To do or Die(t)

I just finished reading the news (one should note that my news sources are Star Magazine, Yahoo News and Alice morning radio show) to learn that Oprah Winfrey admits to eating thirty pounds of macaroni and cheese when in a downward spiral over a bad showing at the movies.  Thirty. Pounds.   That's like eating my baby and half of my friends baby all at once; which I hope no one would do because it's disgusting on so many levels, even if you cover them with cheese sauce.  I wonder if Ms. Winfrey's admission aims to serve as the impetus for change in our eating habits, or dietary plans for the year ahead.  If nothing else, her admission can help us all feel a little bit better about our own lives.  I mean you can tell yourself in the midst of whatever filthy habit you indulge in "At least I've never consumed thirty pounds of buttery, cheesy pasta, that's just fucked up, " and feel pretty damn good about yourself for at least ten minutes.

So mid-January and here we all are either deep into the throes of our resolutions or deep into the denial of ever having made resolutions.  Whether you admit it or not, you're making some kind of resolution or promise to yourself as one year closes and another begins, so quit being sanctimonious and acting like you're too good for a resolution.  Of course, the most popular resolution for many people each year is to lose some weight, get into shape - which is a funny saying if you think about it because maybe you're committed to looking more like a cube, when everyone else assumes you mean to get slimmer and more toned.  My friend Teresa's mother used to resolve to go on a diet every Monday, and good for her for at least trying to get back on that horse every week.   I suspect her resolve weakened somewhere between baked ziti and ice cream, but I can't confirm this for sure.  My own mother was no stranger to attempting weight loss here and there, although I don't recall that the new year, per se, was ever a big moment in her dietary decision making.

Over the years my mother tried out a few different diets with varying levels of success.  My least favorite diet of my mother's was the cabbage soup diet.  I'm not sure that this is still around, but let me say for the record that its pretty frigging gross.  First you get some tomato juice and then you cook some cabbage in it.  Done.  This not only defies soup definitions, but makes your kitchen unbearably smelly.  The nice thing about this 'soup' is that you get to eat as much of it as you want throughout a day.  You are to do this for seven days and lose ten pounds.  If you, and the people you live with, can stand to actually complete the seven days, then you'll have survived long enough to move on to some other equally inhibiting and horrific self-induced penance.  One of the diets that I actually enjoyed my mother partaking in included a recipe for homemade dessert calzones.  The word calzone is used loosely here, but it included ricotta cheese and cinnamon stuffed into a pita pocket.  A tasty little treat, especially in a house where dessert was rarely served outside of holidays and birthdays.  The nice thing about my mother's dieting is that she did not subject anyone else in the house to whatever shenanigans she was up to.  Which is pretty darn generous if you ask me and must've been particularly difficult and cruel for her.  Imagine sucking down that cabbage/tomato concoction while your family enjoys meatloaf or spaghetti and sausage?

Once my father was discovered to have heart trouble, however, the kindness ended and everyone was in on the diet deal.  We were all subjected to nightly assaults of the broiled persuasion.  Broiled chicken, or broiled fish coupled with baked potatoes and salad with vinegar.  Day after day.  No salt, no butter, no flavor, repeat, and repeat.   My brother and I took to buying our own jars of Cheez-Whiz to pour over whatever was being served.  Here I am admitting that, like Oprah Winfrey, I too appreciate cheese poured over food when the going gets rough.

This weeks tip:
When I had my first child I was at a complete loss as what to do for excess gas and stomach upset that an infant who is hell bent on eating nonstop will experience.  My mother and her sister both insisted that I serve my child fennel tea.  I was instructed to purchase fennel seeds and pour hot water over them to make a tea.  Once cooled, you put the tea in a bottle with the tiniest bit of Karo syrup (for sweetness) and give it to your baby to drink. IT WORKED!!  So well, in fact, that I have given it to all three of my cherubs as infants and always keep fennel seeds on hand until they have made it through their first year and their digestive systems seem to mature enough to not require outside assistance.  Fennel seeds can be bought at health food stores or supermarkets such as Whole Foods.  You only need to purchase a small amount of them, because a little bit goes a long way.  Adult people have been known to consume fennel seeds with extremely gassy foods such as cabbage soup.

