Life is Beautiful

The Non-Couch Potato

2011-12-09T13:32:00.000-05:00

Mom has been handling the holidays for decades, which means I've relaxed, over the years, into lazy single mode. Easy to do, when your Mom's so obliging. The hardest thing she ever asks me to do is mash potatoes.

This year is different.

It started when our usual four families for Thanksgiving made different plans this year, leaving us with one guest. I had been waiting years to cook Thanksgiving dinner and leapt at the chance to volunteer. My mom looked stunned.

"What would I do?" she asked, her mouth drying up, along with her perceived usefulness.

Recalling my family's distrust of my cooking, I assured her it wouldn't be a big risk, with only one guest coming.

"Oh, it's not that. I know you can do a good job," she said, hesitatingly.

My week was spent on Food Network's website, hunting down the best recipes. I'm a sucker for themes, so I chose "Country Thanksgiving", with:

Brined Herb-Crusted Turkey with Apple Cider Gravy

from Anne Burrell

Caramelized Onion and Cornbread Stuffing

from Tyler Florence

Corn Casserole

from Paula Deen

Baked Mashed Potatoes with Parmesan Cheese and Bread Crumbs

from Giada De Laurentiis

Roasted Root Vegetables

and Harvest Bisque

It was a scene set for splendor.

A few days before Thanksgiving my pastor heard we had one guest.

"Why not come over our house?" he asked, in his usual gracious way. It took me a microsecond to nod wholeheartedly. They have over 30 guests every year. Everyone brings her best dishes. Dishes, dishes, more dishes. Enough desserts to fill a sleigh.

My appetite for food would be satisfied, but not the angst to cook.

"You could still cook," pastor said. "Have a brunch."

Ooo. A brunch. The word just sang of comfort food and yummies. The menu changed.

Yogurt Parfait with Blackberries, Blueberries, and Raspberries

Goat Cheese, Chopped Spinach, and Sun-Dried Tomato Omelet

Christmas Breakfast Sausage Casserole

Parmesan Potato Wedges

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

I invited four of my good friends and we brunched our hearts out, and miraculously, everyone loved the food. Was there room for supper? No. But somehow we found hidden pockets we didn't know about.

Turkey day had passed when one day I looked at my calendar and realized my parents' anniversary was December 6. Mom always wanted to go to the Russian Tea Room. New menu.

Borscht

Potato Pancakes with Fried Apples

Cabbage Rolls Stuffed with Olivier Salad

(Olivier is a salad with potatoes, meat and veggies)

Beef Stroganoff

Honey Cake

(Where I would be without my Joy of Cooking, I'll never know.)

"I'm going to invite a few people over for Christmas dinner," Mom said recently, beating me to the punch.

"Wha?" I shrieked.

"You can cook for New Year's."

Yeah! New Year's! Hastily I printed invitations crowned with a new theme: Dickens Turn-of-the-Year Supper.

Beef and Onion Pie

Pork and Cider Stew with Dumplings

Bubble and Squeak

(a potato veggie pancake)

Roasted Root Vegetables

Baked Apples

Toffee Pudding

Gingerbread Cake with Butter Caramel Sauce

Tea and Hot Cider Punch

This time there'll be thirteen.

I've put away my lazy hat--packed it with the useless Christmas ornamentation--and donned the chef's cap to give back to my friends and family part of what they've given me.

There's going be a diet in the resolutions this year.

Happy Deutchday

2011-10-24T12:19:00.001-04:00

Dad's birthday (Oct. 25) was fast approaching with two weeks left, so I hashed out restuarant ideas with Mom.

"Dad would like Italian," I said, because Dad loves it anytime, even when the quality stinks.

"No, no. Dad wouldn't like that," she said. "He wants something different."

I couldn't think what. The only what I came up with he hasn't tried is a medieval jousting restaurant in New Jersey. Let's be patriotic and save gas.

Stumped, I eventually got Dad alone and asked, "If you could eat anywhere, where would it be?" His answer dumfounded me.

"Oh," he said, nearly floating on air. "Your mother and I had our first date at a German restaurant with German music and folk dancers."

That could explain a lot of things, I thought, If our family started off this way. Mutual nuttiness, for one. "Okay," I said, dismissing it as an impossible find. And why would anyone choose sauerkraut over lasagna and linguini with white clam sauce? But then he is half German and his favorite deli is a German deli that still serves liverwurst sandwiches even though this is neither 1456 nor 1932.

So the birthday discussion committee came to an impasse.

Three days ago a friend invited me to lunch. "Ever been to the Milleridge Inn?" she said, clutching her hands.

It began as a two-room cottage in 1653, and in its backyard was a small antiquated village with a bake shop, toy shop, candy shop, housewares shop, and a general store. This wasn't an eatery, this was a town! A Long Island treasure.

