My Favorite Memory of Mom

 

At the time, I was mortified, wishing the floor would open up and swallow me.

The occasion was my graduation from United Airlines Stewardess School in Chicago, August, 1972.  My Aunt Dotty, mom’s sister lived in Chicago and mom flew out from Blue Earth, MN for the event.  I was excited to graduate and have mom and Aunt Dotty there.

I was thrilled and so proud that I had made it through our 8 weeks of training and now I was about to graduate and then start my flying career.  I had rented an apartment with 2 other friends and we were beyond excited.  Parents, Aunts, Uncles, boyfriends, girlfriends and grandparents had come to watch our graduation.  My mom was to pin my wings on me.

Our class filed in and took our seats.  I didn’t see mom and Aunt Dotty but I knew they were there.  My name was called to get my wings.  I walked up to the stage, mom got up and came toward the stage.  I thought I would have a heart attack.  She had on a short skirt and white Go Go boots, hair piled high on her head, black horn rimmed glasses and some kind of short jacket.  I was mortified.  How could she? Go Go boots?!  Oh how I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.

But those Go Go Boots are my favorite memory of mom.  She was from small town Minnesota and she was so proud of me.  She wanted to be hip.  The 70’s were the era of Go Go Boots.  She must have agonized over her outfit.  She thought she looked great. And you know what?  She looked wonderful and in my heart, when I think of her that day, I am overwhelmed with love.

My mother was a terrible cook.  But the one thing she made that we all loved was pork chops.  I have wondered for years how she made them but I have a sneaking suspicion this is how she did it:

Put bone-in, thin cut pork chops in a roasting pan.

Pour two cans of Cream of Mushroom Soup over them

Turn the oven on to 350 degrees and cook for one hour.

After one hour the chops would have been inedible but that Cream of Mushroom soup melted into them and crusted up.

We all thought they were delicious which may give you a clue as to what our everyday fare was like.

This memory and pork chop recipe will go in the family cookbook.  What memory do you have of your mom that brings a smile to your face now?

My Favorite Memory of Dad

I’ve been silent for awhile.  You’ve heard about bumps in the road of life, and I’ve encountered a big one.  However, I have not given up on our family cookbook/memoir.  In fact, I have been quite busy with it.  Have you ever done one?  It’s a project, especially when you are involving several families and lots of stories and pictures.  But the more I do it, the more excited I get about it.  On that note, I am going to ask each person for their favorite memory of their mom and dad.  I can’t wait to read the responses.

Below is my favorite memory of my dad.

 

My dad was a complex person.  Life of the party, jokester, tough guy, disciplinarian, generous and scary.  I didn’t realize until after he died, that he was a big softie, just that he hid it very well.

Letter from dad 

I remember his letters.  Oh how we dreaded those letters.  You knew you were in big trouble if you got one.  I only saved a couple of them and I so wish I had saved them all.  They were a big window into his personality.  If you click on the letter from dad above, you’ll see what I mean.

However, my favorite memory is “America the Beautiful.”  Dad was a patriotic guy.  When Tom and I decided to get married,( much to my dad’s undying gratitude, as I was 27 and he was sure I would be an Old Maid and he’d have to take care of me the rest of his life), his one request was that we play “America the Beautiful” at our wedding.  I was stunned.  I said no.  Who has “America the Beautiful” sung at their wedding? How he pouted.  Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and my mom and I secretly arranged for the soloist to sing it.  A surprise for dad.  The big day came.  I vividly remember dad walking up and down the halls of our home with an oxygen mask on before the service, as he was more nervous about the day than I was.  We were married in the Catholic Church in town and of course my parents had insisted on a High Mass.  That’s the long version of the regular Mass.  It took over two hours.  I can’t imagine that today!  In the middle of the service, the soloist sang “America the Beautiful.”  I stole a glance at dad who was sobbing.  The reception was at my parent’s house where we had a pig roast and at least 200 people, several of whom weren’t invited.  The best man’s brother came down from Minneapolis (he wasn’t invited) with three of his buddies.  The day was the most fun and the happiest day of my life and maybe the happiest of my dad’s life.

I remember dad’s wine roast which he would make often on Sunday’s.  However, it wasn’t my favorite.  He was very proud of it but my favorite was his rotisserie chicken.  That was incredible.  This is how I think he made the wine roast:

Put a beef top round roast in a pan. Poke some holes in it. Pour a bottle of the cheapest red wine you can find over it. Marinate for a few hours while everyone is in church. Cook until well done.

Make your kids eat it.

What would your favorite memory of your dad be?

 

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Nothing is more perfect than a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. Especially one that is a family tradition.  This recipe will go into the family cookbook that I haven’t worked on since I told you all about it.  I make these cookies in October and all of a sudden it’s November and I forgot all about them since October got completely away from me.  Of course it’s not too late as they are also perfect for November.  I got Bobbie Mae’s recipe out of the Chicago Tribune in the 1970’s, for which she won $10.  I have been making them since.   In making them the other day, I decided for once to follow Bobbie Mae’s recipe exactly.  Wait.  Did I put in four cups or five cups of flour?  I’m sure it was the five I needed but was it? She instructed readers to lightly spoon the flour into a one cup measure and then level off with a spatula.  That is how I lost control of the flour as I doubled the recipe.  How could you lose count of just 5 cups of flour?  Easy.

