was. . . and still is, actually.)
So there we were, all sharing a house and all navigating our own ways through the challenges that come with divorce. . . but somehow we found plenty of time for smiles and laughter. This was mostly to do with BFF’s sparkling personality and lightning-speed sense of humour. She was different to Mama in that she was more extrovert and had a sarcastic, dry humour (vs Mama’s very simplistic , sometimes totally absent one!). She had been a performer and a dancer on stage in years previously and so carried herself very well (as dancers do), was always glamorous and sparkled with a vitality which seemed to shimmer around her. Her wit was razor sharp and whilst she loved making clever jokes, she was also a fan of bawdy/coarse ones too and would swear constantly. . . both traits which I used to adore and find shockingly hilarious. She was vibrant, stylish, restless and cool. . . and made us all laugh so much. Like my Mama, she was one of those people who is an incredible example of how shining brightly yourself can light the way for others too.
For me, the best times in that house were spent helping out in the kitchen or sitting down for our house meals. Some days us kids would try and spoil the Mamas, and give them a bit of a break, by cooking them breakfast or simple lunches or dinners. . . which we would pull off with varying degrees of success and near total annihilation of the kitchen (which we, of course, were then responsible for clearing up!). But generally we were all kept quite active in helping with meals. I remember that BFF was the one who taught me how to make shortcrust pastry. . . perhaps opportunistically, because she was absolutely hopeless at making it herself (I saw her swearing over pastry dough many times!) She knew the theory but somehow it would never come out okay when she did it and she always said it was because she was too impatient. So she taught me and, somehow, I was able to get it to come out nicely and so would happily make pastry for certain recipes whenever asked.
Because of the divorces, both mothers had to keep to a very tight monthly budget and so our meals were usually straightforward but always tasty and enjoyed with plenty of laughter and chatter. Celebration meals were more challenging because of the budget but the Mamas found a way to create something delicious which used inexpensive ingredients but felt like a real treat. So much so that it then because our “standard menu” for any celebratory feast. The menu was spaghetti with a simple tomato and basil sauce (slow cooked for a deep, rich flavour) and we would sprinkle that with a heavy-handed dusting of dried/processed “parmesan cheese” (we couldn’t afford the real/fresh stuff). On the side we would have garlic bread made by filling/smothering a baguette with huge amounts of homemade garlic butter and baking it all until it oozed with buttery, garlicky deliciousness. To end the meal we would have freshly made profiteroles filled with sweet, whipped cream and drowned in a hot, homemade, dark chocolate sauce. YUM! The profiteroles involved making a choux pastry (obviously BFF didn’t do that bit) but Mama was great at making choux and , as a result, my pastry repertoire continued to expand.
Watching this celebration meal being cooked (and helping with some of it) is truly one of my most consistent examples of how to “Stir in the Love.” This menu was put together so that none of us kids felt that anything was lacking or realised that times were tougher than we had been used to previously. This meal was made with every positive, determined, good intention that our mothers could muster and was an edible display of their strength, resilience and independence. . . and because of all that, it could only taste one way. . . absolutely heavenly! Of course, all celebrations need some bubbles to toast with but we definitely couldn’t afford fancy wine or champagne. What we had instead was the only fizz they could afford -- Lambrusco. . . a cloyingly sweet, extremely inexpensive, Italian wine (reminiscent of sparkling cough syrup) which, understandably, fell out of favour in recent decades as wine tastes became more sophisticated. Nonetheless that was our “special occasion” wine and BFF would make sure that the syrupy fizz was poured into proper champagne glasses (all us kids would get a little amount too) and we would toast in style.
Time passed and Mama and I moved in with my stepdad but both our families remained just as close and and our celebration menu remained consistent, probably because finances took a long time to stabilise. Just as that began to happen, this incredible friendship was rocked beyond comprehension when BFF was diagnosed with aggressive cancer. This was something that was shielded from me while it was happening. I don’t know how much was shielded from or shared with FEF or UCG and I have never asked them and I don’t think I ever will. . . so this is just my account based on my experience (although I have written it with their blessing). At some point, Mama told me that BFF was not well. I don’t remember exactly what she said to me but I understood enough to know it was serious. Then, one day, Mama came to visit me while I was staying at Papa’s house. Again, I don’t remember exactly what she said to me but I remember that I was standing just inside the open front door, and she was bending down, talking to me at my level, holding my hand and telling me that BFF had passed away. It is strange because I remember so many random specifics about that moment but literally none of the details of what she actually said to me or what I said to her… perhaps my mind blocked it out to numb it a little as I was only about 11 and it was a lot to process. I have only vague memories of what unfolded in the days and weeks afterwards (including the funeral) but I have a very strong memory of knowing that everything had changed. Where BFF’s sparkle and humour had been, there was a sense of heavy, bewildered sadness instead. Three decades later, our families are still linked together and to remind you why… it is because one of the “F”s in BFF stands for “Forever”. . . and that is how long we will all remember her for.
Happily (because Happiness does come again) and over time, our mish-mashed “Framily” cluster has become bigger, more vibrant and noisier than ever. Every year, on the 8th August , we all meet for dinner to remember BFF with love and laughter and to enjoy the sense of togetherness fostered all those decades ago. All of us are fortunate enough to now be able to afford far finer ingredients, wines and champagnes. However, our annual menu is always the same - spaghetti with the slow-cooked tomato & basil sauce, the dehydrated/processed “parmesan” (that none of us would ever buy or use now for any other reason than this annual meal), garlic bread with the scrumptious garlic butter, homemade profiteroles with the lashings of hot, chocolate sauce and one bottle of syrupy, fizzy, unfashionable Lambrusco to toast with (which became harder and harder to buy each year). I should point out though that, in the last few years , Lambrusco has enjoyed a revival and is now available as a far more sophisticated wine at a much higher price point (between £10-30.00 for a bottle). . . so it is now certainly better than I have described! Despite this, I insist on us buying the really inexpensive , sickly, sweet stuff (think less than £2.00 per bottle!) to keep the toast as “authentic” as possible. I get a lot of trolling from the “Fram” about my insistence on this and there have been attempts to cunningly disguise better bottles (as you can see from the photo below) for the meal but , thankfully, I ensure we have a bottle of the “real” stuff to hand. Nonetheless, every year there are a lot of eye-rolls and grimaces round the table as the Lambrusco is sipped for the toast but all of that has now become part of the annual tradition too!
This year, due to the pandemic, it was a rare occasion that we were not able to be together for our annual dinner and so we all enjoyed the meal in our separate homes and dialled in via Zoom for the traditional (grimace-accompanied) Lambrusco toast. It was even more special this year because FEF’s oldest son (currently 9 years old) suddenly got up and decided to make a surprise and utterly heartfelt toast to his Grandma (BFF) who he has “never met” but “knows all about and really loves.” He could have made a toast with just his immediate family but the fact that he chose to do it with all of us online made it extra special and certainly moved many of us to tears. However, in a brilliant juxtaposition to that unexpected moment of heightened emotion, his younger brother then took to the screen to announce that he would like to read to all of us from his book about The London Underground (which had me howling with laughter because it was such a u-turn from what had just been going on!). I am hoping that next year we will be able to be together for our meal as usual as I want to see those grimaces in real life as we make our toast something along the lines of , “To BFF, always loved, always missed and never, ever forgotten.”
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