We opened the menu and there were the words that make the diner faint: scallops, salmon, mashed potatoes, mashed butternut squash, Waldorf salad. Cake, cake, and more kinds of cake. For twenty dollars I received an appetizer, salad, all-you-can-eat popovers and iced cinnamon bread, an entree with two sides, dessert, and coffee or tea. The portions were perfect, so there was no bother bringing food home. This was my kind of place.

On the back of the menu were details of the Milleridge history. I looked across the room and there it was: the original fireplace, as big as a buggy and still in use.

Then I looked down at the menu again and saw it: the sentence at the bottom of the page. Oompah Band and Traditional German Dancers--Oct. 28.

This Friday and this Friday only. On the week of Dad's birthday. I laughed out loud. "I don't believe it!" I said, then explained to my friend.

Soon after, missives were fired across cellular lines with urgent information to my brother, my mother. Both subscribed to the secret op and confidential reservations were made. Our subject had no clue, which can only be attributed to our past cleverness in inquiring where he'd like to go and then subverting the plan with something we liked better.

Do we, as a family clan, like sauerkraut? No, we hate it. But this time there'll be no subversion because I guess by now we've decided Dad is more than worth getting exactly what he wants for his birthday.

Shh! Don't tell!

The Bowl

2011-10-04T13:56:00.000-04:00

     Sunday I discovered my one weakness. Okay, I'm loaded with them. But no one informed me of this one until I reacted.
     A regular Sunday. Church in the morning, home for lunch, Mom bending over the stove. She made bass, cooked vegetables, salad. We sat down--Dad, Mom, and me--and I saw that rare item on the table.
     Bread.
     I tell people I'm not a bread eater and it's true. It's not usually in front of me. But when it is, Bigfoot comes out as I claw my way across the table.
     "Bread!" I cry. "Bread!" Half the rolls fall to the floor as I struggle with the basket and people grapple to tie me back. It's no good in public.
     My eyes are glued to the bread plate. Dad sees the look and we immediately pray. Then the cry, the cry of panic.
     "Bread!"
     They're so civilized, the pair of them. Dad passes it in seeming slow-motion, about one-hundredth of a mile per hour. He smiles politely at me, takes a slice himself. Mom shakes her head that anyone could like carbs, but takes one too so she won't be the odd-man-out. I rush to the fridge to pull out butter, an even rarer item in our feastings, and nuke it in the microwave.
     I sit down. Then I see it. The bowl. Next to Mom.
     I can't tell what it is. It looks like oil. Why did Mom put a bowl of oil on the table? How is this idea paletable?
     "Try the olive oil," she says, and she immediately drowns a perfectly beautiful piece of grain bread in a pool of whatever and kills it.
     "Excuse me?" I say, with a sharp edge in my voice. What she's asking me to do is unthinkable. Especially because close by my side is the cherished plate of yellow fat oozing and bubbling just to please me.
     "Try it," she says again.
     "No." Already I'm being more rude than I ever am.
     Her eyes widen. "The Italians do it! They do this in Italy!" she says, as though it had to be reiterated twice because I'm deaf, as though anything done in Italy is okay, like tossing people to lions to crunch on in the Colosseum.
     I tell myself to hold my tongue. Holding my tongue is my specialty in such disturbing situations.
     "You need to try it," she says again. I try to imagine her face turning green just to get my mind off the dialogue. Now she's dangling the bowl in the air in front of my stiffening face. "Come on! Like in Italy!"
     "Good for them!" I shout. I never shout.
     "You'll like it!"
     "I don't want it! I've got butter already!"
     As though her anomosity toward my independence isn't already past the hilt, she begins to attack my butter.
     It's bad for you. You don't need it. This tastes better. The cream. The salt. Try something new.
     "Look," I say, ready to destroy her argument altogether, "It doesn't even have seasonings in it. Dipping oil is supposed to have seasonings." My mind surges at the thought she's actually asking me to dip in plain oil. Like a bath without bubbles. Hot chocolate without whipped cream. Unthinkable.
     "I paid twenty bucks for this oil!" she says, making it a financial issue now. "It's top quality! It's from Fairway!"
     I put my fork down. Oil is oil. It's blah. It's only good for making Duncan Hines chocolate cake. In pure rebellion, I pick up my bread and smother it slowly in my lake of butter, accentuating the experience with oohs and ahs.
     "Butter," I say, as though in love for the first time. I go on with this ritual until it is thoroughly soaked. Then I stuff it in my mouth and roll my eyes.
     My mom has that expression on that I belong in an asylum.
     Dad watches me at work and says, "Oh, I want some." In goes his slice, into the yellow, yellow butter. He bites into it, then sees Mom's face.
     "Um," he says, "Can a person use butter and oil at once?" His bread goes back and forth in the air, as though considering which direction go. Meanwhile, Dad's too afraid to swallow.
     "Choose sides!" I say. "Be a man!"
     At this point he's laughing. I'm just relieved the attack has ceased.
     You can't imitate it. You can't replace it. And you'll never wrench it out of my hands.
     Me and butter, for life.

