Guest Post: " Leading by Example..."

As promised, I will be including guest posts from you. This sent to me by my friend , Sarah Berglund:

        Most of my personal childhood memories around the dinner table seem to revolve around yelling matches between my father and my sister while I cowered in the corner of the bench I shared with her.  It was usually about homework not turned in, organ practice not completed, leaves not rakes, or high school graduation announcements that weren’t ordered in time.

I’m sure this didn’t happen every night, but it happened enough so that when I had my own family, I determined their memories of our  dinners would be pleasant, or at least neutral. We all sat down together, ate the same meal and went around the table in turn discussing our day. Very Ozzie and Harriette, but without the jokes. As I recall our dinners were civilized, nutritious,  but definitely not memory-making.

However, you never know what grown children are going to remember. 

I have a son who has become a chef of some fame and recognition. A reporter asked him why he went into the field. His reply startled and amazed me. He told her it was because of his own memories of the dinner table: “I want to replicate for others what we had when I was growing up: Good food and good conversations.” 

You never know where a macaroni and cheese casserole might lead...

Her son, Paul Berglund is the executive chef at The Bachelor Farmer in Minneapolis,  Paul was a nominee for the 2014 James Beard Awards Best Chef: Midwest. It seems those dinner table memories are the perfect recipe for success!

"All Night Long..."

  As a child of the baby boom era, my family life was much like those on 60s sitcoms. Mom stayed home and took care of the house and children, and Dad went to work every day. Dinner was kept warm until he came home from the office, so bonding with the kids usually meant asking obligatory questions about our day at the dinner table or watching TV together. We’d say good night, go to bed and then see him off to work in the morning. I never imagined what went on while I was sleeping.

Most nights, a few hours after my brother and I fell asleep, my dad would wake from his evening nap and head out of the house. I would have been thrilled to think that he was a part of some secret mission or doing undercover police work, but he was simply going to eat his “real’ dinner at the local diner, called the Toddle House.

   The Toddle House, a national restaurant chain that specialized in serving breakfast, was open 24/7. Each tiny outlet was built to the same plan. No tables; just a short counter with ten stools. Famous for their grill-fried hash browns and burgers and their incredible chocolate “ice box” pie , the tiny kitchen space and single grill cook could whip up any number of artery-clogging treats.

   My father was a glutton for greasy foods like bacon and sausage, but since my mom kept a kosher home, he never got that at the dinner table. And although my mom tried to stock plenty of Hostess cupcakes, Mallomars, and greasy potato chips in the house for his late-night cravings, he could only get his fix at the Toddle House.  

 

This secret sanctuary was first revealed to me at the tender age of 10. As my homework got more difficult, I stayed up later. During one particularly late study session, I heard the front door open. It was after 11 o’clock and the noise scared me. I crept down the top steps so I could check out the situation and saw my dad putting on his coat and hat.

 “Are you going to work now?” I asked

 He looked a little sheepish, but then he turned to me and smiled.

 “If you can get your coat and shoes on in two minutes, I’ll take you for the best treat you’ve ever had!”

  

  So began my indoctrination into the world of “breakfast anytime”, because once we got there, that was all I wanted. Sitting at the counter, watching the cook  break open eggs with one hand and flip pancakes with the other, I imagined ordering everything on the menu.  

    Besides my dad and me, there were only about two or three other people in the diner. The waitress greeted my father by name and didn’t even ask him what he wanted. She poured him a cup of coffee and had the cook start an order of eggs, bacon and hashed browns.

 “And you, little one?” she asked.

 I looked over at my dad who asked, “Pie or breakfast. It’s your choice!”

 “Breakfast!” I blurted out. “Pancakes!” And the show began.

 Our stools at the counter were so close to the open grill that I could almost touch it. The eggs sat out in an open carton next to a milkshake machine (the green porcelain kind with a silver blending cup). An aluminum pitcher, filled with melted butter, bubbled on the grill, and I watched as the fry cook ladled out enough to start the hash browns. I watched him grab a metal ring (kind of like a spring pan for cheesecake, but only about three inches in diameter) and stuff some shredded potatoes inside. He fried them until they were crisp on one side and flipped them to finish the process. Then, he turned the ring onto the plate and out came a perfect disc of golden spuds!

