What a touching homage to Catherine's mom. My own mother inherited her love of baking from her mother, who had 10 children and kept a barrel of homemade donuts on the porch during cold Canadian winters to feed her seven boys, husband, and three girls, all while baking dinner rolls for the families in her neighborhood. My mother, age 89, still wakes up each day knowing what will be for dessert that evening--her pie baking days are over, mainly because she has no one left to feed, but she still bakes cookies and muffins. Her own record for piebaking was 11 in one day to put in the freezer to keep her small family of six supplied at any given time. Watching Mom make a piecrust brings to mind the word deft--she threw together nothing more than flour, salt, Crisco and ice water, rolled it all out in about 10 seconds, and tossed it into the pie plate in no time flat. "Nothing to it," she would say. It sounds as though Catherine has reached that point of perfection herself; kudos to her for encapsulating all the feelings, tactile and emotional, associated with baking and memories of moms everywhere!

• Reply