It is funny how so many of my favorite memories from my childhood revolve around meals. Food has always played an important part in my life. From having Thanksgiving dinner with aunts, uncles and cousins, who I usually only saw once a year, to Sunday dinners at my grandmother’s house. The one thing these meals had in common was being with family.
Anyway, my all-time favorite memory is the summer dinners I had with my family, when my father fired up the charcoal grill and barbecued some split chicken breasts. Nothing fancy, but let me tell you, that chicken is still the best I’ve ever had.
We would be out playing with the other kids in the neighborhood, riding our bikes in our driveway or playing wiffle ball in someone’s backyard, when we would hear my mother yell “Dinnertime!”. We would hurry inside to wash our hands and then go out to the backyard and if we were early enough, we would see my dad getting the grill ready.
He would take the black cover off our round Weber grill, wheel it out on 2 of its 3 rusty legs from the corner of our house and bring it out to the middle of our patio. After removing the lid and its crusty metal grill grate, my dad would put a few small sticks and some newspaper in the bottom of the grill and then pour some black lumps of charcoal into the grill. I can still clearly picture that crumbled white and blue bag with the red Kingsford logo that contained those dusty and dirty charcoal briquettes. Next came my favorite part, watching my dad squirt the lighter fluid out of the metal can into the grill, covering all of the charcoal, the newspaper and the kindling and lighting it on fire with a long lit match. Whoosh! I absolutely loved the sound of the wood and the paper catching on fire and then spreading up and around the charcoal.
While the grill was heating up, we would help my mom either shuck the corn or go over to our garden and pick the ripe tomatoes. Man, those home grown beefsteak tomatoes were the best. So juicy! We would just cut them into thick slices, put a little salt on them and eat them just like that. So good!
After what seemed like an eternity, my dad who had put the chicken on the grill while we were busy setting the table and getting the rest of the meal ready, would come inside our screened in porch with a plate covered in tin foil and tell us the chicken was ready. We would race to the picnic table, sitting in our usual spots. Me in the middle of my sister and my brother, and my parents on the other side. We each would help ourselves with a piece of corn on the cob, a few slices of tomato and whatever else we were having, while my father cut up the chicken. Then chaos would break out as me, my sister and brother would try to grab the best pieces of the chicken as fast as we could. My favorite was always the dark meat so I was always able to get the best leg and thigh, as my brother and sister fought over the pieces of the chicken breast. It was hard waiting until the meat cooled down enough to bite into, but once it was semi-cool, that first bite was absolute heaven. Biting through that crispy, sometimes a bit burnt, skin that was smothered in barbeque sauce and tasting the moist, juicy chicken. That memory still makes my mouth water. My fingers and face would be covered in barbeque sauce and grease, but I didn’t care. It tasted so good. I would eat every single bit of chicken off of the bone and then dip the bone into the barbeque sauce that had dripped onto my plate and suck the bone dry again. I would even eat the fatty grizzle bits off the end of the leg. Yumm! All the while, my family would just be having an easy conversation, talking about how our day was or maybe me and my siblings would be bickering about something silly, but we were happy. Just spending a summer evening, sitting on our porch, enjoying a family meal of home cooked barbecue chicken and some side dishes. Those were the days.
20221014 Making Christmas
“Sis … ‘Grandma Honey’ is making Christmas!”
“What kind of Christmas, Bobby?”
“The kind you can smell!”
“A real Christmas tree? The smell that the tree makes when dad cuts it down into the snow?”
“No. Grandmas don’t make Christmas trees … only God does … but Grandmas make wreaths for the front door with tree branches that smell like Christmas for the friends who knock.”.”
“I only smell Grandmas kitchen.”
“Ya! That’s what I mean. If you smell carefully, you can smell the things she is cooking. I think that the turkey cooking is the loudest smell … it fills the whole house and then your nose … kind of like how old Anti Ethel smells like a lavender bush going down the hallway … only turkey is something you smell with your tongue and your stomach gets exited … and cranberry sauce smells that tickle your nose and sting your tongue … and sweet smelling yams like candy … that melt in your mouth … and sugar cookie shapes with colored sprinkles that crunch in your mouth … then apple pie with cinnamon hiding under a sloppy scoop of ice cream.”