    And it didn’t stop there. He mixed the pancake batter in the milkshake machine and formed flawless circles with the batter on the grill. At the exact moment they began to bubble, a spatula appeared in his hand and he flipped them. No uneven, burnt pieces with gooey middles like the ones that came from my mother’s Farberware pans. These were golden, fluffy, and incredibly tasty.

As we ate, my dad chatted with the waitress named Betty, explaining that now that I was older, I had to work harder in school, but he knew that I could handle the extra load. She asked me about my brother, my mom’s new car, and even my dog, Nikki. It was obvious that Dad had spent a few evenings there bragging about his brood. He even had me tell Betty about the salt clay map I was working on. I didn’t even think he knew what grade I was in, let alone which assignments I was doing!

 I finished every last bite of my pancakes and, as I scraped the plate for crumbs, I looked over and saw my dad smiling at me.

Thus began a lifetime fixation for diner food, be it bacon and eggs, burgers and fries, or pancakes covered in butter and syrup. Our before bedtime outings turned into pre-Sunday school food fests! They continued well into my teenage and college years. I’d cross paths with my dad going out as I came home, needing to sober up from the campus bars. Our diner excursions gave us the time to share with each other as we devoured our plates together   

   When my children were born, he joyfully introduced them to this world of coffee shop camaraderie, bragging to the waitresses and cooks about their pre-school accomplishments. They knew breakfast with Grandpa had no limits on fat, sugar or quantity and his indulgence raised him to hero status in their eyes!

   He’s been gone nineteen years this November and, to this day, I can’t eat pancakes without thinking of him. Most major religions have all sorts of rituals to make sure we never forget those we have lost, and saying a prayer in remembrance is important. But, I find the same comfort remembering that I got to be part of Dad’s secret little late night feasts at the Toddle House

An Apple A Day...

   

  There’s a great show on the Cooking Channel called My Grandmother’s Ravioli, hosted by Mo Rocca. The basic premise of the show involves Mo visiting grandmothers around the country and learning how to cook their specialties. In his travels, he learns much more than the recipes for their food. He learns about their culture, family, and life experience.

   The first time I saw the show, I couldn’t help thinking about my husband’s Grandma Ida. She would have been the perfect candidate for a show like that.

   I actually met Grandma Ida long before I knew my husband. A girl in my dorm was her niece, and Ida would pick her up for dinner on Sunday nights. Picture the good fairies in Cinderella; that’s Grandma Ida. Short and fluffy with a sweet face and kind demeanor, she would even ask us to join them for dinner, knowing ,we too, were from out of town.

   When I started dating my husband, she was the first to ply me with food. Her baked goods were incredible, but she was best known for her apple strudel. She decided I needed to carry on the recipe and arranged a day to teach me (probably the most impatient person in the kitchen) and my best friend , Nadine (definitely more suited to the task) the secret to making her amazing strudel.

She began by placing a clean white cloth on the table and covering it with flour. I wasn’t aware that the weather and humidity affected the outcome of the dough, but the flour was to absorb any excess moisture while we were kneading the dough. After punching and pounding the yeast-risen dough over and over, we gave it one more rest before beginning the process.

   A cup of tea was poured and she had to sit down because the punching and kneading was wearing her out. She needed her energy for the next step, and I soon understood why.

    As I waited for her to throw the risen dough on the table to flatten out with a rolling pin, she took her little chubby fingers and began to stretch the dough like a salt- water taffy machine. Her arm span couldn’t have been any more than four feet, but she worked the dough like a pro. Pulling it and stretching it until the layers were almost transparent, she explained that a rolling pin could never give her the texture she wanted. Stretching the dough was the secret to her flaky crust. Grandma gave Nadine a try and she was pretty successful, but when it was my turn, the dough ripped apart in my hands.

   Patient and kind, Grandma Ida blamed the humidity for my obvious lacked of finesse in the baking department. She softly helped pull the dough and had me lay it on the table. “We’ll let you put the filling on the layers once it’s all stretched out,” was her sweet way of saying, “I’ll do this!”

   In a way, I think she enjoyed being the only one who could make the strudel. Years later, my brother-in-law was able to get close, but he used a pre-made phyllo dough and never dared to compare it to hers. My friend Nadine is a caterer now, so it's possible that she could pull it off.

   But even today, 35 years later, I think of Grandma Ida when I eat anyone’s strudel and wonder if she’s watching.  If so, she knows that no one has even come close to hers and I’m sure that makes her smile.