Zurich Legacy Kitchen Cookbook - Book - Page 13
L e g ac y K it c hen
Elizabeth
Connick
I lost my gorgeous mum when I was
moments now I’m an adult. Sometimes I feel
fourteen years old. She was a total warrior,
closest to her when I’m drinking a glass of
my best mate and a truly superb parent.
wine, paying a bill or cooking – all those
I’m biased, of course, but she was genuinely
completely ordinary things she would have
one of those people who could light up any
done all the time, but that I never had the
room she walked into.
chance to do alongside her as an adult.
Mum struggled with depression in
Years ago, I was craving beans on
her adult life, and after a very unfortunate
toast, but wanted something with a bit more
cancer diagnosis, she wasn’t able to keep
substance. Then I suddenly remembered
fighting the demons in her head. We lost
this thing Mum used to make when I was
her without any warning, which meant there
little: Boston Beans, really, but with whatever
was so much we never got the chance to
she had lying around thrown into the pot.
prepare for, or do together as I got older.
By then I’d developed my own cooking
I was very lucky that Mum was at
prowess, if I do say so myself, so I made a
home for most of my childhood, working
slightly fancier version. When I opened the
sporadically, so we had dinner together
oven later, the smell totally broke me.
every weeknight. She was a good ‘get
I was straight back in Mum’s kitchen at
the job done’ cook. I don’t know if she
ten years old, looking at the bubbling beans
particularly loved cooking, but she loved
and her smiling face, knowing she’d made
mealtimes. She loved chatting over food,
something a little naughty, a little messy,
laughing over food. The kitchen table was
but completely delicious.
a really important place in our house, and
That
she always had a sense of humour in the
transportive
kitchen.
became a little portal back to her. So now,
Having lost her so young, memories
was
when
smells
I
can
realised
be.
how
Cooking
if I want to feel close to Mum, there’s always
of Mum tend to flood in at unexpected
Boston Beans.
13
