My mother cuts fruit like she’s had practice from before she came out of the womb: smooth and seamlessly, she glides around the apple or orange in her hand and sears away the skin without much effort, letting the sharpness of the knife guide her as she twists and turns  the fruit around in her hands. For her, a fruit peeler is child’s play.

I don’t know how she manages to do it and still, I don’t know why I’m so enamored by it. In fact, it seems so magical to me, that I’m convinced that I can’t call myself a real adult until I can learn to cut and peel fruit with her skill level. I have made it the defining mark of the grown up world.

If you think about it, cutting fruit nicely is quite a daunting task. I will never forget the countless times I’ve made an apple look like one of Delia Deetz’s sculptures in “Beetle Juice.” Or how I’ve basically pilfered a watermelon into mush. Sure, it’s edible either way, but it takes such grace and concentration to actually cut fruit into presentable pieces of food.

And this is my twisted, backward reasoning into believing that because I haven’t matched my mother’s fruit cutting skills, I can’t consider myself an adult. To be fair, it was probably acquired over time and perfected during her child-bearing years, but still.

It’s not even entirely about her way with oranges and plums, it’s more or less her way around the kitchen. Before she got married, she had no real training in culinary skills because she spent most of her days holding down two jobs and going to school at the same time and to think that without any prior knowledge, that she cooks the way she does (and believe me, Armenian and Persian food are not easy tasks) is just baffling to me. Her rice is always the perfect consistency, her dolma (stuffed grape leaves) is just heaven in my mouth and her desserts are to die for -even her simple vanilla cakes. When I eat her vanilla cake, I can taste her-her warmth, her passion and love, all baked between the insides of a delectable bundt pan.

So, I guess I’ve come to the conclusion that I better raise the level of my abilities with food presentation before I can graduate into adulthood. But moreso, I see that you get back is what you put in, especially if what you’re putting in is love.