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He told her how hard I worked, how at this very moment I was probably seeing about an apartment, and how I deserved a dessert. A good dessert made for me by my mother.

Mother had had just about enough of that. “If she needs a dessert why don’t you make it for her?”

“Oh, Grandma, I’m only six years old.”

Mother said, “If you are old enough to try to bully me into making something for your mother, then you are old enough to make it yourself. Do you want to try?”

He laughed and said, “Sure.”

She said she would show him how to make a bread pudding, after he washed his hands. “Cleanliness is next to godliness” was my mother’s mantra. Mother set him on a kitchen stool so he could reach the sink.

“A good cook washes his hands ten times an hour; a great cook, twenty times.”

Each time he touched a piece of food he climbed up onto the stool and washed his hands.

She let him butter stale bread, which was then placed in the oven to toast, and she showed him how to break eggs without dropping shells into the mixing bowl.

He whisked milk and then sugar into the eggs. He put raisins in warm water so they could plump.

There was an undeniable air of secret happenings when I entered the house that night. I looked at Mother, and her smile was like a promising but sealed envelope, and Guy was about to explode. I had to give them their due.

“What’s going on? What have you people been doing?”

Mother said, “Ask your son.”

“Well, Guy? What’s the news?”

“Mom, well… I can’t tell you until after dinner. Are you ready to eat right now? We can sit down and have dinner. Then we can have dessert. Oooo-weee.” He spoke so fast he hardly had time to breathe.

He could not sit still at the dinner table.

Mother finally told him the dessert was cool enough and he could bring it out.

The baked bread pudding was puffed up and toasty brown, but I only had eyes for Guy. He strutted and preened. Pride and self-congratulations were his shoulder pads, and he nearly had to put both hands over his mouth to keep from blurting out his achievement.

When Mother placed the bread pudding in front of her to serve it, he could hold off no longer.

“I cooked this for her, Grandmother. My mother should serve it.” Vivian Baxter agreed and slid the dessert over to me. Guy asked, “Is it good, is it good? I made it myself.”

I had not tasted one bite, but I answered, “My son, this is the best bread pudding in the world.”

It was true then, and even as you read about it today it is still the best bread pudding in the world.

Bread Pudding

SERVES 6

1 loaf stale sliced white bread

4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter

½ cup golden raisins

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs, beaten

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease with butter 3-quart casserole dish.

Butter both sides of bread slices, place on tin foil, and put into oven. Toast slices on both sides.

Place raisins in bowl of hot water to plump. Cover, soak for 20 minutes, and drain.

Combine sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and cinnamon. Mix well. Break up toasted bread, and put in casserole dish. Add drained raisins. Pour egg mixture over bread, and stir.

Bake 40 minutes. Serve hot or cold.

MY TEN-YEAR-OLD SON had a huge appetite and I had a very slim wallet. We lived in a small two-room apartment in a San Francisco Victorian. Our building provided cooking privileges for all tenants in a large kitchen down the hall.

I adored my brother, Bailey, and he was coming for dinner. I wanted to delight him by creating a new recipe. I would at the same time satisfy my always-hungry son.

Bailey was two years older than I and seven inches shorter, but he made it very clear all my life that he was my big brother. He was a good cook, and occasionally brilliance would overtake him at the stove and his culinary efforts would bedazzle. Our mother, who was the best and most adventurous cook in our family, encouraged us to be daring in creating recipes and bold in competing with