Auld Lang Syne

The lyrics of this popular New Year's song were originally written by Robert Burns as a poem and set to music.  It is popular in English speaking countries and has been around since the 1700s (or so claims my trusty, hard to disprove friend Wikipedia) .  Translated loosely, it means 'long, long ago,' and is often sung at the stroke of midnight when the new year begins.  Tradition.
Many folks have traditions of their own that carry them through the holiday season.  Things that they've always done and no one knows quite why, other than, 'that's what we've always done.'  I heard someone speak at an educator's conference about a year ago regarding doing things the way they've always been done seemingly without rhyme or reason.  He had researched why the railroad tracks in this country had the spacing between them that they did.  Apparently it was due to the spacing on the wagons of pioneers, which he then traced back to Europe and the spacing on the wagons there and so forth.  What it came down to is that the spacing on Roman chariots were measured to fit the width of two horses pulling chariots to and fro in attempts to conquer the world.  So much history coming down to horses' asses.
My parents holiday traditions often caused me to scratch my head as a child, and I now cannot help but wonder if they had their beginnings with some drunken horse's ass losing a bet.  Whatever the auspicious beginnings, there were certain things that were absolutely necessary for merriment and celebration in our household.  Christmastime found my family with a coffee table full of hard candy, handily contained in a cylindrical cardboard container, and ribbon candy, which was wrapped in a fancier box than most jewelry ever purchased by my father.  Both of these items were purchased at the Woolworth store near our house and my father would not have allowed the holiday season to commence without these treats sitting next to a bowl of mixed nuts (in the shell) and his feet (which were always on the coffee table).  No mind was paid to the fact that these candies are nearly guaranteed to lack desirability in both flavor and texture (read: don't chew); both the candies and nuts were only eaten when severe hunger and desperation for the holiday meal overcame whomever happened to be in the living room.  It always seemed to me that the actual reason for having the nuts and candy on the table were that they gave my father a handy way to fill our stockings at the end of a Christmas Eve spent indulging in Budweiser.  Our stockings were always filled to the brim with this shitty candy, walnuts in the shell and oranges (which were thankfully kept safely away in the kitchen).  While I appreciate a good orange, and walnuts are okay in my book, they lose a certain something when stuffed in a fuzzy stocking alongside unwrapped, medicine- like candy.
The New Year brought about some other interesting traditions in our household.  Fish and pork were required eating at our house and one, even a child, cannot help but wonder what masochist came up with this combination.  As soon as the new day began, my father insisted we eat fish for good luck.  Not just any fish, either. Herring.  If you're not familiar, I suggest you don't become.  Herring comes in small jars (obviously even the purveyors of herring realize this is not something eaten in large amounts) and is found in the deli section of the local grocery store.  It is either in a vinegary sauce or in a vinegary cream sauce.  My father would buy both.  Somehow, he felt that the cream sauced fish was a more palatable offering to his gagging children.  When we got older and downright refused to eat this 'tradition,' my father settled for us eating an onion out of the jar.  Which is reasonable, considering how much children love onions, particularly ones soaked in vinegar and cream with a slight fishy taste.
After consumption of our middle of the night fish, we kids were sent off to bed to dream of the pork dinner that awaited us the next day.  I enjoy a pork roast dinner, but the trauma of the herring often trumped looking forward to any meal in the near future.  While I just threw up in my mouth a little thinking about it, I can't help but wish my father was here this New Year's eve to force feed my own children a little vinegary, creamy filth (I mean fish).
This weeks tip:  My mother was with us on the great hard candy and herring 'traditions' - she thought they sucked too.  She does keep up the having fish to start off the New Year tradition by eating smoked whitefish salad.  This is not unlike a tuna salad, but much tastier.  Whatever the nonsensical thing your family does to celebrate the holiday, suck it up and soak it in (or adjust it to include smoked whitefish), because, amazingly, you will miss it when it's gone.  Happy New Year, and may old friends not be forgotten :)

Thanks be to ye, oh Jesus sandal

My mother had the terribly annoying habit of wanting to ready the house before company arrived.  You know, dusting, cleaning the floors, scrubbing the toilet and a general round of top notch straightening.  A few days before one particular Thanksgiving, she decided to re-do the entire kitchen.  This involved removing wall paper from the wall, sanding, painting ceilings and walls; tasks that a normal person might not undertake two days before expecting a house full of guests.  Amazingly, she accomplished all of this in time for our holiday company, minus returning the fan blades to the ceiling fan above the kitchen table.  This is where me, my brother and, most importantly, my father came in.

