"Hot Fun in the Summertime..."

   

   

It’s Memorial Day weekend and for many people, it means the start of the summer boating season. It’s been quite a while, but for years, it was the beginning of the best part of the year for me.

   Lake Cumberland, Kentucky is about five hours south of Cincinnati, but it became the center of my summer life when my husband and I first started dating.  He and a friend shared ownership of a speedboat named “GoldiLox” (so named for the bagel-loving Jewish owners). We’d make the trek every other weekend and spend three glorious days waterskiing, swimming and of course, eating!

   Days were spent driving the boat around the massive lake with miles and miles of smooth skiing water. We’d head out early in the day soaking up the sun until late afternoon. After hours of multiple ski runs and swimming in the lake, we’d clean up and head across the lake at dusk to feed the voracious appetites we’d worked up during the day.

   A gin and tonic in one hand and the wind from the speed of the boat blowing our hair and sunburned faces, we’d head across the massive lake to Grider Hill Lodge. Not a Four Seasons resort or fancy marina, Grider’s rustic dock and log cabin lodge might have been overlooked by a less discerning palate, but we knew what was waiting up the hill.

   With all the calories burned that day water-skiing, we were ready for a meal to replenish us . Grieder’s restaurant was known for its’ pan fried chicken and peanut butter pie and they more than lived up to the hype.

  Before the days of eating clean and low-fat, low-carb foods, the meal began with baskets of dollar rolls and real butter. A salad came next; mostly iceberg & tomatoes, dripping with creamy dressing. But the piece de resistance was the fried chicken. Lightly coated and pan fried (no doubt in lard), the magic spices couldn’t be duplicated. Add the mashed potatoes, buttered corn and green beans (something healthy) served family style, and we were in food heaven.

   We’d gorge ourselves to the point of “almost full” because it was almost time for pie. The choice was always difficult. They were known for the peanut butter pie, but often they had banana and chocolate cream as well. As good as those pies were, they were always a disappointment compared to the peanut butter pie. Fluffy and creamy at the same time with an enormous meringue top, the peanut butter pie was always cut into “Grandma”-sized slices.

   Always too full to move right away, we’d sit and talk with the lodge owners and staff for hours until they closed. It became a sort of summer family and we visited often. As time went by, we moved away from the area and sold the boat. But years later, we went back to Lake Cumberland for a family trip with our children, and of course, took them to Grider. Their menu still includes the Cumberland Skillet Fried Chicken and Laura Ann's Famous Mile High Peanut Butter Pie.

   It was delicious, of course, but I think what it stood for was more important . The tastes, the smells, and even the pictures on the wall brought us back to a carefree, easy summer life: even at a time when we were dealing with all of the stresses of careers and parenthood.

   And, from my first bite of fried chicken to the last morsel of pie, work deadlines, carpools, homework, and “mom” stress magically disappeared.

"Your Mother Should Know..."

   

As I’ve said in previous posts, food and love often go hand in hand. This is especially true when we think of how our moms showed their love as we were growing up.

   I hear amazing stories of Sunday night spaghetti dinners with homemade sauce and pasta. Cake baked from scratch with special icings and fillings. Bread and pies sitting on the window-sill cooling; fragrant aromas wafting outside the house. Special dishes that are remembered forever. But my food memories are a little bit different.

   My mom is an amazing woman, but cooking was never her forte. Between golf, tennis, bowling, and mah jongg, the days kept her very busy.

   My dad had office hours two nights a week, they went out to dinner on Saturday night, and we often ate at the golf or swim club throughout the summer. I only liked hamburgers, and my dad would go out for a late night snack after dinner, so it was kind of hit or miss when she cooked. There wasn’t a great rush to cook gourmet meals.

But heaven knows she tried!!

   Honestly, she was creative if nothing else. She was the first person to reinvent guacamole by making “Broccomoli” dip as an appetizer.

   

Didn’t have the right ingredients on hand? No problem for mom. Just ask my kids about the time she made them chili with black-eyed peas. (Where she found them in my house I’ll never know). 

   But what I DO remember is that every Friday night, (Shabbat for Jewish families), she would cook dinner served at the dining room table, complete with linen tablecloth and silver wine cups.

   

There was always a fresh Challah bread from the local bakery, and she would make chopped liver as a start (I was never a fan, but all of the Friday night guests loved it).

