Food, Family and Memory

Ever since joining the club, my diet has changed. Health club? Good God no! Book club, country club, beach club? Wrong again! I am now a card carrying member of the worldwide group of “empty nesters.” The club one is automatically granted membership to once their last or only child leaves the house for college or life elsewhere. No dues, no rules, and absolutely no where to go!

When my husband and I dropped the youngest of our two daughters off at college this past September in London no less, (our eldest went east to upstate NY, but not far enough for our baby, she needed another continent!) there were, of course, tears. I did cry myself to sleep the night after we said goodbye. Exhaustion and jet lag could’ve played into it a bit. We should have planned the trip better. A week to shop for a college room in a foreign city, plus a winter wardrobe (her Southern Cal cutoffs and T-shirts wouldn’t do in London come October) and her own kitchen setup as her dorm had no cafeteria just a communal kitchen on every floor that the 8 residents to a hallway shared, was a race I barely won.

Mother Nature in her infinite wisdom, as I learned with the first college drop, sets it up so well. The last few weeks before they leave, the kids are so nervous aka obnoxious, you really can’t wait to kiss them goodbye, put the pedal to the metal and head home. The old gal was on the job this time as well, but London is so far away from Los Angeles and this was my baby! Even though she had me running in and out of every frigging vintage shop in London for the winter coat that didn’t exist, and up and down the escalator at the largest Tesco ever created until I begged for an oxygen tank, (“Excuse me Sir, would you happen to have an inhaler I could borrow?”) I fell to pieces after we left her. So much for the year of living dangerously. Senior year when I didn’t know who to kill, her or me...or my husband, for if I hadn’t married him to begin with...

I have been piecing together my fantasy business in my mind for decades. Ever since I received a pint-size, hand-cranked ice cream maker for my birthday at age five, I have been obsessed with making ice cream. I’ve always imagined myself as soda jerk pulling my carbonator draft arm tenderly behind the counter of a polished chrome soda fountain. I had decided all the intricate details of what type of equipment I would need, period glassware, and the décor by the time I was 10 years old. I even concocted all the recipes for the gooey toppings by 16.

My obsession started years ago on my first visit to Scottsdale, Arizona. My parents treated me to my first period perfect ice cream parlor visit and I fell hopelessly in love. My first impression of the Sugar Bowl has never left me. I have an odd habit of spinning when I am overwhelmed by something beautiful. I spin to remember the whole picture - all 360 degrees of it. I spun that day taking in the whole Sugar Bowl ice cream parlor. It must have been someone’s dream because every detail was so perfect, and then it became my dream.

Monday, mid morning, I found my five year old Sara, in the kitchen,
Curious, standing on her stool at the island counter,
Fiddling with the 24 table grapes on the plate,
The ones that were part of our experiment,
The ones that would answer all of our questions.

I admit, my questions:

How long does it take to make a raisin from a grape?
I don’t know daddy…
Will our raisins taste better than the ones out of the box?
I don’t know daddy…
Over time, what the heck goes on inside of a grape anyway?
And how? And why? And so on…

“Hey Sara Bear, how many grapes on that plate?”
I was tempted to start grouping them for her.

“I don’t know daddy, do you want me to count them?”

“Good Idea!”

I had one hell of a shower for my first born.  Numerous gifts were given.  I had been to my fair share of showers, both for weddings and babies, and now I wanted a big, fancy one of my own.  Kimme had the best house, so she threw it for me with my other BFF, Kimberly.  Robin made the unforgettable-to-this-day desserts.

Two of the gifts were what seemed at the time like simple, not-too-much-thought-put-into-it gestures.  A white stuffed bear.  And a brown stuffed bear.

By the time Oliver was only a few months old, he clung to those two bears — they had become his best friends, his security bears.   Before the age of one, he would never leave the house without white and brown bear.

I was hired for a small part in a small movie, on location in Texas.  I would be gone a week.  Oliver, white bear, brown bear and I boarded a plane.  I hired some random local girl to watch my baby while I worked on set.  Things went well and I hired her for the following day too.  But when I came back to the hotel, brown bear was missing.  We went into panic mode, though the teenaged girl seemed way relaxed.  I grilled her.  “Where were you when you last saw brown bear?”  She did seem to recall something about the pool area.  It was now evening, dark already and we all went down to comb the pool area.  No brown bear.  As we were about to give up, I looked into the trash and there he was looking very forlorn, ready to take a trip to the local dump.  He would never have been seen again had I not peeked into the trash can.  What a relief.  Separation anxiety averted.