Mother's Day

In a handful of months I will become a first time mom. When my husband Alex and I think about what we’ll cook for our son or daughter, he has pot loads of ideas, and with good reason. My mother-in-law is Italian, raised in Milan, and my father-in-law is Japanese, raised in Tokyo. Alex’s childhood food memories are like an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. They are just, quite literally, that rich and that good.  

Me on the other hand, that’s a different story. For one, my mind is already cluttered with vial upon vial of internet poison and botched visits to the parenting section at Barnes and Noble. I’ll be lucky if I can get through our first family dinner without having heart palpitations. Can he have nuts? What about eggs? Did we ask the doctor about wheat? Is that yogurt organic, but no like, actually organic? WHERE IS THAT EPIPEN?

So on this Mother’s Day, I’ve decided to think back to when I was a kid and my mom made our plain old American dinner table the most fun table in the world with a hands on meal that my brother and I loved: fondue and artichokes.

What makes a better Mother's Day than a picnic?

I contemplated this while driving down Sunset Blvd tonight, the big ol' moon silhouetted behind the palm trees, on one of those nights in LA when you feel true glee at being alive in the smoggiest city in the United States (it's true, it was listed today).

Think about this:
A roast chicken, some hummus (lovingly made, in our case, by the Maharishi, a true Lebanese purist when it comes to the blending of garbanzo beans, garlic, lemon juice, tahini and olive oil), some Arabic bread, some bright, sweet, red tomatoes, a punnet of sweet strawberries, a little Sancerre, a pretty tablecloth, the children (let's pretend for a moment that they're not too old and reluctant), a couple of dogs for good measure.

After a week in Dublin, the mother and child reunion tour moves to a town in Sicily, Taormina –built on a cliff above the aqua sea with a snow-capped volcano behind it. After settling into our room, Rachel says she wants to make no plans and have no agenda.

There are hundreds of sites to explore in Sicily: more Greek temples than in Greece; Roman ruins; Arabian ports, and chains of volcanic islands with black sand beaches. But for the next week, we'll see almost none of them.

We give ourselves over to il bel far niente, the beautiful doing nothing. Italians have raised this to an art form, but I get nervous when Rachel suggests I take off my watch.

We have all experienced great meals, ones that we talk and think about again and again. And then there are the meals and flavors that are so epic, they imprint on our brains forever. This, my friends, was one of those meals. It was just spectacular.

Does anyone remember Wolfgang Puck's celebrated Smoked Salmon Pizza with Caviar? It was one of his signature dishes from the 80's at Spago in Beverly Hills. In fact, it was one of the dishes that really put him on the map. I have to admit, that recipe sort of inspired me here. If Puck can do smoked salmon pizza, I can do tacos.

And living in the Pacific Northwest, fresh, wild salmon is part of the culture. And smoking it yourself is part of the fun. Now, don't worry, you can easily use purchased smoked salmon in this recipe. However, if you have the capability to smoke your own, I'm going to show you how. It is so worth the small amount of effort it takes.

Here is your set up, perfect for Mother's Day, the biggest brunch day of the year. It's a lovely spread for when guests arrive. Not to mention it's to die for with a little Pinot Noir or sparkling wine. What you see here is the flaked smoked salmon, we'll get to making that in a moment. Whipped cream cheese is mixed with Sargento Pepper Jack Cheese. The pepper jack gave the tacos a hint of heat and little more smokiness. The shredded cheese also added texture to the creamy cheese, an important factor in this dish.