   Roasted Chicken was the go-to main course. She didn’t want to mess with success so that’s what we had every week. It wasn’t bad, considering that her stove hadn’t been working at full capacity for years.

   Again, she was creative. Although the temperature in the oven never got above 250 degrees, she miraculously fully cooked the chicken by putting it in the oven around 10 AM for a 6 PM dinner. My husband compared it to a full-sized EZ Bake oven with the heating power of one light bulb.

So, do I have stacks of her recipes that I’ve cooked for my family? No.

But what I do have is her recipe for a wonderful life:

She doesn’t expect much, so she’s constantly overwhelmed by what she gets.

She never tried to “Keep Up With The Joneses” because she knew that if they really cared, they’d be there for her.

She is grateful for everything. Her health, her living situation, her friends, her children, grandchildren, and their families. She considers it a gift just to be here.

She never stops learning. Just like the recipe “tweaks”, she’ll try something new until she almost gets it and figure the rest out on her own. She’s a voracious reader. She Skypes & e-mails, texts, and calls on her IPhone. She has a Facebook page with more friends than me. She still does yoga when she can, even if it's sitting in a chair.

She is open to new friendships daily. She believes everyone has something to offer and tells me stories about the interesting people she talks to all of the time.

She loves her family unconditionally and we are the lucky recipients of her recipe for life! 

And I wouldn’t trade that for all of the pies and fried chicken in the world.

"Great Balls of Matzo..."

   

It's Passover, and who doesn’t love matzo ball soup? It’s the staple of every Jewish holiday, and a delicacy in both delicatessens and high-end restaurants. Jewish mothers swear by its healing powers and the “hard” vs “soft” matzo ball debate has raged for centuries.

  If you grew up in a Jewish household or have Jewish friends, you most likely have a relationship with the dish. Even our favorite Italian restaurant in St. Louis has the soup on their menu. 

   It’s a simple dish in theory; matzo meal, eggs, and oil to make the dough and roll into balls. Chicken soup to cook them with, and maybe carrots, celery, and a little onion and seasoning. But….the nuances of each recipe can make or break the taste.

  My Bubbie (Yiddish for Grandma) used schmaltz or chicken fat in her matzo balls and made the soup from scratch. I probably didn’t appreciate the depth of flavor that the fat added to the soup at such a young age, but I remember it being delicious.

   In later years, my mom and aunt would either make the matzo balls and buy the broth, or order it from the grocery store. It always tasted the best on Passover because, after sitting through and hour and a half seder (Passover service), the soup was usually the first course eaten.

    I love most food homemade, but I have to confess, I have always used a packaged soup mix for my matzo balls and added a few tweaks. The matzo balls were light and fluffy and the broth was rich and flavorful. My kids loved it growing up, and I kind of prefer it to homemade, even now. But the first time I made it, I rolled the balls into golf ball size before I cooked them. I didn’t realize that they would “grow” in the boiling broth and ended up with six-inch diameter meteors.

    

However,  what I remember most about matzo balls was the song. My father was always the jokester, and every Passover he would make me, my brother, and my cousins sing the “Matzo Ball Song” before he would let us eat dinner. It was a silly song, but it became such a big part of our family tradition, that all new family members had to participate. My husband, my sister-in-law, my kids; they all had to sing for their supper too.

I think Dad sized up our potential spouses by their willingness to participate.

   

   Years after he passed away, my mom came to visit us on Passover. Since our close friends include us every year in their family and friends seder, my mom was excited to celebrate.

   The meal was beginning, and some friends went into the kitchen to help. Just as mom was telling the group about the matzo ball song, one of the guests spilled an entire bowl of matzo ball soup he was serving directly onto my mother’s head. She was fine; no burns or injuries, but she swears it was Dad letting her know he was watching.

   Any time I’m ready to enjoy a bowl of the soup, the tune pops back into my head with a picture of my Dad, like a band director, making us all sing along:

“I wanna be a matzo ball,

And swim in the middle of the chicken soup.

And float down on a noodle,

Right to the bottom of the whole caboodle.

And when I’m tired and I get kinda hungry,

I eat me a matzo while I’m floating on my tummy.

I wanna be a matzo ball,

And swim home for Pesach (Passover)”

Happy Holiday to all!!

This year, at our virtual Zoom seder, I sang the song to my granddaughters, hoping they will sing the silly song too.

"After School Special..."

 

 Though the world might be a much different place than it was when I was a teenager, teenaged girls haven’t changed that much. 

