Christmas in July

In exactly five months it will be Christmas. And, while the sweltering heat doesn't bring me any closer to imagining this day, I do have one thing one my mind as I reflect on this time of year. Yep, you guessed it - cookies!

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. I love the food, the family, the decorations, the tree and the rituals. What doesn't excite me as much now as it did when I was younger is the gift giving part. I enjoy the giving much more now than the getting -- carefully choosing a thoughtful (yet moderately thrifty) gift. I come from a big family, so shopping for 9+ people just in the immediate family can be quite the chore.  I am not going to think about that today though -- that's still a good four months away.

I want to get back to what I am been dreaming about all day --- cookies. This year the hubs and I will be entertaining the in-laws. This is exciting in the fact that for the first year ever we get to buy a Christmas tree. For other reasons, this will also be a very new and exciting holiday season for us. More on that to come at a later date. Since we'll be hosts for a few weeks, we are going to have to do more than just decorate a Christmas tree and make coffee filter snowflakes. And, baking is the perfect way to fill the time.

The in-laws are from Spain, so I have been thinking about the most traditional Christmas cookies to make. I am open for suggestions (so please leave me some love), but here is my short list of "must-have" sweets:

• Ginger snaps
• Festive sugar cookies with colorful icing
• Pizzelles
• Gingerbread House
• Fudge
• Cocoa cookies with peppermint

Quick, Filling Meal - Bring on the Pasta

Pasta is my oasis. Don't know what to cook - make a pasta. Extreme hunger - make a pasta. Have leftover vegetables and half-used tomato sauces in fridge - make a pasta. Don't know how to cook - make a pasta!

Maybe pasta won me over by growing up in a large family. The easiest (and in some cases, most nutritious) meal my mom could prepare for five hungry mouths was pasta. And, she was good at it. My mouth still waters when I think of her homemade spaghetti, fettuccine and mostacholli. I now realize that some of our pasta consumption probably stemmed from the fact that it is also a very affordable meal to make. If you omit the meat - which I find to be a real shame - it's even more affordable.

Over the years, my tastes have evolved. I have stepped away from a majority menu listing of pasta. This was for a few reasons: (1) I started get sick of it, (2) My waistline told me to stop and (3) I wanted to be more adventurous and healthy with my food choices. All that said, at the end of the day if I don't know what to make (or if I am craving something) it is usually pasta. Must be the Italian in me. :)

One of the best recent discoveries I've stumbled upon has revamped my pasta repertoire. A few months back my brother rocked our world with what he's loving coined "White Trash Risotto." And, what is this? Well, it's a risotto made with pasta. It's the blue collar man's risotto. Fear not, there will be photos, recipes and conversation to be had on this topic. If you can't wait that long (and trust me, I don't know that I could), you basically prepare a risotto dish using orzo pasta instead of the risotto.)

Anyway, before I digress too much on pasta types, I want to go back to the growing up in a large family bit. Being part of a big family could often present problems at the dinner table. Lucky for us (mostly for my parents) none of us were very  picky eaters. While there were certainly times when it would be hard for all of us kids to agree on a dish, there was one pasta dish my mom was constantly asked to prepare: pizza hot dish. This meal made it's way to our dinner table at least once every couple of weeks. (Sometimes, it was every week). It was always requested by a different kid and since we all loved it, there weren't any complaints from the chef.

A pizza hot dish? First off, if you're not from the Midwest you may be wondering what the hell a hot dish is. Well, it is exactly that -- it's a hot dish. A dish that you prepare and then put in the oven to bake. The dish comes out hot. Get it - hot dish? Other popular hot dishes include ones using tater tots (of which we rarely had, le sigh) or vegetables. In my opinion, pizza hot dish is the best of them. It's essentially baked spaghetti, only it has a lot more cheese. And, growing up in the Dairy State, cheese was always on the table.

Oh, pasta.... Can you guess what I'll be eating for dinner?

The recipe for the famous "pizza hot dish":

• Brown ground beef
• Onion, diced
• Garlic (2-3 cloves)brown these all.  Some people add bacon to his for a bit of flavor. 
• 1 jar of tomato sauce (homemade is best)
• Noodles

Brown the first three ingredients. Add bacon for additional flavor, if desired. Boil noodles. Mix all ingredients. Add parmesan cheese. Heat the oven and cover dish with mozzarella cheese. Bake for 30 minutes.

Revenge Hot Dish.

I was a finicky eater when I was little. I had this “thing” about meat, and that thing was that it made me literally sick to my stomach to look at it. Aversion to meat and poultry was a tiny bit problematic because we lived on a farm. Beef, chicken, and venison were “free”, you see, and my parents were young parents living on a shoe string budget. Unforch for me, just because their eldest daughter didn’t like the look, smell, or taste of animal flesh didn’t mean we didn’t eat it often.

