The Warming Memories of Good Food

Growing up, the weekend meant good food.  From Friday night through Sunday, there would be several memorable meals, none of them very elaborate and certainly nothing approaching “fancy”.  Still, thirty years later I can still remember the smells and flavors of weekend meals at home.  I can also clearly see why, even as a teenager, few things were more enticing than the food and fun that was provided right where I lived.  I also count myself lucky that, at that age, I could have eaten virtually anything and in any quantity with little fear of adding weight to my scarecrow-like frame!
Friday night was the start of the culinary extravaganza and there were two meals that stand out above all others – homemade pizza and fondue.

Homemade pizza was my mother’s department.  I have no idea how authentic it was or wasn’t, although I doubt that it would have passed muster with a true Italian.  Still, we loved it with its thick, soft crust and myriad of wonderful toppings that could include Canadian bacon, fresh mushrooms, black olives and, sometimes, tiny pink shrimp.  

Fondue was one of my step-father’s best contributions to our family’s menus.  Before Howard came on the scene, I’d never heard of this version.  Rather than cheese or chocolate, Howard’s fondue pot was filled with bubbling oil.  We would plunge pieces of steak, shrimp, mushrooms, zucchini, potato or bread cubes into the hot oil and cook it until it was done to our liking.  Accompanying this feast were countless little dishes of condiments including mustards, steak sauces, oyster sauce and chutneys.  The sauces alone were delightful and, to me, totally new flavors.

Of course, food wasn’t the only attractive thing about these meals.  They always found us gathered either around the “breakfast bar” in our kitchen (no one ever ate breakfast there…) for the fondue or, for many other meals, sitting in the living room with an old movie on television and a fire in the fireplace.  And there was always plenty of conversation and laughter.  I remember nearly every family gathering – whether a simple meal or a major holiday - as being warm and convivial.  This was due to both my mother and step-father.  My mom provided wonderful food, warmth and good humor.  My step-father, who was much older and very English, was the perfect host, keeping drinks refreshed and making sure everyone was at their ease.  He also had a delightful twinkle in his eye and made everyone around him feel special.

Saturday’s dinner was the highlight of the day.  Broiled lamb chops or steamed clams, both served with new potatoes and tiny, sweet peas, or my mother’s homemade fish and chips were typical meals.  Often, I’d accompany my step-father to the fish market or the butcher on Saturday afternoon.  He was always willing to buy the fancy little things that I loved at these places - interesting crackers, sauces and candies and, most delightfully, smoked salmon or tiny pink shrimp for shrimp cocktail.  Also, thanks to Howard, I developed an absolute love of light, crisp cream crackers with cold butter!

If we were having clams or lamb chops, dinner was around the table.  Clams were the most fun, each of us getting a HUGE bowl of shells filled with plump, buttery, garlicky clams.  Lamb chops were a close second, sprinkled with coarse kosher salt and broiled until what little fat there was at the edges was gloriously crisp.  The best part was cleaning every last bit from the salty bones!

My mother’s fish and chips were nothing to sniff at, either.  The potatoes were fried twice - once until they were almost done and, after they’d cooled, again until they were soft and creamy on the inside and with a perfectly crisp outside.  The thick pieces of cod or halibut were just the same.  Perfectly seasoned with a light and crunchy coating, and still firm.  While Tartar sauce was on offer, I wasn’t a fan, preferring malted vinegar.

Another of the highlights of dinner around the table were the games.  Invariably, my step-father would pipe up with either, “Animal, vegetable or mineral!” or an “I, Spy” clue, and off we’d go.  Like the old chestnut, “Is it bigger than a breadbox”, his standard question, repeated even today in an imitation of his perfect English accent, was “Is it DEC-rative or utilitarian?”  Howard ALWAYS won these games.  He would have been a perfect panelist of “What’s My Line”!  Regardless of who won, there was always a lot of laughter.  Current events and history also figured largely in our dinnertime conversations.  Howard had been all over the world during and after World War II, and his travels and experiences perfectly matched my interests.  His stories of pre-war London and beautiful descriptions of Beirut and other Middle-Eastern cities as they were in the 1940s and 1950s were fascinating.

You might wonder what was served for dessert on these evenings.  My mother is just as good a baker as she is a cook.  Still, it wouldn’t be unheard of to be served Pepperidge Farms frozen chocolate cake, and there were never any complaints.  In fact, this was by far the most popular dessert for a Friday or Saturday night, with hot fudge sundaes a close second.  As for the cake, it was really the frosting the was the best part.  Sadly, Pepperidge Farms has “improved” their recipe.

Sunday’s always started the same way and I miss those mornings most of all.  While I rarely slept too late, I was always the last one up.  My alarm was the smell of brewing coffee and frying bacon.  Always.

Sunday breakfasts could be any number of things.  First, there would be eggs – fried or scrambled.  My favorite version of scrambled eggs had crispy bits of bacon sprinkled in during the cooking.  We might also have an omelet which would be filled with the most wonderful things – ham, cheese, sautéed mushrooms, black olives, avocado.  As you can see already, breakfast was never a disappointment.

