food

Emma’s Pie

/ wvfurandroot / 12 Comments
Finish up with something sweet.
Finish up with a little something sweet.

We’ve all heard it – life’s short, eat dessert first.

I had a dancing buddy that actually did. One of the very first times we went out, he ordered dessert in lieu of an appetizer. I believe it was chocolate mousse.  [He’s an interesting guy.  I should call him – we haven’t been dancing in forever.]

While I often say that I don’t feel (intellectually or emotionally or spiritually – my body is another matter) older than I did at 25, I am much more aware of the passing of time. Even at 25, there seemed to be eons between Christmas seasons. Now? It feels like last week. Hell, it feels like last week that I was 25.

The other day I had a powerful urge for coconut cream pie. The nearest place was the Bob Evans. Chez Bob’s for dessert always creates a dilemma. I like their French silk pie as much as their coconut cream. As I walked over, I made the bold decision to skip lunch altogether and have both.

AND is my favorite word.
AND is my favorite word.

My love affair with coconut cream pie began in January of 1970. I’d never had it before. En route via luxury ocean liner from Hawaii to California during one of our many relocations, we were assigned a table, dining times, and a waiter.

Dean, the waiter, quickly bonded with my brother and I. My mother was horribly seasick, my father didn’t do breakfast, and my 10-year-old self and 7-year-old brother would arrive for breakfast and lunch alone. In 1970 it was believed safe for children to run around unattended.

Brother and I before the ship's hat contest.
Brother and I before the ship’s hat contest.

I think Dean enjoyed us. If memory serves, he was about 25. One evening early in the cruise before Mom succumbed to violent seasickness, Dean suggested coconut cream pie for dessert following dinner. My father encouraged me to try it.

Oh my. It was, hands down, the best thing I’d ever put in my mouth. From then on, I had coconut cream pie at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner, and at various times during the day when I wandered into the dining room. It got so that Dean had the pie waiting for me lest they run out before our seating. I ate my Twiggy-style bodyweight in coconut cream pie during that cruise.

Hawaiian student.
Voracious reader, even then, and newly minted pie connoisseur.

At our last meal, Dean presented me with an entire pie, carefully wrapped in a pastry box and tied with a ribbon. He knew from our conversations that we were looking at a 3000 mile cross-country drive and figured I’d enjoy some pie.

[In Texas, some guy took a look at the Hawaii license plates and asked my Dad how we got that car here?. My dad looked him in the eye and said, “That’s the longest bridge you’ve ever seen.]

I have fond memories of nibbling at that pie late one night as we navigated St. Louis in a snowstorm, my head poked into Pippi Longstocking by flashlight.

I made that pie last for miles.

I’ve adored coconut cream pie ever since. I am also uncommonly fond of French silk pie (and mousse, for that matter) all of which is pretty odd because I’m not generally a dessert person – two pieces at Bob Evans notwithstanding.   Ordinarily, I’d much rather burn those calories on appetizers. [Some day I’ll tell the Greenbriar story and my “free” meal.]

The oh-so-chic parents for the Marine Corps Ball.
The oh-so-chic parents for the Marine Corps Ball.

After St. Louis and various other locales along Rt. 66, we finally ended up in northern Michigan at the paternal grandmother’s house. It had been so long since I’d seen her that I had no memory of her. Essentially, I was meeting her for the first time. My dad, unbelievably, had not told her we were coming, preferring to surprise her.

My my, was she surprised.

And, my oh my, is Michigan ever cold in January – particularly after the tropics.

Emma was a baker. In fact, she was the pastry chef at what passed for that area’s haute cuisine restaurant – not that they ever gave her such a title, officially. The restaurant was famous for their chocolate bottom pie and nobody could make it as well as Emma.

Life's Short - trust me on this.
Life’s Short – trust me on this.

In violation of the rules regarding the secret recipe, Emma made it for holidays and whatnot. A widow and subsequent divorcee with 8 kids, it was common knowledge she’d never be able to afford to take the kids to the restaurant. I doubt she ever made much more than minimum wage. I think she felt entitled to take that recipe home.

But she never gave the recipe out.