From the bathroom, where I was busy praying to the porcelain god (after having spent most of the previous night celebrating Thanksgiving Eve), I heard my mother beckoning.  I emerged, bleary-eyed and attempting to reacquaint my tongue with inside of my mouth (it seemed to weigh fifty pounds and to be in need of a good shave) to find my mother motioning to the kitchen table and the fan blades lying atop it.  As I understood, I was to climb on table and replace the blades.  Shakily, I crawled on the table and pressed my sweaty cheeks upon it before attempting a vertical stance.  Once I steadied myself, I placed one blade in its slot and tightened the screws.  The weight of the blade caused the entire fan to move slowly in a circular fashion (as fans are known to do); you can imagine that this is not exactly the situation someone with a fifty pound tongue and a vise around their brain wants to find themselves in.  Moving faster than someone in my condition should be able, I jumped from the table top, ran into the bathroom and remained there for unaccountable amounts of time.  It's at this point that my brother made his appearance and my mother asked him to resume the job I'd started.  While he was too young to drink excessive amounts of anything but Mountain Dew, my brother soon found himself also overcome by the dizziness and nausea of the slow moving fan blade.  Two down.

Completely disgusted, my mother continued preparing our Thanksgiving feast all the while cursing and muttering about the utter uselessness of her children.  It is here that my father made his appearance, pretending that he had come to see what the fuss was all about when we all know he had come into the kitchen searching for beer and snacks.  She quickly brought him up to speed on the situation, at which point he offered to hop up on the table himself and get the whole damned thing done.  It should be mentioned here that my father was not a small man - neither in stature or weight.  My mother scoffed at the idea and continued her cooking.  Mere moments passed and I swear I heard the low whine of protest from the hardware that held together the solid wood kitchen table followed by what I imagined to be the sound of a sonic boom.  The next sound was that of a wounded animal; low moaning and whimpering. One never imagines the day will come when they will find their father lying amidst the rubble of the kitchen table while his Birkenstocks sit neatly by bearing witness (as any good Jesus sandal would); but this is exactly what I found when I entered the kitchen, my hangover pushed aside out of curiosity.  My mother was standing by, spoon in hand, with a look of equal parts fascination and irritation.  "I told you you couldn't get up there" she said as she turned back to the stovetop.

We managed to get my father into the living room and clean up his feet which were cut up and bleeding.  After the moaning subsided, we laughed our asses off.  We wondered aloud what would possess such an intelligent man, of his size, to attempt to stand on the kitchen table.  In fact, tears were streaming down our faces as we watched him hobble into the kitchen to fix the table before company arrived.  Yep, my mother insisted that the table be fixed, as soon as his feet were tightly bandaged and could hold him up.  He assessed the damage and decided that the only thing that saved him were his Jesus sandals. After some considerable time, and the utilization of power tools, all was well by the time our guests arrived - if well means that there are screws sticking about an inch out of the top of your kitchen table while one lone fan blade remains in constant slow motion (not unlike the Eternal Flame).

We had obtained some semblance of normalcy as a family unit and promised my father we would not mention his earlier lapse in judgement, his ensuing injuries, nor his wonder at the saving properties of his sandals(we managed to keep these promises until Christmas).  Shortly after our company had arrived, my mother went to check on the bird and side dishes only to find that the oven had quit working at some point, and that dinner was no where near done.  Another person might have considered the day completely ruined and gone back to bed at this point, but not my mother.  She promptly put the turkey into the microwave and refreshed the drinks and snacks for everyone.  It is here she proves that she is unflappable: one fan blade spinning around in a mocking fashion, a kitchen table a little worse for the wear, children who have proved useless and an underdone bird will not put a damper on her day.  We ate dinner somewhere before bedtime and chuckled to ourselves on this day of thanks.  It is interesting to note that I don't believe that those blades were ever returned to the fan as no one was ever brave enough to attempt replacing them again.