 Even when I was around 5 or 6, I remember being bothered that my parents insisted I eat meat. My dad, a hunter and fisher type, especially seemed aggressive in his demands I “eat what’s on my plate”. I wondered why they seemed to enjoy torturing me by forcing me to eat things I didn’t like. I mean, really, what had I ever done to them? I mean aside from the time I tried to flush an entire hamburger down the toilet…and the time I vomited liver back onto my plate. Besides that, what?

 I distinctly remember the one occasion when dad made me “try” liver. It was indeed scene from the Dinner of Revenge. However, instead of being left at the table long after everyone else was finished until I finally caved in and took a bite, I had a different approach.

 “One bite”, he demanded, and so I lifted up the fork, bit off a piece of liver, swallowed without biting it, and then immediately barfed it back up onto my plate. That was my first and last bite of liver. In later years, dad and I would battle it out over hamburgers (me: “can’t you just make them flat like McDonald’s does?!?!” True quote.), venison, and pork chops.

 Eventually, my mom got tricky on me: she started making hot dishes. If you’ve never tried picking each tiny hamburger chunk out of Hamburger Helper, then I’m here to tell you it isn’t worth it. Fortunately, hot dishes did make it easier to get meat down, as it is hard to taste much of anything that is mixed with a can of Cream of Mushroom soup. Some hot dish meals I loathed were tuna casserole and all Hamburger Helper meals. Warmed tuna sets off my gag reflex to this day, and like Hamburger Helper, it’s extremely difficult to separate out flakes of tuna from the other things in there because they all stick together. Despite my repeated protests that I absolutely, positively, do not like eating Hamburger Helper, Mommy!!!!!, it still continued to appeared on the dinner table without fail.

 Yet there was one hot dish I didn’t mind eating. It was a little delicacy my mom would often cook up called “Booger Hot dish”. It was a hot dish that not just my mom made, but all my aunts had on rotation too. If I went to one of my aunt’s house and told her I wanted Booger Hot dish for lunch, she wouldn’t think I was being a disgusting little smart ass, she would know what I meant, and probably already have leftovers of it stockpiled in the fridge. Booger hot dish was this: cooked hamburger, rice, cream of mushroom, and soy sauce, mixed and baked. I never thought to ask why it was called Booger Hot dish. It’s one of those memories you can have that is so embedded in your very being that you don’t even question the oddness of it. Booger Hot dish simply was Booger Hot dish. So, maybe I liked it because it had a funny name? Or maybe I liked it because I couldn’t actually see the hamburger in it and it just tasted like salt. So with Booger hot dish, my mom and aunts had found a winner. Everyone loved it. My sisters, my cousins, we were all willing to eat it and plus, it was cheap.

 As I got older and my parents started making a little more money, hot dishes became less common. By the time I was in high school, I really don’t remember eating hot dishes at all, aside from the odd Tator-Tot hot dish that might appear in the Church basement.

 One summer when I was in college, I was browsing through one of my mom’s cookbooks and I spotted the worn and stained recipe for Booger Hot dish.

 “MOM!” I yelled all excitedly, “Booger Hot dish! You haven’t made this in SUCH a long time!"

 “I haven’t been angry at your dad in a long time”, she replied, “He hated that hot dish”.

*see how my Mom spelled it "Buger"? HA! 

Can I please just sit with the ADULTS?

Oh family holidays. Love them or hate them - they happen every year at the same time. Family doesn't change, and in my case - neither did the food or the questions.

Don't get me wrong, I did always enjoy making the 6 hour trip up the Cities to visit family for the holidays. The main reason was because of my cousin. After the questioning about boyfriends we did or did not have - or were or were not happy with - we at least could escape together and digress from the Spanish Inquisition.

See, the problem of being a 'tweener' cousin is that I was too young to hang out with the 4 cousins outside of my age group, and way too old to be caught dead with the youngsters. This is where Jess and Ang enters the equation. You could also refer to our immediate connection as "cousin sanity." Basically outside of our own siblings, of whom we saw enough of already, we had no one but each other to chill with. This means we went through the awkward aunt sex talk when we were 15 and knew full well all about the damn flowers and the bees, talked everyone's ear off about how school was, how lame being in the band was together... you get the drift. Clearly, it wasn't time for the others to have these conversations. We were the next in line. And it sure felt like every holiday it was the same record. (This was good actually - little prep was necessary). :)

This 'tweener' classification led to unfortunate circumstances at holidays. There was enough room at the adult table for holidays for us to sit. Having more than 20 aunts and uncles, not to mention the 35 some cousins we have - made that graduation nearly impossible. Instead - it was the kids table for us. This meant watching cousins eat way too much marshmallow jello, blowing soda pop out of their noses and my personal favorite - starting the table on fire with the candles.