Chocolate bottom pie is a confection of luscious vanilla cream filling, chocolate, nuts, flaky pie crust, and whipped cream. The sum is much, much more than the sum .of its parts. It’s actually

simple to make.  It toppled, quickly, coconut cream pie’s short-lived status as the best thing I ever put in my mouth.

Emma would allow you to watch her make it, forbid you to let anyone else see, and thus the recipe wanders through the family. My mother makes a down-and-dirty version utilizing boxed pudding and still it’s fabulous. Between Dean’s coconut cream pie and Emma’s chocolate bottom, how I vowed to learn to bake. All of Emma’s baked goods were exquisite, but it’s the pie I remember most.

It took me years, but I can churn out a chocolate bottom pie that will make you weep tears of chocolate joy.

Emma
Emma

Emma was a wonderful woman. A sturdy woman. A resilient woman. Without any help, she raised those kids in abject poverty while working in an upscale restaurant for minimum wage – the restaurant she made famous with her pies, the restaurant she couldn’t afford to take her kids to.

Emma was not the sweet grandmotherly type. She was tough as nails. She had to be. But her laugh was something to experience as was her ire. Her cooking – her cooking was sweet. She is the end of an era.

She died on Sunday and I should be packing in preparation for leaving for her funeral tomorrow morning

She loved her children and they loved her.  Three of her children preceded her in death.  The remaining five still love her with a passion. 

Tomorrow is going to be hard.

We’re glad she didn’t suffer long. And we’re glad to have had her as long as we did.

Emma
Emma

Tomorrow brings another, much shorter, cross-country trip to Michigan. I think it’s going to be difficult for my parents.  Emma was an icon for both of them. I’m going as much for them as to say goodbye.  More than likely, like my 10-year-old self, I’ll be stuck in the backseat with no coconut cream and, certainly not, chocolate bottom pie.  But there will be a great many memories and good conversation.

And, no, I don’t give out the recipe for chocolate bottom pie. 

I promised Emma, I wouldn’t.

Pan Seared Tuna with Mango Radish Coulis – NOT

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

Fresh ground pepper and an elegant presentation always helps.

Fresh ground pepper and an elegant presentation always helps.

I do enjoy foods that those with sophisticated palates (or a lot of money) eat regularly. Just ask Chef Boy ‘R Mine. I’m his guinea pig. [And it’s about time he comes home and cooks for me again.]

I also like a lot of junk food, pseudo food, comfort food and stuff that is plain fare. I even like stuff, some of it, that involves a can of Cream-of-Something soup.

So sue me.

In the junk food category, I get weak-kneed over Cheez-Its. Ruffles (have ridges) potato chips and Slim Jims are perennial favorites. As for pseudo food, I like Twinkies (though I prefer SnoBalls), but will not abide Cool Whip.

Comfort food and plain fare remind me of my childhood, which was good, and serve, well, to comfort me. Plain fare I regard as further up the haute cuisine ladder than comfort food. Comfort foods are those things that you’re a little embarrassed about liking. Spam is one. Morton beef pot pies are another.

When I was about 10, maybe 11, I read a Beverly Cleary book about a high school girl and her first date. I was beginning to find boys a little interesting, but overall was pretty clueless. For those of you not initiated, Cleary wrote children’s books – Ramona, Beezus, Henry Huggins – which were funny and poignant. While they sometimes had a moral, the heavy-handedness of it was blunted by the comedy. Beverly Cleary could channel all those feelings and ideas and actions of a kid somewhere between 5 and 10 years old. She wrote a few books about teenagers. They weren’t as compelling.

In this book that I’ve forgotten the name of, the protagonist is a bundle of nerves before her first date. She worries about everything including whether or not her mother is going to make Smells to Heaven Tuna Casserole. Cleary, knowing her audience, explained the onion breath problem. Most ten year olds, at least in my day, didn’t worry too much about bad breath.

It’s either a testament to Cleary’s writing or my love of tuna casserole or, perhaps, both that forty years later I remember that detail.

I like tuna casserole. I don’t remember not ever liking it.

