My Energizer Bunny Mum is Bouncing Back and Baking her Famous Linzertorte to Boot

My mother, Ruth Schachter, in her gar­den a few years ago

“You never write, you never call,” I’m wont to say affec­tion­ately dur­ing phone con­ver­sa­tions I nearly always ini­ti­ate from my home in Toronto to hers in Prim­rose Hill: the ele­gant, celebrity-studded, north-west Lon­don neigh­bour­hood where she’s lived for almost 20 years.

“She’s my low-maintenance mum,” I’ve been known to quip when describ­ing her to friends, a descrip­tion that, when I elab­o­rate, includes the following.

My mother Ruth Schachter (nee Nisse) is a holo­caust refugee from Riga, Latvia. She is flu­ent in six lan­guages and recently read Anna Karen­ina in the orig­i­nal, finds Goethe’s poetry a “sooth­ing” accom­pa­ni­ment to her morn­ing cof­fee and, a biol­o­gist with two sci­ence degrees, she recently explained cloning to my son-in-law.

At age 89, she has lived alone until recently (read on for more on that) since the death in 2001 of my dad Mel: a colour­ful, pudgy, ram­bunc­tious doctor/medical prof and researcher whose bigger-than-life pres­ence is sorely missed.

The home she shared with him is the “gar­den flat” — i.e. bot­tom floor that once com­prised ser­vants’ quar­ters — of a giant Vic­to­rian home built in the 1860s. Her neigh­bours are the likes of David Wal­liams (bril­liant British come­dian of Lit­tle Britain and other fame), actress Sadie Frost (ex-wife of Jude Law), stage actor Derek Jacobi and Helena Bonham-Carter who needs no introduction.

Talk­ing of the lat­ter, my mum, who is dainty, diminu­tive and decid­edly cute — bright blue eyes, white hair tied back in a French roll and a sweet demeanour that belies a steely will — has been known to receive Ms. Bon­ham Carter’s mail because of an almost iden­ti­cal address.

“I took a cou­ple of let­ters to her,” mum recalls. “She came to the door and was quite charm­ing,” quickly adding, “but her hair was decid­edly dishevelled.”

One aspect of being low-maintenance is my mother’s fiercely inde­pen­dent, no-fuss atti­tude to her health. I only found out about cataract surg­eries after the fact.

As for crises of other sorts, her response is bor­der­ing on secre­tive. The dis­cov­ery that she had been the vic­tim of what I called a “home inva­sion” (“Oh, you North Amer­i­cans are so dra­matic,” was her imme­di­ate come­back) only sur­faced because I was at her home when the police called to invite her to inspect a line-up of sus­pects. At that point, I had to pry the story from her using all my sleuthing skills.

So when we finally heard about a med­ical emer­gency a cou­ple of months ago, my brother Eric and I knew it was serious.

Again, we were not informed of this by mum but by friends in Lon­don who could not reach her. She had fallen on the bus, then returned home where she expe­ri­enced a mini-stroke and lay on the floor all night with a par­a­lyzed leg. A nasty ‘flu followed.

Long story short, Eric, who lives in Harlem, finally got through to some of our mum’s many friends who were wor­ried sick. Her phone was off the hook and she was not answer­ing the door.

Once in Lon­don, my trusty bro’ got to work nurs­ing mum back to health with crois­sants, smoked salmon and the occa­sional glass of white wine. He made sure doc­tors were on the case, dealt with house­keep­ing issues and arranged for a young jour­nal­ism grad called Rachael to live with her via an orga­ni­za­tion called Homeshare.

All this was in place and, although frail, mum was on the road to recov­ery when I arrived in mid-April. Walk­ing was a prob­lem; her energy level was down. No more vol­un­teer teach­ing of young ‘uns twice a week at the local ele­men­tary school. Like­wise for tutor­ing a young man in Russ­ian, her weekly Ital­ian class and trips to the Wig­more Hall.

But I knew there was hope when my mother’s famous Linz­er­torte was on the din­ing table in all its freshly baked, bur­nished brown, sugar-dusted glory. Touch­ingly, and in keep­ing with the one bond we have always had — food and cook­ing — it told me she was gain­ing strength and, most impor­tant, that she had baked it to wel­come me, with love.

My 11-day stay was mostly taken up with prac­ti­cal mat­ters: clean­ing, cook­ing, attend­ing to mum’s finances and resolv­ing a scary plumb­ing cri­sis involv­ing a col­lapsed drain that required much moolah and a total of five days to fix.

Although stress­ful, I sailed through much of this. To see my mother, Rachael and assorted friends enjoy my lemony, crisp-skinned roast chicken, lus­cious Stumpot (mashed pota­toes mixed with steamed kale), onion-laden braised beef and big sal­ads doused in sesame-spiked Asian dress­ing was food for my soul. The usual jet­lag was minimal.

Each day, mum looked perkier — proof that TLC and home cook­ing are the best cures for all that ails.

The day I left, mum insisted on walk­ing in the rain to my nearby hotel to say good­bye. We had cof­fee in my room. She thanked me for being such a help.

And just before I got into the cab, my mum turned to me with these words: “You know Mar­ion, you’re a bet­ter cook than me.”

Here is the Linz­er­torte — my mother’s orig­i­nal recipe tweaked a bit by yours truly. It should be a rich, dark brown when baked so feel free to cook it a bit longer.

A clas­sic linzertorte

http://www.marionkane.com/recipe-linzertorte.htm