We just wanted to sit at the goddamn adult table. They clearly were having way more fun (we later discovered allchie helps!) and were talking about more important things than the Teenage Mutant Turtles and their boogers. If not with the adults - then come on - how about the actual teenager table? Even if they scared us with their wisdom, or so we thought... we were mature and hip at 12 too. Come on!

The other main problem of being a tweener was having to WAIT in the congo line for food. Yes, it was always buffet style. So after all the little urchins touched everything, licked everything and cleaned the place out. Well, not really - but it felt that way. At least there were always the staples - green bean casserole, marshmallow veggie jello, olives, buns. Sometimes I feel like that is all we ever ate. It was amazing how fast the sides and meat would fly away from the buffet line. Don't even get me started on the dessert. (Okay - fine. I remember one year for Thanksgiving for the 50+ people eating there were 4 pies. 4 fricking pies! They were not even homemade. *s*. We opted for spiking our koolaid that year. I think that was a fine option).

For having so many cousins and aunts/uncles- the house was always crowded. In fact, once you entered the line for the buffet (of which could take 15 minutes to move) there was no turning back. Get your plate and then scoot. Once you either sat in the many card tables arranged around the first floor, the kitchen "kids" table, or the frosty porch there was no moving. Forgot butter - tough shit. It was impossible to move around in that house when it was feeding time at the zoo - impossible. Seconds, what were seconds? Naturally jello and marshmallow mush. Other than that - good luck.

Not that this post makes much sense - and if anything it is only bringing to mind even more crazy memories. Nonetheless, holidays were always a good time. Thank the stars above that I did not have to face them alone.

There's No More Room for Jello

It's basically a fact of life that food defines the holidays. However, when you grow up in an extraordinarily big family, scrap food kind of defines the holidays. I can remember the first holiday gathering I brought up the caboose of the buffet line. Not a smart move when 32 cousins have already passed ahead of you. Aunts and Uncles, yes, them too. But they don’t matter quite as much, as adults and children have completely different palettes, you see. The adults grazing the Thanksgiving buffet table tend to gravitate towards plates the kids could care less about. No more of Grandma’s green bean casserole, which she only makes on this sole day every year, with green beans and onions from Grandpa’s garden which have been picked and stored with care until this very day? Meh, no biggie. No more pickles or after dinner mints left? Now we have a problem.

As I brought up the back of the line, passing up silver platters with mere crumbs left on them and china bowls scraped clean, I spotted a beacon of red gelatin splendor: “A Jell-o mold! I love Jell-o! How did those fools pass this up!”, I thought to myself, giggling with delight. I added it to my plate of pickles and after dinner mints, and picked up a bun for good measure.

Ah, now, where to sit to enjoy this fine spread? Seating also is a complicated process. The grown ups sit in the dining room with the china and wine and having, what I imagined at the time, amazing adult conversation about the good old days, and maybe about sophisticated things such as Aristotle (he was the one who invented T.V., right?) or The Beatles (i loved The Beatles). Or perhaps, gasp!, they were already planning where we would all have our summer vacation together! (That’s what I really liked to imagine.)

Being 11 or so at the time, I clearly didn’t fit into the adult table. The next option was the kids table. Again, somewhere that I didn’t feel as though I belonged, and I certainly didn’t have as many romantic notions about what took place there. I knew what took place there. I had sat there for 11 years, babysitting my 5 year old sister and cousins because “I was the older one”. It was a bit like an unsatisfying job: you hate being there, and just when you are about to pull a “fuck you, fuck you, I’m out” to the boss, he will come over and sing his praises about how “responsible” and “great” you are to be” helping out”. How utterly unsatisfying, but it keeps you there until the next breakdown.

There was a bit of a purgatory, but it was a place you had no option to visit: the Teenager’s Table. A cardboard table set up in the entry way, where they dined together and talked about tantalizing topics such as “high school” and “dating”….that’s what I imagined, anyway. And, now that I’m older, it was a place where I’m sure they pulled out their hip flasks out to give Aunt Alice’s Holiday Punch a little more “spirit”, if you will. How do I know this? Because it’s exactly what I did where I was finally old enough to sit at the cardboard table.

Back to the Jell-o: I went in line expecting Glorified Rice, and I ended up with Jell-o! Hallelujah! The first bite was heavenly; there isn’t much to say because it was Jell-o…it really only has one taste. But I will say the maraschino cherry I scored in the first bite did add a little something special. As I slurped the second spoonful into my mouth, I hit something. As in, I hit something that couldn’t just be sucked down -- it needed to be chewed. “What the…..?” I thought to myself, and took the bite. Celery?! I spit it out and examined my slice of the Jell-o mold: cherries, yes. All that other canned cocktail fruit, yes. But, wait….what was this? What was this green stuff? Why in hell was there celery in my Jell-o?