I decided to experiment.  Usually I bake them as soon as I make the dough.  It’s hard to wait.  This time I decided to bake a few right away, refrigerate some of the dough, and freeze some in my mini muffin pan.  That way I could tell you which way was best.  Let me tell you right now that it didn’t make a darn bit of difference.  The dough was easier to scoop after being refrigerated, but that was about it.  The dough also did not freeze so it was like being refrigerated. I knew almost right away that I had put in 4 and not 5 cups of flour.  Too late for most of the batch.   Gooey dough made really gooey cookies that are impossible to pick up and eat unless you freeze them.  The frozen cookies are all stuck together. When you try to get one, you get at least three. Maybe that’s not all bad.

 

I added a bit of flour to the dough I hadn’t formed yet.  Even if you add the correct amount of flour, I recommend that you don’t put them in a cookie jar because at room temperature, they will still stick together.  Ours are always in the freezer and let me tell you, when you take one out and warm it for a few seconds in the microwave, you are in pumpkin heaven.

The bottom line is:  pay very close attention to your cups!

I wonder if I will need a better photographer than me to take pictures for the cookbook.  What do you think?

FREEGATARIAN

Paleo, low carb, gluten free, vegan and vegetarian.  There is no end to the diets available, but have you heard of freegatarian?  I hadn’t either until having dinner with a friend who works downtown Portland.  She mentioned that a  young woman had started working in her office and had the desk next to hers.  Susan, wanting to get to know this young woman, asked her questions and then got onto the topic of food.  Susan is an avid cook and hoped they might have that in common.  So she asked the young woman if she was on any particular diet, was she a vegetarian for instance?

“No, I’m a freegatarian” she said.  Susan thought she had misunderstood.  “A what?”  Susan asked.  “A freegatarian, I don’t eat meat unless someone else buys it, I get it off of a buffet or find it somewhere.”  Susan was stunned into silence but all she could think of was dumpster diving.

Later Susan looked it up in the Urban Dictionary and sure enough there were two definitions, neither quite what this young woman had described but darn close. Look it up. I sure hope no one in my family is a freegatarian as I am embarking on a family cookbook/memoir project.    Why did I decide to do this?  Do your children know anything about you?  It’s been simmering in my brain for several years and I am currently in a memoir writing group which is motivating me.  The story below is really why I have decided to do a memoir.

 

Detour:  Yosemite.  Forced onto a 3 hour detour around a raging fire on our way to Yosemite, we tried to call Max who was home, and who we’d given strict instruction to not have a party or a bunch of his friends over while we were gone.  The detour took us along a canyon road so far away from anything that we had no cell phone service.  This meant we couldn’t call Tom’s business partner, Sharon, who had rented the two rooms for us for the weekend, to tell her we would arrive very late.  At check-in the clerks were confused by Tom’s request to change the billing to his name that we gave up and went to our rooms.  We awakened very early and took off to see the Valley.  We hiked several trails, stopped and had dinner and didn’t return to our rooms until 9:00 PM.   Sure enough, Sharon had tried to get hold of us when we were over two hours late arriving and all day Saturday.  Failing to reach us, she called Max to find out if he’d heard from us.  When he said he hadn’t, she told him to call the California Highway Patrol and report it.  Which he did.

Max:              “My parents are missing.”

Dispatcher:  I need some more information.  What time did they leave and where were they                                     going?”

Max:            “Uh, maybe around noon yesterday and they were going to Yosemite.”

Dispatcher:  “Have you tried to call your parents?”

Max:             “I would if I knew their number.  Their friend called me and said they were really late                           and she hadn’t heard from them.”

Dispatcher:  “How old are your parents?”

Max:            “Uh, pretty old.”

Dispatcher:  “How old is pretty old?”

Max:            “ Maybe 50 or 60?”  (We were in our early 50’s at that point.)

Dispatcher:  “What do they look like?  What kind of hair color, build, thin, medium, overweight?

Max:           “My mom has blonde hair and my dad has brown hair.  Probably medium except that                         my dad drinks a lot of beer, so maybe more than medium.

Dispatcher:  “What kind of car were they driving, license plate, year and color?”

Max:       “Can you hang on while I go see what car is in the driveway?  OK, they took the black                          Mercedes which is an old car, I don’t know how old and I don’t know the license.”

Dispatcher:  “ OK, this is what I have:  An older, nondescript, slightly overweight, beer drinking                                  couple on their way to Yosemite in an older black Mercedes. Does this about                                         describe it?

Max:        That about describes it.

Now you see why I need to write a memoir!  The cookbook?  Why not incorporate family recipes and the stories that go with them.

Have you written a memoir?  Or a cookbook?  How did it go?