Snap

2011-09-19T15:52:00.000-04:00

I came sweating into my bowling lesson last week, changed my shoes, and starting hurling the ball. My teacher showed up and sat down to watch.

"The ball's sticking," I said. My thumb kept getting stuck in the thumbhole. "It never sticks." The only explanation was the 85-degree weather and high humidity outside, where both my thumb and the thumbhole had recently been. I didn't want to become the kind of bowler like, say, my Dad, who swears by thumb powder, leaving piles of powder on the tables wherever he goes, getting powder all over his pants and consequently having slippery fingers when he leaves, which can be a detriment to road safety.

"Really?" my teacher said. "That's strange." I told him it had to be the unusually sticky weather. "It's supposed to drop to forty tonight," he said.

Wonderful! I thought. Forty is good. Forty is less than eighty-five. Forty is dry. I had no conception of what forty was, or how drastic the drop would be.

I left the bowling alley and everything in the parking lot was drenched. I had just missed a tropical-style rainstorm. Good!

Going from house to house, teaching music lesson after music lesson, I noticed a decided drop in temperature. Not like usual. I'd go in one house hot and come out warm. I'd go in the next cool and come out with icycles on my nose. By nine that night, I came home shivering in my short sleeves, flip-flopping in the door, my toes blue, music sheets stuck to my fingers.

"It's cold out there!" I cried to Dad, who hadn't been outside since arriving home cozy a while earlier.

"Really?"

"It's fifty-four!" I said, quoting on my car theromometer. It was the most shocking drop I could remember in recent history. Out came the fuzzy PJ's, the thick socks, the quilt. Closed went the windows. Out came the bath bubbles.

As the bathtub heated up and I grabbed my robe and a stellar piece of fiction and my Kindle (OK, maybe electronics don't belong near a tub), I forgot about the shocking snap in weather and embraced the change. Fall was here! The best, best season. Fall means hot chocolate, apple cider, the smell of decomposing leaves, snuggly sweaters. It means my students' summer brains are going from mush to magical.

Thank God for changing seasons! Just when you've had your fill of one, out pops another. What an amazing world we live in.

Ruffle My Feathers

2011-09-13T12:05:00.001-04:00

No one told me, when I bought my canary that:

1. The bird needs a bath every day.
2. The bird needs to fly every day.
3. The bird needs vitamins every day.
4. The bird needs fresh fruits and veggies every day.
5. The bird needs calcium.
6. The bird needs toys.
7. The bird needs music.
8. The bird needs fresh newspaper on his floor every day.

One other crucial thing they left out was this: molting. No one told me the bird would lose all his feathers every summer.

Last summer his feathers started popping out and onto the floor. Little green fuzz here, gray fuzz there. No biggie.

Then he started shedding like a dog.

All his back feathers came out, one by one. I could have made a pillow with what was on the floor. (Could you imagine if this were an eagle, a kookabora?) His leg feathers. His chest feathers. After two months of this, I thought it was over. Then he woke up one morning with no tail feathers. All six of 'em long tail feathers lying on the daily newspaper.

"Whoa!" I said, grabbing my face. He didn't look like a bird anymore--just a bird body with floof at his backside. You'd think he couldn't fly in this condition, but I let him out for his daily exercise, and he did fly. Which made me wonder why he needed the things at all.

In a few days his new tail feathers grew in. Instead of being black and white striped, the inner four feathers were solid white this time, and the two outers were black. An interesting new design from his DNA.

So then I thought it was over. And one morning I woke up and the bird did not greet me from the cage. It was this creature from the worst horror film--a ball of green fuzz with black spikes growing out of its head. Now I was really alarmed, not just for the birdie, but for my own safety.

This was his one and only vet visit. The vet looked at him and said he was molting.

"I know he's molting," I said. "But what's that?" I said, pointing at its head.

"It's just a bad molt. You should've given him more parsely and kale."

I guess I should have known that from the list of info not given me at the date of purchase.

So the vet charged me $75 for this bit of advice and a birdie manicure.

In a few days the ugly black spikes turned to wispy green feathers, and the bird looked normal again. I breathed a great sigh and decided to love the bird again.

Needless to say, I have fed that thing parsley like that's all there is to eat, this summer, to keep from getting horrified. And so far so good. He looks beautiful. And he's happy, even though he's falling apart.

It turns out there's oil in the feathers that helps birds fly. It dries out every year, so birds grow new feathers. Now, how do they know to do that?

One of my clients is a scientist. One day I asked him why so many scientists believe in evolution, when it's clear even the smallest microbe has a design.

"Actually, more and more scientists are now considering the possibility of intelligent design," he said. "The more we study, the less we can get around it."

My birdie, who is currently too busy singing his lungs out, would concur.