This weeks tip:
My mother's kitchen savvy saved her meal that day.  The use of the microwave oven was genius on my mother's part and the turkey emerged from it fully cooked and quite tasty.  Whenever my mother has had to buy a new microwave in subsequent years, she has made sure that they were big enough to accommodate a turkey, because as she says "You never know".  In order to fully cook a turkey in the microwave, it is highly recommended that you place the bird breast side down for juiciness purposes.  The turkey can be cooked at full power for six minutes per pound.  A twenty to twenty-five pound turkey should be at approximately 180 degrees (farenheit) internal temperature when fully cooked; this can be measured with a meat thermometer, but make sure not to touch bone when you put thermometer in as it will give you an inaccurate reading.

Another Year Older and Deeper in Debt...

We forgot my mother's birthday exactly once. And really, that's all it takes. Once and you will never forget it again. I mean completely forgot - no cake, no presents; not even a hastily crayoned piece of construction paper reading "Happy Birthday". The day after, in a pathetic attempt to make it up, my father brought home a cake; my mother laughed - a humorless, bitter sound if ever there was; a sound to make you want to wrap yourself in woolen blankets and move out of the house. We would not be celebrating a day late, we blew our one and only shot. Any other day but the actual day was going to be too late and we hung our heads in shame for an entire year. I mean, honestly, this is the only person in the world who will never forget your birthday, considering she was one of the main characters in the event of your receiving the gift of life. While we never forgot again, we often screwed up her birthday gifts - ugly ill-fitting robes with zippers (giving the wearer, regardless of size, the appearance of a poorly packed sausage), perfume purchased at the Woolworth counter (next to the lip balm and bubbalicious), handkerchiefs (again Woolworths) and I barely have the nerve to mention the slippers that appeared to be boots, which would work I suppose if your mother was Robin Hood. Gifts clearly purchased in haste, or worse, not taking the honoree into account at all. Gifts that screamed 'You are an after thought' at best and 'I hate your f*@*ing guts' at worst. It's amazing that she didn't throw these paltry items at us, or discontinue feeding us. We would have done better to throw greasy coins in an envelope, or to give her her own wallet. As we got older, we did a better job by actually asking her what she wanted; exactly what she wanted or needed. My father improved his practices as well opting for jewelry most of the time, although I was always sent around the corner at the last minute to purchase a card.

Alternately, our mother never once forgot our birthdays or provided shitty, useless, downright embarrassing gifts. Our birthdays she always got just right, except for one little, barely noticeable piece. If we didn't have a party (roller rinks, bowling alleys, McDonalds, or some other outside venue - mom was not a fan of having large numbers of children running around the house with a donkey tail and moving her dining chairs around) we got to have the meal of our choice. Sometimes it was pizza, sometimes chinese food; more often than not it was something homemade that required some large amount of time be spent by her in the kitchen. We still request the same meals: my brother gets stuffed peppers and I get loin of pork with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes and my husband has been known to get a veal cutlet request fulfilled. Our gifts were always something we mentioned we wanted or needed, or something we didn't know we wanted but realized that we did when they were presented - video games, the right boots, real perfume, hockey tickets. We asked and we received.

The only problem came when it was time for cake. As children, we didn't realize this was a problem and could have gone our whole lives without noticing, if our mother did not make such a drastic turnaround with the birthday dessert in recent years. Sara Lee or Pepperidge Farm frozen desserts were served without fail on our birthdays. You know those frozen cakes (iced) that cost like two for five dollars (well actually they're two for seven now, no doubt due to inflation). Chocolate iced, vanilla iced, coconut (you know it - iced) and I believe there was a strawberry shortcake type of offering as well. If defrosted in time, these cakes are quite tasty and provide a refreshing perspective on the idea of cake. I actually looked forward to my frozen, uniformly square cake each year and knew we were having a larger group than usual if she purchased two. My favorite remains a devils food treat with chocolate icing, but I won't say no to the coconut one either (coconut flakes included).

Somehow, along the way, my mother has picked up the knack for baking, so no more frozen delicacies for us. She now makes candy, toffee, brownies (with candy bars and powdered sugar that will make you need to change your underwear) and you guessed it - cake. These things are made from scratch (which I understand is hard to come by) and will blow your hair back, or at least make you re-think your love of Sara Lee. With my birthday coming up, my mother offered to make something that contained cherries and involved the word ganache. I'm certain that I looked confused and then requested Duncan Hines. Baby steps my friends.

