Food, Family and Memory

Larry King is my spirit animal. When my brother and I were at El Rodeo Middle School and Beverly Hills High School, respectively, we would often ditch our morning classes and go instead for lox and bagels at Nate & Al’s. If we saw Larry King, we knew it would be a good day. Don’t tell my Mom we ditched, although I’m sure deep down she would have approved. Nate & Al’s was a Concord jet to New York in the middle of Beverly Drive. In fact, I once threw a party in New York and my mother insisted on ordering the hot dogs all the way from Nate & Al’s.

Besides the point, but there was a large fiasco that involved my Mother and both her sisters concerning the foot-long hot dogs that arrived with the lack of foot-long hot dog buns. My Aunt who was hosting the party had a nightmare that the end of the hot dog sticking out of the too short buns would cause ketchup, mustard and the like to spill all over her flawless living room. It was fun without responsibility, and not the kind of party she wanted to be having, so she called their eldest sister to get involved and solve the problem. “I’ll take care of this,” my one Aunt assured the other, and sure enough, the next day a box from Nate & Al’s arrived at my Aunt’s door. But inside were 100 foot-long hot dogs and packs and packs of standard size hot dog buns. So now we had 200 foot-long hot dogs and zero useful hot dog buns, for a party for 35 people. My Mom promptly called Juniors, who referred us to their bakery, and the next day a guy showed up at my aunt’s door with 200 foot long hot dog buns delivered straight from Brooklyn. He didn’t even charge us, which I don’t understand, although if you knew my family stranger things have happened than a guy in coveralls delivering 200 foot long hot buns from Brooklyn on a Saturday for free.

There is nothing special in the world. Nothing magic. Just physics." - Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

"Magic is just science we don't understand yet." - Sharon McCarragher

As I sent him out the door into the arctic darkness of a Michigan morning, I told my son that I was out of things to write about. "Give me something." I implored, "anything that pops into your head."

"Christmas lights" was his offering, as he left, bed-headed and sleep-eyed.

This was not the working of a fertile imagination; in order to leave the house he had to pass the lit Christmas tree, the lit garland in the foyer, and the unlit icicle lights on the front porch. It did, however, ignite the proverbial spark in me to write not only about Christmas lights, but about all of the magic that I still believe in, despite 47 years of exposure to the cynicism, disillusionment, pain and loss that exist in the world. I have seen the little man behind the curtain many, many times, but I still believe in the Great and Powerful Oz. Sue me.

As a child, I believed in all kinds of magic - Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the fountain in the mall into which one threw pennies and made wishes. My birthday was a kind of magical celebration of my wonderfulness, and the discovery of a woolly caterpillar on a tree trunk, a toad in the basement window well or a lady bug on a leaf was a unique and amazing event. I also believed that the animals could speak on Christmas Eve, and used to fall asleep on the floor next to our big Airedale, Katie, waiting for her to say something to me. Later, it gave me incalculable pleasure to recreate Santa et al for my own children, leaving elaborate trails of jelly beans through the house (before we had the dogs), making glitter-pen trails on letters from the Tooth Fairy, and simulating reindeer tracks in the snow.

My mother always had soup on the stove or in the refrigerator waiting for us when we got home from school. Her beef shank based soup was the one that I loved the most. When I make it, it’s like a little visit with her, crowned by eating the marrow from the shank as she watched and smiled lovingly.

Beef and Macaroni Soup

1-two-inch thick beef shank with bone

6 cups of water, enough to cover the beef by an inch

1 - 14.5 ounce can of whole tomatoes, broken up with your hand into large pieces

1 large onion, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup peeled and chopped carrots, 1/2 inch pieces

Salt, pepper and a large bay leaf

3/4 cup elbow macaroni

Simmer the shank, water, tomatoes, carrots, onion, celery, salt, pepper and bay leaf for an hour and a half with a cover on. Remove the beef shanks and let cool until you can cut it into ½ pieces. Add ¾ cup of elbow macaroni and stir so it doesn’t stick to the bottom. Cook until the macaroni is tender. Add the cut beef back in and simmer for a few more minutes to allow the flavors to marry. The one you love gets the bone marrow.

Everyone in America has a childhood pickle memory, some great memories of the perfect pickle and some less notable. When my sister and I were kids there was a small pickle company located a couple of towns away and all the local grocery stores in the area had a 55 gallon wooden pickle barrel of their pickles with tongs and plastic bags for you to help yourself. On the side of the barrel was a sign that offered a free pickle to children under 7 years old, a brilliant marketing campaign to capture the next generation of customers. Well, they had me as a loyal customer after only one pickle!

These pickles were really a sour mustard pickle, a rather harsh sensation for a delicate young mouth. I trained myself to enjoy the intense sour flavor by eating slowly, but not waiting too long in between small bites so my mouth wouldn't burn. The company name was the Hescock Pickle Company. It was  located on a bucolic bend in the Kennebec River with 3 large outside cement pools where the pickles cured. All the farmers within a 50 mile radius raised white spine pickling cucumbers for this company to help raise enough money to pay their real estate taxes.