As a dad, it always warms my heart to listen to my children as they experience the wonderful things in life. Booby who is six and a half and sister Stacy who is almost eight are my tickets to every memorable Christmas.
On our way home from Grandmas house Bobby fell asleep, so I carried him into the house and Stacy helped me unload the gifts and dinner leftovers.
Once we were settled back into the house that Christmas Eve, with a cup of hot chocolate, Stay asked me if there really was a Santa Claus. She had reached that delicate age when her friends were telling her there was no Santa, but she was reluctant to give up a good thing. I said, “Santa is very real because he is a good example of how we should act towards others. Thanks for reminding me, we have a real fireplace and a white carpet between it and the tree. It’s snowing outside tonight and Santa will track the ashes all across our carpet unless we put down some newspaper. Will you help me?”
She gave me a sideways look and then said “Okay”, so we laid down the newspapers and I tucked her into bed.
After she fell asleep, I went downstairs to get my steel-toed workboots … I ran the soles under the tap and stamped them into the cold ashes and made footprints across the paper.
The next morning, with Christmas sights, sounds and smells, the real wood fire crackled spitting sparks at the fire screen, twinkeling tinsel, colorful flashing lights and the manger scene filling the house, her eyes were shining brightly as she studied the footprints from the fireplace to the tree …
Glenn G.
Aah, autumn! The sweet scent of bonfire smoke, the rustle of leaves as I scuff my feet through a thick carpet of red, yellow and orange beneath an avenue of trees. A profusion of berries weighing down flimsy branches, the aroma of over-ripe apples. Frost in moonlight that turns the grass of the school cricket outfield to silver. These are some bright jewels of childhood memories.
Where I come from we didn’t celebrate Halloween. Instead the first days of November were dedicated to remembrance, culminating in the ceremonies that take place around the anniversary of the signing of the armistice which ended the first world war on the 11th. day of the 11th. month of 1918.
Almost everyone there wears a poppy. Not a living flower but a cloth replica. Nor, as some believe, in celebration of war, but in thanks for the peace, and the sacrifice of those who gave their lives to make it possible. Proceeds from the sale of poppies are used to support injured veterans.
We now know, more than a century later, that peace was an illusion, that there have been many conflicts and many sacrifices in the intervening decades, including the second World War. My father died when the aircraft of which he was a member of the crew was shot from the sky whilst dropping bombs on the German city of Mannheim. That happened on the 18th. November 1943, two years, two weeks and two days after my birth. The two minutes silence, at 11 am on Armistice Day, was observed in our house as much in his honour as for the countless number of men and women who also gave their lives in both conflicts.
The month begins with another, peculiarly English, commemoration: Bonfire Night. November 5th. is the day on which English people celebrate the thwarting of a plot to blow up their Parliament building in 1605. A group of Catholic sympathisers, led by Robert Catesby, hoped to kill the Protestant King James and restore the Catholic monarchy. The man who was discovered placing the explosives in a cellar of the building, thereby becoming the scapegoat for the plot, was Guy Fawkes.
In the days leading up to the 5th., children would travel around their neighbourhood pushing a cart or barrow bearing an effigy, constructed in much the same way as a scarecrow, with a swede for a head and someone’s old clothes stuffed with straw for a body. Traditionally these children would beg “a penny for the guy”, although even in my childhood they would expect a rather more generous contribution toward the amount they were collecting in order to fund the purchase of fireworks. The ‘guy’ would be placed at the top of a bonfire to be consumed by flames to laughter and cheers from the onlookers and accompanied by firework displays in gardens and on common ground up and down the country.
