By James arrived Saturday afternoon in his good car with a bag that said he was staying two nights and a look on his face that said he had been holding a great deal together for six weeks and was relieved to be somewhere he did not have to hold quite as tightly.
He is sixty-one years old and looks like our father looked at sixty-one except for the gray at his temples, which our father did not have because our father dyed his until he was eighty. James sat down in my kitchen and I put coffee in front of him and he talked for forty-five minutes without stopping. Dorothy's diagnosis, the treatment schedule, the doctors' faces when they delivered the news, the first night he drove home from the hospital alone and sat in the driveway for twenty minutes before going inside. He talked the way people talk when they have been holding something in a space where it doesn't belong — fast, with detail, like emptying a container that was not meant to hold what was in it.
I made pot roast Saturday evening and we ate together at the kitchen table, the two of us, the way we used to eat when we were children and Mama worked a long day and it was just us and whatever was in the pot. James ate two servings. He said, this is Mama's recipe isn't it. I said yes, almost exactly. He said almost. I said she put carrot in and I use parsnip now, which I think is better. He thought about it for a moment and said, it might be. That was the highest culinary praise I was going to get from James and I accepted it.
After dinner he asked about Marcus and I told him what the last four years had been — the real version, not the abbreviated version I usually give. We sat in the kitchen until midnight. Brothers and sisters have a particular vocabulary, and mostly ours is silence that understands itself.
After we cleared the pot roast and James said what he said about the parsnip, I wanted to put something sweet on the table — not a production, just something warm and undemanding that said the evening did not have to end yet. Baked custard is the kind of dessert that asks nothing of anyone. It comes out of the oven quietly, it sits in its dish, and it is exactly what it is. That felt right for a night when my brother had already done so much hard talking and still had a long drive home ahead of him in two days.
Baked Custard
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 50 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 3 cups whole milk
- 4 large eggs
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Heat the oven. Preheat your oven to 325°F. Place six 6-ounce ramekins or custard cups into a large, deep baking dish and set aside.
- Warm the milk. Heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until it is just steaming, not boiling. Remove from heat and allow it to cool slightly, about 5 minutes.
- Mix the custard base. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is smooth and pale, about 2 minutes.
- Combine. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg mixture in a thin, steady stream, whisking constantly to prevent the eggs from curdling. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve if desired for an extra-smooth result.
- Fill and season. Ladle the custard mixture evenly into the prepared ramekins. Dust the top of each with a pinch of ground nutmeg.
- Prepare the water bath. Pour enough hot tap water into the baking dish to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. This gentle, even heat is what gives the custard its smooth, silky texture.
- Bake. Carefully transfer the baking dish to the oven and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until the custard is just set at the edges but still has a slight wobble in the center when gently shaken.
- Cool and serve. Remove the ramekins from the water bath and allow them to cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Serve warm, or refrigerate for up to 2 days and serve chilled.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 145 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 16g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 155mg