A Little Gourmet Dinner

One of the most memorable meals from our childhood was the day Mom decided to try something a little gourmet. She spent a good part of the afternoon making a refreshing chilled soup, Cold Cucumber Soup, and an Eggplant Soufflé.  With a flourish she called us all to dinner and presented us with lovely bowls of a cool green liquid. On a warm, humid summer day in NJ, it seemed just the thing. We all lifted our spoons to take the first sips of our dinner, quickly faces crumpled, mouths gagged, several were heard saying, "Eww! Yuck!" Across the table, Mom no longer could hold a straight face and she giggled as she looked around. Dad jumped up, aghast! "You knew what this tasted like? And you still served it?" She wasn't giggling anymore, she was laughing out loud. She admitted that she had indeed tasted it and knew it was awful. She served it anyway, because, she had spent the afternoon on it.

Never fear, the dinner was not a complete loss. She still had the Eggplant Soufflé for us. Still laughing, she went to the oven and pulled it out. Dinner was saved. It was beautiful, puffed up and golden brown. We oohed and ahhed. Then she served it. As the spoon went in, it deflated. The inside wasn't a golden brown but a pasty grey. It looked like stewed brains. We weren't taking our chances that it might taste like them too.

Mom's lovely gourmet dinner evolved into peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But, we all remember it.

Dishes

Is there a more dreaded chore in all of history than the dishes? Everyday. Even weekends and holidays. Dishes, dishes, dishes. It is one of those chores that is never done, no matter how well you do the job.

We had several variations of chore charts growing up, but every single one of them included turns doing the dishes. And while some chores lent themselves to some form of slacking or not doing thoroughly, the dishes were impossible to avoid. Oh, we tried, but there were consequences for not getting them done in a timely manner. The most common consequence for neglecting dish duty was to get assigned a weeks worth of dishes, thus providing the opportunity to practice avoidance skills for an entire week.

Some of us were more skilled in dish avoidance than others. I was among the slow learners and held the record for weeks on dishes until James got old enough to enter the fray. It did not take long for him to take the title, leaving my paltry 3 months on dishes in the dust. James didn't just get a week on dishes and accept his fate and learn his lesson. He considered dish duty as ground zero in the battle of his will versus authority in the universe. This was an epic battle. James didn't just earn weeks on dishes, he earned months and years.

There were some infamous face offs between James and the parents over dishes. One day Dad stood behind James and, as if he was a puppeteer, would help James pick up a dish and with the other hand in his would help him scrub it clean. This was not an easy task as James was struggling against the inevitable the entire time, squirming, clenching his fists, and protesting his fate.

Another episode that has become legend is the evening that James was told he had to do the dishes before he went to bed. At some point Dad entered the kitchen to check on his progress and found James asleep, curled up on the small kitchen rug, with a dish towel over his shoulders to provide some warmth on the cold kitchen floor.

It got to the point that James owned dishwashing in the house and since he had already been awarded dishes for the foreseeable future there was no point in using more days on dishes as a consequence. He earned weeks off his sentence just by doing them, if not willingly, then at least without a fight.

Do things change? Does a kid that hates to do dishes as a child grow up to be an adult that enjoys the quiet time at the sink? I suppose it is possible, but I have kids that accuse me of assigning them dishes just so that I won't have to do them. (Duh, yes!) And James? Well, he may do them, but only if he has to.

Bronchitis

When I was about ten years old, I got sick with bronchitis at the same time my parents were due to go away together to a convention for Dad’s work. As a parent myself now and looking back, I am sure that my mother was looking forward to the time away with her husband, but as a sick child, I did not want them to go. The tight feeling in my chest that made breathing so difficult was scary to me and I wanted my Mom around.

My parents knew that I was scared and sick but they also knew that I had lived through many such illnesses and that I would live through this one too. They made the difficult decision to go on their trip as planned. Before they left my father laid his hands on my head and gave me a priesthood blessing that my body would heal and I would get better. I had faith that that blessing would work but I was still sick and scared and reluctant to have them leave.

