My mother was not Donna Reed or Jane Wyatt. What’s worse, in an era when father knew best, she was a single mother. To support us, she trained race horses. Since none of them ever won, we moved a lot. The two constants through all of this shifting and moving were my mother’s stews and spice cakes. In both cases, she was proud of never having used a recipe. In the case of the stews, memory tells me she could have used a cookbook. The cakes were a different story.
Although they looked like no other cake I’ve ever seen – for some unknown reason, she baked them in metal ice cube trays rather then cake pans – their taste haunts me to this day. They were a wonderful mixture of exotic spices, sugar, and ordinary flour cooked into light golden brown loafs. I enjoyed these odd concoctions in private, but was not happy with them in public, whenever they showed up in my school lunch. Luckily, I was never at any school long enough to really be embarrassed by them.
Mother's Day is in one week. Are you prepared? Skip the flowers and the gift certificates, and make Mom a beautiful breakfast that she won't forget.
On her last visit, my mother brought over a box of things that she’d saved over the course of my childhood: early drawings, high-school term papers, first stories and notes. Looking forward to a trip down memory lane, I began to sort through them. Within moments two things became evident. Firstly, that my mother went through all of my trash (a love letter from my first boyfriend, which includes the depressingly spelled “arection” proves this point). And secondly, she apparently chose only to fish out the things that would most embarrass me. 
What better way to celebrate moms and wives than by making them breakfast. This recipe for baked eggs has been my go-to breakfast recipe since I saw Ina Garten prepare it on her show, The Barefoot Contessa.