This weeks tip: What with all the baking and confections being made in my mother's kitchen, it behooves her to figure out how to do these things with a little less fat than ordinary recipes call for. I like me some cake, but I like to fit in my jeans as well. For yellow cakes you can use applesauce or non-fat plain yogurt to replace the oil (equal measure) and for chocolate cake you can also use pureed prunes to replace the oil portion. While I haven't actually tried the prunes trick, I can attest to the applesauce tip. Really yummy, moist cake. Complete aside, I have used non-fat plain yogurt instead of mayo in chicken salad and it was fantastic.

Hair it Loud

My cousin Terri cut her hair with a hole punch when we were kids. She hid under a coffee table crying and refusing to come out, so afraid was she of what my aunt would say or do upon discovering the ridiculousness that was her hair. I don't remember if there was any punishment (other than looking kind of foolish) for her; mostly I remember that we laughed. Terri was maybe four or five, definitely no more than six when she made this bold gesture that one can only can blame on the folly of the young; it grew out eventually and she remained the cherubic little cutie she always was. I, on the other hand, spent nearly my entire childhood with hair that made others scratch their heads and remark "aww, look at that nice, little slow girl".

Now my mother could braid (double french braids being a specialty), and do pony and pig tails like nobody's business. Beyond that, it was as if I had committed a grave crime that my mother was hell bent on revenging with continuous hairtastrophes. She offers her left-handedness as an explanation for the sadistic acts performed, repeatedly, on my unsuspecting head, but honestly no one who makes such errors in hair styling would continue to do so unless there was a genuine dislike for the victim.

The first such horror found me at the age of three or four nearly shorn bald due to my mother hacking away so much. One of my aunts had to intervene, at my father's insistence, and I feel certain that people asked my mother if was recently returned from some sort of work camp or on the mend from a horrible illness. Like I mentioned previously, one would think that my mother would stop there; no dice. She claims she kept it so short at a young age on purpose, so that it would grow in thicker when I was older; downright suspect if you ask me.

The haircuts continued through my childhood, and while not quite as drastic as that first one they were absurd in their own right. My mother is left handed, however she did not own a pair of scissors made for left handed people, nor did she even own scissors meant for cutting hair. What she did have was a cutting implement left over from my grandmother's house that in size and rustyness resembled civil war era pruning shears(we could have carbon dated that mess). This was the tool with which my mother performed her magic. She might have better served her purposes with a plastic butter knife.

Other than the time in the second grade when my mother sent me to get a Dorothy Hamill cut - you know if Dorothy Hamill was a lesbian living in the Eastern block - my mother kept my hair style simple: long and straight with bangs. I'll grant you that long and straight is not difficult to maintain even for the seriously inept at cutting hair. Even if cut sloppily (as mine always was), it is not that noticeable and can be 'covered' up with the creative use of barrettes and bobby pins. Bangs are another story altogether as they sit at the top of your face. My mother never learned to cut them straight and in an attempt to straighten them out, she would go shorter and shorter. The cutting only stopped when I bore a striking resemblance to someone who was just released from an insane asylum. The little bit of bang left was an uneven tuft of hair, approximately six inches from my eyebrows, giving me a look of perpetual surprise. I want to say that this was the worst of it, but I do not like to lie. It was far from okay, not by damn sight. The antiquity of the cutting implement coupled with my mother's left-handedness added a succession of dents in the skin on my forehead. Affectionately called 'poke holes' by my mother, my forehead would remain battered and remarkably red for days following a haircut.

Unfortunately, for me, the cutting of my hair was not nearly enough for mom. My mother was a fan of using curlers and hot rollers on my head as well. Picture days at school, holidays, family parties - all of these events found me the night before with hard plastic gnawing at my tender skull. Here's a headful of plastic and metal, now go to sleep. That's right I (and every other girl who grew up in the seventies) had to sleep at a sixty degree angle giving one a crick in the neck and a headache at best. If it wasn't the innocuous looking pink curler with a styrofoam like material wrapped around my hair and clipped in, then it was very large yellow rollers (looking like wiffle balls that were made into cylinders) held in place with metal pins and clips. Whoever is responsible for the creation of these beautifying implements was a sick, sick puppy. Probably the same bastard who came up with the eyelash curler.