My mom made it with Cream of Mushroom Soup, noodles, onions, sometimes celery and tuna. After putting it in a baking dish, she crushed potato chips and spread them on top of the casserole about a 1/2 inch thick.

Now I did and do abhor canned mushrooms. They’re not even as good as pencil erasers (something I chewed on quite a bit as a kid). I hate them, and when we had tuna casserole, I ate around them. They’re chopped up fine and those tiny little suckers could really slow down the eating process.

When I started making my own tuna casserole, I discovered Cream of Celery soup.

Well, well.

I love celery. I toss it in anything I can get away with. Cream of Celery soup and chopped celery became necessities in the production of perfect tuna casserole.

I use the extra-wide noodles. I don’t want any wimpy noodles likely to get limp and pasty. I want them bold and al dente. This is a must.

I’m not sure when or why, but sometime early in my tuna casserole production years, I began substituting French’s French Fried Onions for the potato chips. It’s now a necessity. I could no more enjoy tuna casserole without French fried onions than I could enjoy it without onions or celery or tuna or noodles.

It’s a perfect gestalt of sodium, preservatives, msg, calories and the meager Omega 3s that that the tuna provides.

And I’m having it for dinner tonight.

I haven’t cooked for myself in months. And I haven’t cooked for one person  in months. I was surprised I had to think about how to go about making the casserole. This is not a recipe that’s ever been written down.

I managed to do it, but I could easily feed 12 people. I’m going to be eating tuna casserole all week. I suspect that I will, but it remains to be seen, if I will still like my Smells To Heaven Tuna Casserole next week.

Morning Glories, Birth Control, and Birthday Bachanals

/ wvfurandroot / 12 Comments

Birthday Morning Glory

Birthday Morning Glory

Approaching my 25th birthday, I had a midlife crisis. Having always been precocious, the early advent of said crisis shouldn’t have been a surprise. But it was.

At 25, so I thought, I had to grow up and be an adult. I needed to pay my bills on time, get my oil changed, quit wasting money, and become a responsible (unmarried) matron.

Appalled at such a future, I threw myself a birthday party – the last blow out of my misspent youth before donning sensible shoes and alphabetizing my spice jars.

At the time, I lived in Milwaukee with the ex who was not yet a husband. We had a house in the city on a tiny lot in a solid, staid working class neighborhood. Knowing the party had a potential to get out of hand, we invited the entire neighborhood thinking if folks were invited they were less likely to complain.

I woke up the morning of my birthday, stood in the bathroom gazing into the mirror and absently reached for my birth control pills. As I prepared to swallow the pill, the insight that it was ridiculous, wasteful and potentially damaging to my body to take a pill I didn’t need. The ex who wasn’t yet a husband had been certified sterile by a number of doctors. My first act as a 25-year-old was to throw my birth control pills in the bathroom trashcan.

Dressing for a party.

Dressing for a party.

Folks began arriving in the late afternoon. It was one of those open invitation parties – y’all come and bring your friends. They all came and they did bring their friends. It was very soon a full blown, rock the world party. Given the number of people, we could have been much louder. We were loud, mind you, but not as loud as you might expect with a 100 people in a backyard that was roughly 20×20 feet.

The cops arrived shortly after the ex who wasn’t yet a husband dumped my boss (rolex, expensive Italian shoes, and clothes) into the hot tub.

We quieted a bit.

I told folks that I did not want gifts and most complied. However, one guy I didn’t know (and still can’t figure out who invited him) gave me a gorgeously wrapped gift. Nonplussed, I opened it. Inside were 25 rolls of toilet paper because, he said, “You’re full of shit.”

Drawing for the Maiden Mother Crone Triptych

Another memorable gift.

I have no idea how he could have known ahead of time that I am like I am. But since I am full of shit, those rolls remain one of the most memorable birthday gifts I’ve ever received – from a complete stranger in the midst of absolute chaos on a small Milwaukee city lot in a staid working class neighborhood.

The party ended. The neighbors weren’t too mad. Well, they were mad, but they got over it.

About that time, not knowing anything about plants, I decided a little landscaping was in order. I planted morning glory seeds. It was August in Milwaukee and, of course, nothing happened. That was, I believe, my first failed attempt of many at morning glories.

