my mother's footsteps
by laurey masterton

I’ve just come from a very inspirational weekend in Boston at the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs (WCR) conference. The overall theme this year was Food, Flavor, and Family, which guided the thinking of each of us as we trooped around from seminar to presentation to meal. Top name women in food founded this organization and some of them were with us this weekend.

I guess that one of the most moving parts of this time for me was remembering, once again, how important my mother is to me and how important she was, in her time, to the world of food for women. Her books were quite amazing for they were filled with conversation and comforting instructions and were received by an audience of other women (and men) who did not have access to cooking schools (or The Food Network!) to learn this art. What my mother cooked was way beyond the food that was taught in home ec classes and the way she wrote about that food was very different and, in its time, tremendously innovative.

I had a brief and significant conversation with two food historians who spoke, along with Mimi Sheraton (formerly the food critic for the New York Times) about important women in food history. Barbara Haber, author, historian, and curator of the cookbook collection at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University and Laura Shapiro, historian and author both spoke about personal story and talked about the importance of these stories being told. After their talk I approached them, wondering what they might say about my mother.

“Do you know the Blueberry Hill Cookbooks?” I asked them. They both nodded, politely. Yes, of course, they were literary women with a focus on food. Yes, they knew these books.

“My mother wrote those books,” I continued.

“OH!” they both gasped, stopped, reached out to me. “Your mother was Elsie? You are Elsie Masterton’s daughter? You have no idea how wonderful it is to meet you!” they exclaimed.

I knew it wasn’t ME they were excited about meeting, but that their response was to this daughter of the woman who, at a certain time of their lives, had meant so much to each of them. It took MY breath away, their reaction.

“I have many stories about growing up with my mother,” I said. “And I wonder about putting them together into a book. People ask me, but I don’t know if I should or if these memories are something that should just stay in my head, comforting me. I don’t know what to do.”

“You MUST tell these stories!” they exclaimed. “Please. You must!”
I kept their words with me for the rest of my weekend. Sometimes I do my day to day life and forget my roots. But this weekend reminded me that I really am following in the path of a remarkable woman. She translated the elegant into the manageable, bringing the fanciness of fine New York restaurants to the lucky ones who made it to Blueberry Hill, either in person or through her cookbooks.
I met other daughters who were following their mothers’ paths: Helen Chen led me through Chinatown and told stories about her mother, Joyce Chen, a renegade saleswoman and tireless advocate of all things Chinese. And I listened, rapt, as Anna Lappé told stories about traveling with her mother, Frances Moore Lappé as they wrote Hope’s Edge, 30 years after Diet for a Small Planet changed so many of our worlds.

So even though my mother has not physically been with me for a very long time, she is very much inside me every day, guiding, observing, coaching, prodding, and suggesting. I remembered, this past weekend, why it is that I do what I do. My mother is a big reason. I think she’d be pleased.

Laurey Masterton is the Proprietor of Laurey’s Catering and Gourmet go Go in Asheville where she tends the stoves, greets the guests, and writes a thing or two every so often.
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