They did leave, however, and I remember lying alone in my parent’s bed trying hard to breathe and I was scared. I said a prayer of my own to Heavenly Father that the scared feeling would go away and that I would be able to breathe easier. After my prayer, I thought about what they had taught us in Primary, that singing hymns was a good way to get unwanted thoughts and feelings out of our minds. I started singing quietly to myself all of the Primary songs and hymns that I could remember. My Heavenly Father blessed me with the comfort and peace that the Holy Ghost brings to us in times of need.

Shortly after that my mom came back through the door. She had been having second thoughts about leaving me sick and scared so they had turned around and come home. This time though, I could smile at her and say that I was okay. I was no longer scared, I was breathing easier and it was alright with me if she went with Dad. I knew at that point that I was going to be fine and my Heavenly Father was watching over me.

Mom and Dad left again, this time feeling easier about me. And this time I rolled over and went to sleep as they left. I awoke the next morning feeling fine and with a stronger testimony of the power of the priesthood and an assurance that my Heavenly Father’s love for me matched my earthly parents love for me. I am grateful for that testimony.

Onion Grass

One summer Dad said that he would pay us a penny for each clump of onion grass that we dug up from the yard. The tools of the trade were a screwdriver and a bucket. We would use the screwdriver to loosen the dirt around the onion grass and then pull it up and drop it in the bucket keeping careful count of our pennies as we went. It wasn't a glamorous job but we had a lot of onion grass in the yard. I was the top earner that summer and I think I made somewhere around $5.

Check Point Charlie

Herding kids into bed can be a big job. There is a natural reluctance to say good bye to a day and prepare for another one. To give us incentive to get moving Mom would sometimes play Check Point Charlie. The idea was that we were to get ready for bed and then report to "Charlie" who would ask questions about our preparation. If you answered "no" to a question, you were sent on a mission to get it done, then report back. When you could answer all the questions with a "yes", you were deemed ready to hit the sack.

Questions covered the normal gamut of bedtime chores - 

"Did you brush your teeth?'

"Did you put on your pajamas?"

"Are your clothes in the dirty clothes pile?"

"Have you said your prayers?"

To make things interesting, odd questions were thrown in -

"Have you spun around three times?"

"Did you pet the cat?"

"Did you blow your nose?"

The idea was that nobody passed the checkpoint on the first try. It didn't matter how hard we tried, we couldn't beat Charlie. There was an endless stream of oddities that could be requested of us. At some point though, we would pass every question, including "Did you tell your mom you love her?", and off to bed we would go.

Flemington Fair

One of things that we, as kids, just found incredibly exciting was the funnel cake and root beer booth at the Flemington Fair. Not because we got to eat there, but because we got to work there. We were right on the speedway. It was incredibly noisy. It was hot. It was greasy. But we were enchanted by the opportunity to be behind the scenes at the fair.

The Princeton, NJ Ward was a young ward and had been meeting for sometime in a school. The members were eager to get a chapel built and the funnel cake booth at the fair was part of the plan to raise the funds needed. For two weeks ward members staffed the booth from the time the fair opened in the morning until it closed in the evening, except for Sundays when they turned off the fryers and let the missionaries offer eternal happiness instead. Manning the booth was a big commitment for a small ward. But what did we know, we were kids, to us it was just fun. The first couple of years we lived there we were deemed too young to be there so we were filled with quite a sense of privilege when we were allowed in to work.

Beginners got to work on root beer. There was sugar to measure. Extract to pour. Water to add. All that mixing with long wooden spoons in huge 5 gallon containers. And then there was the dry ice. Only under  strict adult supervision and only if you had already proved yourself to be responsible enough were you allowed to don gloves and help pull chunks of that smoking magical substance out of the coolers and add it to the sweet brown liquid. There it would start to bubble and froth like a witches brew with smoke pouring forth from under the lid and turn those simple ingredients into a sublime nectar. It was the best root beer at the fair. Just ask all those people standing in line or the Wood kid that had helped mix it up and had to taste it for quality control reasons. More than once. We were just that concerned.

Once we had proved ourselves on root beer, we could graduate to batter mixing and restocking. When the line got long and things were hopping at the front, someone had to be in the back mixing up more funnel cake batter. Lots of stirring and measuring. And the batter had to get into the funnels at the front of the booth where the frying was going on. It wouldn't do to have a fryer sitting idle because there wasn't batter  ready to go.

