I can’t
remember how old we were but we were young enough to speak with puppy-eyed
honesty, watch the adults laugh at our innocence, and continue on with our
minuscule lives with blinders on, oblivious as to what just happened.
We sat in dolls
chairs around our Lilliputian worktables coloring, eating paste and cutting our
hair as the teacher drifted around the room with note pad in hand, interviewing
each child how they would prepare their favorite food. The result was a collection
of recipes for our darling mothers to cherish forever, the May-time school
prize for keeping our noses clean and our pants dry. Art Linkletter would have
been proud to see how our submissions were printed exactly as they were spoken.
Each contribution mimeographed, trimmed and glued onto a sheet of construction
paper, the cover hand-decorated with a half-chewed crayon in an expression of
love, causing our mothers to keen and coo all the way home.
Now, if you
don’t know what a mimeograph machine is, imagine a container larger than a
coffee can turned on its side and filled with ink. A stencil made of the
original document was placed on the drum. As the copier turned a hand-crank
with purpled fingers, the drum spun on its side printing the image of the
document onto individual sheets of paper (these most often crinkled and folded
than passed flat between the drum and roller). The result was a rank
berry-juice colored spoltchment often passing as a copy of the original
document. The smell is difficult to forget. Perhaps this is the problem for
those of us who grew up before copy machines became more widely used. Every
time the teacher passed out a document, we pressed the paper against our faces
and inhaled deeply. Ahhhh, the smell of mimeographed paper in the morning . . .
Our collection
included maybe five entries of Grilled Cheese or Peanut Butter and Jelly
Sammiches, Sqwambod Eggs, Omblettes, Bhasketti and Meatballs and the like. My
entry was for the best dish ever made across all time. Ever. This was not a
dish prepared by my mother, but by my grandmother and to my recollection, when
she made it prepared not one bowl, but two: one for me and one for everyone
else. That big old green glass bowl was the right size to hug, to sit on the floor
with the bowl between my legs, spoon in hand, and have not a care in the world.
Banilla
Pudding.
Sometime early
in marriage I received a delivery of some of my grandmother’s things (she died
before we were married). You should not have to be told how among the pots,
pans, Tupperware and goodness-knows-what-else, there was that green glass bowl.
Seeing the bowl sent one sole thought rocketing through my stomach: my
grandmother loved me.
B
anilla Pudding
still remains my favorite food and I wish the lady in cafeteria or the chef at
Ryans would spell the placard right (it‘s a national chain, for crying out
loud)! I could not tell you what I said on that particular day in Kindergarten on
how to prepare it, but I am confident there should be at least one apron-full
of love.
Then some clown
had to discover how to make an ice-cream version. You know, I’ve thought long
and hard about how I would react if I ever meet this person face to face. I
would take him (or her) quietly aside and tell him (or her) about the secret
ingredient. I might even lick their hand.