Walk into any Starbuck’s right after school lets out and you’ll see what I mean. A true “gaggle” of young women spill into the place and hijack a group of tables with their backpacks and laptops. Standing in line to order their lattes, caramel macciatos, and chai teas, they loudly review the events of the day between high- pitched giggles and “OMG” screams.

Their clothes might be different, but that could have been my group of friends after school, taking over the neighborhood Howard Johnson’s; HoJo’s to those in the know.

I know I sound like your Grandpa when I say this, but when I was growing up, if we lived within two miles of the school, we walked. Sometimes our moms would pick us up for a dentist appointment, or we might be lucky enough to know a high-schooler who drove, but otherwise, it was on foot.

It might have been tiring, but that walk home was sometimes the best part of our day; made even better by our after school “snack” sessions at the home of 28 flavors.

Just like the Starbuck’s teens, we’d pile into HoJo’s and nine or ten of us would take over the round booth meant for 5 people. Crowded into the circle, we’d order sodas, French fries, sundaes, fried clams, hot dogs, and bowls of ice cream; our conversation at least five decibels above the other diners’ talk.

The hostess at the restaurant was a Spanish woman named Hazel with a thick accent and a tough demeanor. I know she cringed every time she saw us all walk in, but she greeted us, seated us, and shot a strong glare our way every time we got out of hand.

Nothing terrible; but between laughing and climbing over the seats to look at a note someone had written (long before texting) or reaching across the table to take a bite of someone’s food, we made a lot of noise and a big mess.

Whether it was my best friend Nadine’s burgundy cherry ice cream soda, or my clams and tartar sauce, we always left the table looking like a battleground.

Though Hazel would have loved to kick us out and ban us from the place permanently, she also would see us there with our families on the weekends, so she yelled at us, but no major punishments.

And I remember seeing the “older” girls there and thinking they were so lucky because they were all starting to get their licenses and they could actually drive there. With their teased and perfectly flipped hair and gold initial circle pins, we could only hope we’d be that cool one day.

Each new generation always seems to have their place. From HoJos to McDs, from Panera to Starbucks, one thing you can bet on is an after school invasion of loud voices and big appetities. I mean even the kids on Happy Days had Arnold’s.

"I Scream. You Scream. We all Scream For ice Cream..."

I've always thought that food and love go hand in hand. Whether it’s chocolates and champagne, or steak and lobster, most of us celebrate love with food.

For me, it’s ice cream. I rarely had ice cream while growing up, though. My dad was more of a Mallomar and donuts lover, so that was what we had in the house. Maybe a scoop at Baskin-Robbins every now and then, but it wasn’t at the top of my list.

That is, until I started dating my husband.

Disco dancing was very big when we started dating, so we would all work up an appetite dancing.  And, although Cincinnati is known for it’s late night chili parlors, we found a restaurant atop the Stouffer’s hotel that served dessert all night.

Trying to be “healthy”, I ordered a single scoop of vanilla ice cream, but he ordered a sundae called the “Georgian Chocolate Monkey” that changed everything I thought about ice cream!

Layered in a parfait glass were several scoops of chocolate and peanut butter ice cream, banana slices, hot fudge sauce, peanut butter sauce, peanuts and of course, whipped cream and a cherry!

He politely asked me if I wanted to taste it. I took one bite and kept "tasting" until it was almost halfway gone. I then looked up to see everyone at the table laughing since I had practically finished his whole sundae. 

After that, ice cream was our go-to dessert. I learned the joys of Graeter’s French pot ice cream with chunks of chocolate the size of a candy bar.

When we moved to Columbus, Swensen’s was our favorite after-movie gathering place. We were there so much that our kids were on a first-name basis with the owner, Mr. Knight.

And we've spent many a summer night in St. Louis lined up outside the windows at Ted Drewe's, waiting for the ice creamy, custardy concrete.

Before bedtime bowls of ice cream became a ritual in our house and our kids were part of it too. Watching TGIF, or Friends, or even the news, it became a family tradition! Whenever we visit Cincinnati, we can't leave without having a few scoops of Graeter's Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip.

And even though we’ve “downsized” to Skinny Cow bars and Weight Watcher single serving cups, ice cream time is still our special time to relax and unwind from the day. I rarely order dessert when I go out to dinner. I wait until I'm home in my PJs and eat my ice cream on the couch!

To me, ice cream is love!!  What food makes you the happiest?

Happy Valentine’s Day!