My mother’s hash browns were a thing of beauty.  Freshly shredded potatoes – NEVER frozen – that were perfectly cooked with the crispest, crunchiest outer layers and the softest, most delicious center.  These weren’t an every-Sunday occurrence, but a special treat when eggs and bacon were on the menu.  Of course, the BEST breakfast ever included finger steaks dredged in seasoned flour, fried eggs with slightly runny yolks and those incredible hash browns.  This also served as a favorite weeknight dinner from time to time.

If potatoes weren’t part of the breakfast, pancakes, French toast or Dutch babies certainly would be.  And, sometimes, waffles.

Pancakes were the Bisquik variety, and were drenched in butter and syrup.  To this day, I still like these pancakes best.  French toast was much the same, but also sprinkled with powdered sugar, the little clumps of which would absorb the melted butter and syrup, creating a sort of candy coating.  The syrup was special, and still the syrup that I prefer over all others.  It was made of sugar, water, a pinch of salt and Mapleine.  My mom STILL has the very same syrup container and, whenever it’s used, it’s placed in a pan of boiling water, melting the crystals that have formed since the last Sunday.

Dutch babies were also coated in butter (EVERYTHING included plenty of butter!), but then lemon wedges were squeezed over the big, fluffy baked pancake and, again liberally sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Waffles were a rarer treat, often made around birthdays, and always served with crisp bacon.  In addition to the aforementioned butter, waffles would sometimes be topped with sweetened, sliced strawberries and whipped cream, although the regularly available syrup was no hardship either.

This talk of whipped cream reminds me of something else.  The coffee. 

I can’t remember ever being told that coffee would stunt my growth when I was a child.  I remember visits to my aunt and uncle’s house where my uncle’s incredibly strong coffee always seemed to be the apex of every evening.  Similarly, my mother put considerable effort into making good coffee.  For many years, we had an old-fashioned, and just plain old, hand grinder.  I was given the task of grinding the fresh beans and loved the crunch as I turned the handle.  When I was done, it seemed rather magical that I could pull open the little drawer to find it filled with the ground coffee, ready to be brewed.

Sunday morning’s coffee always seemed to be topped with a huge dollop of whipped cream.  In my case, I had a very particular ritual.  First, I would put in the whipped cream roughly filling half the cup.  Next, I would pour in the coffee, slowly watching it melt some of the whipped cream.  Finally, I would top it all off with more whipped cream.  In the end, I think it was, perhaps, two thirds whipped cream and one third coffee.  Perfect proportions if you ask me! 

As you can imagine, the weekend ended on a similarly high note with Sunday’s dinner.

We weren’t one of those families that had Sunday dinner in the middle of the day.  We ate it at 7:00 as we were watching “60 Minutes” (I loved that how!).  My mother knows how to cook meat properly, and it was always the highlight of the meal.  Roast beef or pork and Yorkshire pudding, ham and scalloped potatoes, roast turkey breast or stuffed flank steak and mashed potatoes, these were standard Sunday night fare.  Even the vegetables were marvelous – a special, rather vinegary green bean casserole topped with breadcrumbs mixed with butter and Parmesan cheese, carrots coated with butter and brown sugar or broccoli with Hollandaise sauce.

And, if you can imagine, there was still dessert and Sunday night was NOT for frozen cake!
My mother’s repertoire of desserts is pretty endless.  I recall blackberry or apple crisps or pies featuring prominently.  Also, a special kind of chocolate cake that, when baked, made its own hot fudge sauce.  Pies went far beyond the two listed earlier.  There might be chocolate cream, lemon meringue, lemon cream or raspberry chiffon.  We might have yellow cake frosted with chocolate fudge, or spice cake or gingerbread with even more whipped cream.  However, when my mother really felt like baking, there was only one thing that would do…  her MAGNIFICENT chocolate cake frosted with clouds of Seafoam frosting – a seven-minute frosting made with brown instead of white sugar.  These cakes were, and are, works of art.

It might surprise you to know that none of us grew to be incredibly stout and that we all remain healthy all these years later (the exception being my step-father who died at nearly 81 in 1998 and who had the lowest cholesterol of anyone I’d ever met!).  In fact, I suspect that one of the reasons for that good health is that we were fed so well and enjoyed the whole process of cooking and eating so thoroughly.  It’s also important to know that, with the exception of the Bisquik, Mapeline and Pepperidge Farm cake, EVERYTHING was made from the good, fresh ingredients.

When I look back, food nearly always punctuates the happiest times.  Whether holidays, birthdays, family celebrations, vacations or these standard weekend meals, food was a comforting and entirely pleasurable part of our existence.  Even when times were lean, and before my step-father came into our lives they often were, my mother managed to give us a sense of warmth and stability with the meals she put on our table.  I’ve tried to do the same with my own family, and will be delighted if, many years in the future, they remember the food as warmly as I remember that of my own earlier years.