Compared to twenty-first century pyrotechnic displays, the family firework shows of the nineteen fifties were pretty dismal affairs. A small Roman candle or two, a tiny rocket launched from a milk bottle, a jumping jack, a few bangers, a Catherine wheel and a handful of sparklers made up the typical ‘selection box’. Often communities would pool resources, building a bonfire at the centre of an area of common ground with each family contributing to the cost of a much more spectacular display.
At my boarding school there was an area of undeveloped heathland within the grounds. Near its centre a crater left by a stray World War two bomb made the ideal site for our bonfire whilst the neighbouring cricket ground provided a perfect flat area from which to launch our fireworks.
A few days after my 20th birthday I helped my future father-in-law stage a firework display for the young siblings of my wife-to-be. We launched the fireworks from the front lawn, the rest of the family looking on from the path in front of the house. An always popular firework was the jumping jack. This consisted of a long thin cardboard tube bent back on itself through several convolutions. Small stores of explosive material were contained at each change of direction. Once lit, the tube acted like a fuse, gradually burning down. As the source of ignition reached each explosive deposit, the whole device would jump. There was no way of knowing which way it would travel after each mini-explosion. On this occasion the front door of the house had been left open. I’m sure you can imagine the consternation when one of these demonic devices leapt through the door and began bouncing around the living room of the tiny cottage.
Not surprisingly such devices are now banned, the sale of fireworks to the general public severely limited. And, although November 5th celebrations continue, they are gradually being overtaken by ghouls and ghosts, ‘trick and treat’, and all the commercial paraphernalia of Halloween.
Glad you enjoyed it! Definitely a fun one to write 
Here it is again - hopefully correctly formatted.
My mother’s reputation for her apple pie reached beyond her family, to her friends and their friends in turn. My father claimed to have married her because of her apple pie. Though I think her blond hair and her charm helped.
I too, enjoyed her apple pie. But my real love was her lemon meringue pie. I’ve never eaten better . Though I’m happy to keep searching for another pie as delicious, lemon curd filling as tangy and lemony.
Mum had a flair for the pastry. The secret was to keep it cool and not overwork it with too much kneading an rolling it out. She instructed, “Keep you hands cold. Cool them with cold water. Don’t let them warm up. don’t overdo the mixing - just do enough. Just enough!” My hands had flakes of soft, sticky dough still on them but I’d quickly take them out of the bowl. “And now roll it into a ball and pop the dough into the fridge. Gently, gently!”
And yet my pastry was never as good. Never as light or flaky.
She tried to teach me to cook for a family or guests. As the eldest of her four children, and a girl, she believed that I should be able to do this. But my mind would wander and I’d become distracted. As a teenager, I would decide that this was the best time to practise the piano. I could spend a quick five minutes working the new piece while vegetables were bubbling on the stove.
This continued into adulthood, despite being responsible for feeding my children and husband. I could make a couple of quick phone calls, while cooking the dinner. The pre-mobile era, the landline calls took me out of the kitchen, away from the stove. Until the distinctive sharp smell of a stew catching on the bottom of the large cooking pot had me rushing back to save what could be rescued.
I loved the invention of the microwave oven and the packet meals that could be heated up in a few minutes. Some could actually stay inside the packaging until they were ready to be served. How wonderful. How convenient. Surely these could not fail. I could set the timer to stop the cooking and notify me with a little “ding” soundat the appropriate time: one minute, two minutes. Rarely more was needed for these almost instant dinners.
Till, one evening, while I was tinkling on the piano, my son rushed in, urgently asking me about the terrible smell coming from the kitchen. “It’s ok,” I explained. “It’s dinner. It’s called pasta with smoky onion sauce.” He still seemed worried. “I’ll show you”, I said reassuringly.
But billowing black smoke came from the microwave. And a terrible stink. I’d managed to set the timer for 10 minutes instead of 60 seconds. An acrid smokey onion and burnt pasta smell coming from the little oven.
I never told mum. I never confessed that she had raised a daughter so incompetent that even a two-minute microwave meal was beyond her. It was our family secret.