By November I was impregnated by a sterile man and became a sober, responsible, married matron though I never got the hang of sensible shoes.

Other than small family affairs, I haven’t had a birthday party since.

As posted earlier, HMOKeefe and I had plans to spend a week in Berkeley Springs to celebrate my birthday. In retrospect, I remember being a tad puzzled that we were due to check out the morning of my birthday. But in the weeks leading up to my birthday, I was working between 64 and 75 hours a week. I didn’t have a lot of time to ponder things too much.

The birthstones left behind.

The birthstones left behind.

As it turns out, some lowlife wandered into the barn we were renting and stole my camera and one container of HMOKeefe’s medications. Said lowlife left the jewelry sitting on the kitchen table and HMOKeefe’s much (much much) more expensive camera. When we were sure that the two items were indeed gone and not just misplaced, I got that oogy feeling you get when someone has invaded your space. The barn which had previously been too wonderful for words became a little creepy. We decided to leave on Saturday.

I arrived home to find that my mother had cleaned my house. She’s done this before, so I didn’t think too much of it. My son arrived in the wee hours of the morning. I awoke Sunday morning to a refrigerator full of tinfoil wrapped racks of ribs. I knew he was coming and I knew he was cooking dinner for my birthday. I wasn’t surprised at the sheer amount of food – like his mama, Chef Boy ‘R Mine prepares far too much food.

Folks arriving in 2009

Folks arriving in 2009

HMOKeefe and I left to go look at cameras at the mall. Daunted at the cost of replacing my beloved camera, we returned home to find balloons and signs hanging up and down the road as well as a car with Michigan plates in the driveway.

I left a quiet, orderly house to go to the mall and came home to boxes of beer, champagne, and sub sandwiches, people, and camera flashes popping.

They came from Michigan, and Texas by way of Michigan. From San Francisco and Huntington and Kentucky. (The Columbus folks were thought to be lost and wandering the backroads of Balls Gap, but it turns out a medical emergency kept them at home. Anna – take care of yourself.)

They got me good. I never suspected. Many (certainly not all) of my favorite people spent my 50th birthday with me. Other than my family members, most of these people I met online. The others through work.  Paid labor and the intertubes have been very good to me.

Rib Boy eating lobster.

Rib Boy eating lobster.

My son cooked a monumental feast for my Monday birthday. On Tuesday, Fed Ex arrived with the live lobster. By the time everyone cleared out on Wednesday, the refrigerator was empty and the trashcans were full of wine, champagne and beer bottles.

On Sunday I was too flabbergasted to react. On Monday, I started becoming overwhelmed at the significance of what was happening. By Tuesday, I couldn’t talk about it for fear of sobbing.

HMOKeefe left a few hours ago and once again it is just me and the puppies. The full impact is just now hitting me.

I have never been so loved. I have never had such friends.

Mmmmmorning glory.

Mmmmmorning glory.

On the morning of my birthday, I discovered that my morning glories, seeded late, were blooming. For 25 years, I have planted morning glories and for 24 of them nothing happened. I wandered around the yard taking pictures of them with the camera HMOKeefe left me until I can get the wherewithal to purchase a new one.

I started making the connections.

The son that arose from trashing the birth control pills the morning of my 25th birthday party arrived and cooked for my 50th. The party of mere acquaintances I had for my 25th became a party of dear friends for my 50th. The raucous, police intervention party of my misspent youth turned into a not sober, but delightful fellowship of good friends. The morning glories I planted too late when I was 25 have become the morning glories I planted too late in my 50th year. The former did nothing; the latter are blooming. (I think there’s a metaphor there.)

Fabulous Fifties

Fabulous Fifties

And unlike 25, I am not having a crisis (okay, not any related to turning 50). I’ve been strangely excited about my half-century mark for awhile now. My 20s were good. My thirties were great. Forties were bumpy, but mostly terrific. I expect my 50s to be fabulous.

And thank you all.  Those that were here and those that weren’t.  I still can’t talk about this without tearing up.  Y’all will probably never know what it meant to me.