By Monday morning and I'm sitting in my office at the East Point middle school, eating a granola bar that tastes like compressed sadness, and thinking about the fact that Mama's seventh anniversary is in three weeks. Seven years since Easter Sunday. Seven years since the ham timer and the last words and the beginning of everything that came after. The number seven feels biblical, which is appropriate because Mama would have appreciated the symbolism. She was a church woman through and through.
A new girl in the seventh grade — Aaliyah — came to my office for the first time this week. Referred by her English teacher for "behavioral issues," which is teacher-speak for "this child is in pain and expressing it the only way she knows how." Aaliyah sat in the chair across from my desk and stared at me with the particular defiance of a twelve-year-old who has been told to trust adults by adults who were not trustworthy. I asked her what she liked to do. She said, "Nothing." I said, "Nothing takes a lot of time. You must be very busy." She almost smiled. Almost. That's week one. You don't get the real stuff in week one. You get the armor.
Zoe had an art show at school — a small one, just the advanced art class, but her pieces were displayed in the library and Derek and I went and stood in front of her watercolor of a magnolia tree and pretended we weren't the proudest parents in the building. We were absolutely the proudest parents in the building. Derek took fourteen photographs. Fourteen. Of one painting. The man who manages million-dollar IT budgets with spreadsheets and deadlines took fourteen photos of a watercolor because his daughter painted it and he is, beneath the calm exterior, a complete mess when it comes to his children.
Made chicken pot pie from scratch on Wednesday — not Mama's recipe (Mama didn't make pot pie; she considered it "white people food," which was said with love and without apology) but my own recipe, developed over three years of trial and error. Butter crust. Rotisserie chicken. Peas, carrots, celery, potato. A roux with chicken broth and a splash of cream. Zoe ate two slices. Curtis ate one slice and said, "Your mama would have put more pepper." He's right. Mama would have put more pepper in everything. Mama believed pepper was a personality trait.
Saturday: cooked at the townhouse for Curtis and then drove to the church for Set the Table. Twelve girls this week, working on knife skills. I showed them how to hold a chef's knife — thumb and index finger on the blade, not the handle — and watched their faces as they realized that the thing they'd been afraid of was actually just a tool, and tools are only dangerous when you don't know how to hold them. Metaphor, meet kitchen. Kitchen, meet life.
Wednesday is my cooking day — the day I come home and let the kitchen do what talk can’t always do. The pot pie was the main event, but these mozzarella tartlets are what I brought to Set the Table on Saturday, because twelve girls learning knife skills deserve something warm to eat at the end of it, and because small things made carefully are their own kind of sermon. Mama taught me that. You don’t always need a grand dish. Sometimes a little pastry cup, filled with something melted and good, is exactly the right thing to put in front of somebody who needs to feel seen.
Mozzarella Appetizer Tartlets
Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 24 tartlets
Ingredients
- 2 packages (1.9 oz each) frozen mini phyllo tart shells (30 shells total), thawed
- 8 oz fresh mozzarella, cut into small cubes
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
- 12 fresh basil leaves, torn
- 1 tablespoon balsamic glaze, for drizzling
Instructions
- Preheat the oven. Set oven to 375°F. Arrange the thawed mini phyllo shells on a rimmed baking sheet in a single layer.
- Make the filling. In a small bowl, combine the cherry tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes if using. Toss to coat.
- Fill the shells. Place one cube of mozzarella into the bottom of each shell. Spoon a small amount of the tomato mixture on top, pressing gently so it nestles into the cup.
- Bake. Transfer the baking sheet to the oven and bake for 12–15 minutes, until the shells are golden at the edges and the mozzarella is melted and just beginning to bubble.
- Garnish and serve. Remove from the oven and let rest for 2 minutes. Top each tartlet with a small piece of torn fresh basil and finish with a light drizzle of balsamic glaze. Serve warm.
Nutrition (per serving, 3 tartlets)
Calories: 118 | Protein: 6g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 8g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 175mg