‘In the Night Kitchen’ at a Brooklyn Breakfast Table
Every morning at my house, two things are bound to happen. The first, of course, is breakfast. On the days that I take on early-morning toddler duty, that means splitting a banana-yogurt-strawberry-tahini smoothie with Max. Sometimes I throw in frozen spinach or a spoonful of pumpkin puree to sneak some vitamins into my vegetable-avoidant child’s system.
The second inevitable thing is that Max requests that we read the “Meemee boo,” which translates to “Mickey book.” Mickey is the main character in Maurice Sendak’s 1970 work, an imaginative confection of a story in which a young boy dreams himself into the whimsical center of a pre-dawn cake-baking session.
Undaunted by the three jolly, mustachioed bakers he encounters (or the fact that they mistakenly stir him into the cake batter), Mickey enjoys a delicious night of adventure. He fashions an airplane out of bread dough and flies it across a skyline of pantry staples — boxed oatmeal, tins of coffee and jam and packages of yeast and cocoa. He dives into an oversized bottle of milk and pours milk into the bakers’ mixing bowl to their delight. “Milk in the Batter! Milk in the Batter! We Bake Cake! And Nothing’s the Matter!” they sing. Then Mickey slides down the side of the bottle and, miraculously, back into his warm bed “cake free and dried.”
Sendak was born in late-1920s Brooklyn, the son of Jewish Polish parents. While not religious, many of his books, including “In the Night Kitchen,” would feel unmistakably familiar to other children of Jewish immigrants who grew up in early 20th-century New York. There’s a sweetness and simplicity that fills the pages, and a thrilling sense of discovery around every corner that matches the feel of urban childhood.
Growing up in the 1980s in the suburbs of Chicago, “In The Night Kitchen” didn’t really blip my radar. My brother and I were “Where the Wild Things Are” kids, all the way. And my breakfast reading was typically limited to the back of the cereal box.
But my boy Max, like Sendak, is Brooklyn born and bred. Maurice, and Mickey, are his people far more than they are mine. I am so thankful that Max has taken me along for the ride. And when he grows tired of his Meemee boo, as is bound to someday happen? Let’s just say I might have recently ordered “Chicken Soup with Rice.”
Leah Koenig is a contributing editor at the Forward and author of “Modern Jewish Cooking: Recipes & Customs for Today’s Kitchen,” Chronicle Books (2015).
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