Thankfully, my mother put down her scissors (or they gave up the ghost) when I entered the sixth grade. She took me to a real haircutting salon and allowed me to pick my own haircut. I chose the mullet.

This weeks’ tip: For someone who was so abusive to hair, my mother believed it should be soft and shiny. When she was a kid she says she used beer for shine and mayonnaise for silkiness, and there was some mention of eggs. Above all these home remedies, however, she recommends a product made by Alberto V05, which has apparently been in use since the 1960s. It is called conditioning hairdressing and comes in a tube. It has the consistency of vaseline and a little tiny dab will do ya - shiny, soft hair achieved for under five bucks. The tube lasts forever too (the tube I have currently has been in my possession since the 90s), and it has different sets of directions on it depending on the outcome you're looking for.

Burning Daylight

My mother will readily admit to not knowing the first thing about cooking when she first got married at the age of nineteen. My father was fond of remarking that she was incapable of boiling water at the start of their wedded bliss. Thanks to the diligent efforts of my father and his mother, my mother became a pretty damn good cook. The older I get, the more refined her skills get, but I have to say that things were pretty touch and go there for a while when I was a child.

My childhood memories are enveloped in a shroud of hazy smoke emanating from the broiler and the taste of burnt meat etched on the back of my tongue. In my mother's kitchen, everything was well done; if not slightly burnt, then it was deemed not quite ready. If a little too burnt, one could always use a butter knife to scrape off the black parts. While some things are truly better when a little crispy (fried chicken, pizza cheese), let me assure you overdone london broil requires a true sense of adventure (I tried every condiment to make this dazzleless gem of a meal more palatable) and overdeveloped jaw muscles. I've read in recent years that chewing your food a certain number of times is better for digestion and will help keep off the pounds. Perhaps my mother was wise beyond her years and aiming to keep us at fighting weight? Whatever the case, I feel truly fortunate to not have developed the distinguished look of a pit bull.

My mother served applesauce with nearly every meal, and while she swears to love this innocuous baby food item, one cannot help but wonder if she just wanted to provide a lubricant for the extremely cooked meats she served most nights of the week. My mother's efforts were applauded by my father who thoroughly enjoyed overcooked food (I only ever saw him spit food out twice). Whenever the burning got out of hand, my father would laugh and inquire if my mother was burning daylight again.

Aside from the burnt meat, my mother's cooking was just fine. Food stuffs from a box or can are pretty hard to mess up and when you add a little salt and a little butter truly everything tastes better. Except for gravy, I had never witnessed my mother make anything from scratch throughout my entire childhood (my love of frozen Sara Lee cakes stems from this fact). She did attempt to make tomato sauce from scratch once that I recall, but when the blender broke while she was pureeing the tomatoes, we had a meal that was sparkly, gritty, and I can only hope provided us all some much need roughage.

As I grew older, my mother got better and better at cooking (or maybe I just got more used to it) but my father was genuinely confused when I refused to eat certain things anymore. "Since when don't you like broiled (again, read burnt) chicken breast? he'd implore. Um, since never; generally people buttering their meat (and by buttering their meat I mean...) can be safely assumed to not like it very much. While I have never been a huge fan of animal flesh (I prefer cream of wheat, pea soup and anything else that doesn't set my teeth and jaws into doing the work equivalent of a spinning class), I have to admit that I honestly enjoy a pork chop with the look and texture of a hockey puck - you know if hockey pucks were made from pigs. Some salt, some butter and you got yourself a little piece of heaven.

This weeks tip: Well versed in the clean up of a burnt meal, my mother swears that nothing removes burnt on food from a roasting pan, frying pan, or pot better than your everyday dryer sheet. Just put the dryer sheet (or two depending on the size of the pan) in the bottom of the pan and run some lukewarm water into it. Let it sit for a little while and then rinse. You will not have to use steel wool or have a pot soaking in your sink for days on end. You can use the dryer sheet to wipe off the gunk that has magically been lifted off of your cookware and clean as you normally would. Dryer sheets will also clean gunk off of the burners on your stovetop as well as your oven. They are quite handy tools to keep around the house and seem to work much better at removing gunk and grime than any of the stuff that comes in a spray bottle.