And then there was the job we all wanted. Fry Cook. Yes we were too young and there were vast amounts of hot oil and gas burners which is not necessarily a good mix with kids, but that was where the action took place. There was the funnel full of batter, and you got to pull up the stick and swirl the batter into the hot oil. We all wanted to try our skill at getting the cakes to that perfect golden brown. A chance to try and flip them over without breaking them, a test of your skill as a batter swirler. Ooh, the dusting of powdered sugar on top. Heavier for those who liked their cakes nice and sweet, just a smidgen for a customer that just wanted enough to make the cake pretty. The crowd watched the action and the banter between the crowd and the cooks was part of the fun. The peppier the banter between the cooks and the line, the more people got into line to wait their turn. And when traffic was slow you got to play barker and try to rein them in. If you couldn't entice them with a delectable cake, maybe they would like some ice cold homemade root beer. If not, maybe it was time to check the quality of the product once again. As kids, it was our strongest role.

Primary Nights

During the years I attended Primary, it was held on a Tuesday or Wednesday after school. I only have vague memories of Primary, although I do recall one day hiding under the table in the classroom and refusing to come out and sit on a chair for the lesson. Sister Thomas from the Saginaw Ward was my teacher that day. That incident most likely stands out to me because it was unusual for me to misbehave. But this story isn't really about adventures in Primary, it is more about what happened after Primary.

As I said, Primary was held after school on a weekday. At least after we moved to New Jersey, we had a bit of a drive to get to the chapel and back. Mom frequently had a calling in the presidency which meant that we had to be there on time and were often among the last to leave after waiting for kids to be picked up and cleaning up after the event. This meant that we, kids and Mom, were tired and hungry and cranky as we headed home. Due to the dinner time crunch there are two dinner options that I remember from Primary nights, fast food and Dad cooking a dish that doesn't necessarily have a name.

First, fast food. This was not a common occurrence in our young lives, which is why I remember it so well. One of the fast food places, I think it was Burger King, had a promotion to draw in mid-week crowds. Two-for-one hamburgers, or Whoppers, or possibly Big Macs, if it was the other fast food place. I don't exactly remember. What I do remember is that sometimes on Primary night, we would get hamburgers. Two-for-one so we each got our own hamburger, then we split a soda and fries between two people. It was cheap fast food, even cheaper. And as kids, we were happy even if the Happy Meal hadn't been invented yet.

Second dinner option, which was what usually happened, Dad cooked and had it ready when we walked in the door. Dad's dinners were memorable for a couple of reasons, the first of course being that Dad cooked it and he wasn't Mom who did most of the cooking. (Not that she didn't have some memorable meals, but that is a different post. Cold cucumber soup anyone? But I digress.) The other reason is that although Dad's dinners were all the same, you never knew just what you were going to get. Let me explain. The dish started with some ground beef, or leftover meatloaf, or some chicken or turkey leftover in the fridge, but usually ground beef. This was cooked in the electric skillet with onions, or peppers, or celery, or whatever aromatics were in the fridge. To this was added, corn, or green beans, maybe carrots, or possibly all three. Once again, the combination depended on what was leftover in the fridge from meals earlier in the week. This got topped off with tomato sauce, or possibly gravy, and it all simmered together. Meanwhile, the potatoes had boiled on the stove. These were mashed and carefully spread over the top of the ingredients in the skillet. Depending on mood, there could possibly have been a sprinkling of cheese over the top. The whole concoction simmered on low until we walked in the door.

Let me tell you, it smelled good. And we were hungry and so happy to have a dinner waiting for us. After the prayer, Dad would scoop you a big spoonful of mashed potatoes with sauce and put it on your plate so that the sauce was on top. This was when you found out what exactly was in this weeks meal. It sounds strange, it doesn't have a name, but as I remember it, we all ate it and loved it. Well, maybe not the onions and peppers. I would surely have picked them out and pushed them to the side of my plate but remember putting it on a list of meals that I liked and saying that I would make it for my kids. I wonder if they would eat it.