Copper pots

Steven Baird

She stirs the big copper pot, bubbling onions and carrots and sliced red potatoes, salted and peppered, frothing like ocean foam, and the steam rises, a thin blur of vapor smears the kitchen window, aromas of home. Seeds and spilled spices on the countertop, overhead fan whirling its muscular rhythm, bubbling yellow broth, the tap-tap-tap of a wooden spoon against metal, dull noise in the grand silence. It was her mother’s pot, handed down like the silverware and the wedding dress and the family casserole recipes. This is how you will live, it was implied: cooking soup, controlling the stove’s flame, memorizing ingredients. The steam will frizzle your hair and make your hands damp, and the aromas will be your home. The bone china bowls with the rose patterns, faded now, handed down, and the gravy boat and the silver serving platter, all hers now, stored in molding cardboard boxes. No clobbered tin cups, no McDonald’s water glasses, no plastic plates collected from flea markets, not for you, but these fine Revere Ware copper pots, and ivory tablecloths, and crystal pickle dishes, these make a house a home. And the steam rises in the kitchen.

8 thoughts on “Copper pots”

  1. A delicious description that is making me hungry for soup. I like how you wove in the passing down of the beloved cookware. And there’s a curiosity of why some of the inherited dishes are stored in molding boxes, of why they haven’t been taken out and used yet. A good insertion of drama among all the lovely smells.

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