NOVEMBER 2, 2024 – I’m no foodie; never was and probably never will be. In cooking up this restaurant review, I have to acknowledge my lack of culinary credentials. During my law school career, which coincided with the most intense phase of my competitive running career—I lived alone and cooked for myself. My daily diet was easy, repetitive and nutritional: four slices of wholewheat toast with honey and a banana for breakfast; a turkey sandwich (with lettuce) for lunch; an enormous chef’s salad with a load of protein (alternating among canned tuna, turkey ham and boiled eggs) and two slices of wholewheat toast. On at least four late-nights a week I’d consume an enormous stack of buckwheat pancakes at a Dinkytown (near the U of MN – Minneapolis). My girlfriend—whose culinary refinement was several ranks above mine—watched in awe as she sipped on a glass of ice water.
When pressed, I can throw a meal together for one to two people in addition to myself. This capacity, however, exists only if I’m not being supervised. Supervision, I’ve learned, tends to impinge on my “creativity,” id est, departures from convention and recipes.
My most memorable foray into meal preparation occurred when I was in fourth grade. I’d pressed my mother for the opportunity, and not loving the kitchen particularly, she readily ceded control, though she was rather surprised by my request. Prior thereto I’d never expressed much of an interest in cooking.
In fact, my announced desire to fix dinner for the entire family was prompted by an ulterior motive. Fourth grade marked the very bottom of my relationship with the violin. It was the year in school when kids who showed an interest and ability in music were offered the chance to take up an instrument and join the grade school band or orchestra. Because I’d been forced to take violin lessons (and practice) since I was five, my parents insisted that I join the orchestra. This set us up for some royal battles, especially between my dad and me. Mother had tentatively surrendered, telling me that if I could persuade Dad to grant me a reprieve, she’d grant her joinder. The next to the last thing I wanted to do was play in the school orchestra, which I knew would sound worse than Mother’s stubborn DeSoto when Dad tried to start it up in the wintertime. The last thing I wanted to do was carry my violin to school and be seen by the “cool” kids, because in my mind, being seen with a violin would be very, very bad for my reputation as a baseball player.
The plan was to fix dinner, call my parents and three sisters to the table, then serve everyone except Dad. I’d withhold his plate and beverage until he agreed to let me off the orchestra hook. If he refused to agree, I’d refuse to feed him. He always had a good appetite, so I figure I had leverage.
About a half hour before our usual supper time, I got to work. My chief outside interest at the time—fueled largely by Dad’s own interest in the history of the West—was cowboys, so I’d planned what I imagined was a typical “chuck wagon” dinner: hot dogs wrapped in bacon with a side of beans all washed down with homemade chocolate malts. From all my reading, I knew cowboys ate lots of beans, but it never occurred to me that the beans were baked beans, which made me gag, not string beans, which Mother served regularly, and which were an acceptable choice for a vegetable. Accordingly, I’d asked for—and Mother had bought for the dinner I was producing—a container of Bird’s Eye frozen string beans.
Once Mother had pulled out all the necessary pots and pan and helped me set things up, I put my shoulder into the mighty task of fixing dinner for the family. Things took a little longer than I’d planned, prompting my sisters to ask more than once, “When’s supper?” (shouted from upstairs). As I began to second-guess my choice for the menu, I was relieved that no one asked, “What’s for supper?”
The hard part, I discovered, was wrapping the hotdogs in bacon. It had struck me as a good idea in theory, but in practice, the bacon fought with the hot dogs, and neither element seemed to like the way I applied the toothpicks. Then came the matter of the chocolate malts, which involved Kemp’s vanilla ice-cream, Cloverleaf milk, and generous helpings of Carnation’s chocolate malt powder. One could be knocked out easily, but six—without burning the beans, which I’d all but forgotten on the stove?
By some miracle, I managed. Six plates lined up on the kitchen counter, each with a hotdog wrapped in bacon and laid inside a Taystee bun and a helping of string beans on the side. Behind each plate, a chocolate malt. On the table, mustard and ketchup. All I had to do was ring the dinner bell and carry the plates and malts into the dining room.
By the time everyone was assembled around the table, I’d forgotten the whole reason for the production: extortion—withholding Dad’s plate and malt until I delivered my ultimatum and he conceded. “Hmmm,” he murmured, as I slipped his meal into place in front of him, “what have we here?”
Just then I remembered. “Oops!” I said. “You don’t get your dinner until you agree that I don’t have to join the orchestra at school.”
Dad chuckled. Not a good sign. “No, I’m afraid that’s not going to fly,” he said. The tone and substance of his response made me feel as if I’d told a bad joke. My defeat was complete. I decided to take my lumps and enjoy my cowboy dinner the best I could.
Now, where was I? Oh yeah—a restaurant review. Stay tuned. (Cont.)
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