I consulted with my mom.
“Uh, mom…why is there celery in the jell-o?”
“Oh, your grandma made that!”
“So…why did she put celery in the jell-o?”
“It’s just her recipe”
“So….she, like, did that on purpose….or….?”
“Yeah, it’s just the way she makes it”
“Oh. Ummm…why?”

I took a moment to reflect. Apparently my grandmother was senile and she actually thought celery in Jell-o made sense or something. That made me feel kind of bit depressed, because everyone knows the first stage of death is losing your mind. I sighed a tragic sigh if ever there was a thing, and got back in line. Maybe there was some Glorified Rice left.


A couple Thanksgivings later with Celery Jell-o still making an appearance, I realized the celery in the Jell-o was no mistake; it was just part of the recipe. And now it’s become the Thanksgiving staple that I never eat.

Grandma Marcella’s Fruit Cocktail and Celery Jell-o:

2 package cherry flavored Jell-o
1 bunt cake mold
2 cans fruit cocktail
1-2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped

Prepare Jell-o according to directions. Add cocktail fruit, drained. Add celery pieces. Stir. Chill in refrigerator until set. Flip mold onto serving platter. Serve to unsuspecting relatives.

First is the Worst.

Some things never change. My love life as I know it began with regret and embarrassment, and it’s really only been downhill since then.

I sometimes think there must be something terribly wrong with me, that everyone else seemed to blossom normally from adolescence into adulthood, making and breaking hearts along the way, and I always seemed to have a hitch in my giddy up when it came to those things. I seem to have gotten off the beaten path when it comes to relationships, and I don’t know where I took the wrong turn, but “since the very beginning” seems to be a good guess.

My first kiss though, like many of our first kisses, is probably the one I would most like to forget ever happened. Why, you ask? Was it because it was such a terrible, sloppy kiss, that I was traumatized for years by the thought of a tongue? Because it was with a boy who broke my heart to smithereens at a tender age? Oh, no. Nothing as simple as that.

My first kiss was with a carnie.

A carnival worker.

*sigh*

Let me just put this all in context real quick:

Anna was my best friend. Anna got boobs that summer of 5th grade. No, seriously. I remember getting on the bus the first day of 6th grade and immediately knowing there was a problem. The problem being I had no boobs. Was I supposed to? I didn’t know. I didn’t even shave my legs at this point. But, in a matter of seconds, I understood my chest was not worthy of a 6th grade boys attention.

Anna was, and is, blonde. I had a mousy, light brown color with a *slight* gray tint to it. Anna weighed like 80 pounds, and at least 6 of those were now in her chest. I had gained roughly 20 pounds between 1st and 2nd grade, and never lost any of it. I had signs of Grandma Corty’s midsection in the 6th grade (you shouldn’t be comparing yourself to your Grandma in the 6th grade). Anna had 20/20 vision. I wore humongous purple – framed glasses. So, as you can see, the next couple of years did quite a number on my self – esteem.

The middle of 6th grade, I decided to take up the razor, and started shaving my legs and pits. 7th grade puberty was good to me and I started to lose in places I need to lose in, and grow in places I needed to grow in. By the end of 8th grade, my transformation was nearly complete: I dyed my hair (with Anna – hers turned out a nice golden blonde; mine came out a more of a strawberry, of course) and got contacts. I still had no boobs. Anna still did. She also had a boyfriend. Bitch.

However, none of this changed the fact that ever boy in our grade I had probably taken a bath with or ran around naked in their yards at some point in my life. It’s a small town. So, you see, there were just no options. It wasn’t me --- it was them. Or lack of “them”.

Anna and I spend a lot of time together that summer. Specifically, we spent a lot of time being boy crazy 14 year olds. In August, the annual Burnett County Fair was taking place. These kind of events are horny teenagers wet dreams. Boys from other schools! From other towns! From other counties! (no, not countries --- that came much later --- other counties…)

(On a side note, I have no clue how my parents tolerated me when I was 14, or how they found it in their hearts not to send me away/murder me. If I have children, I will be truly frightened if it comes out a girl….)

Anyway, so we spend every waking and non-waking hours strutting around the animal barns, concession stands, and over priced, rigged games of what was the Burnett County Fair. It’s basically a rule that you need to buy cheese curds at a fair. Being a teenage girl slightly paranoid about her weight is no exception. And, oh, would you look at that! Look at these 2 cute, slightly older boys running the cheese curd stand….

I have no idea how we got ourselves involved with the cheese curd stand guys, but I totally blame it on Anna. The most confusing part for me at the time was that one of them was actually interested in me. *sigh* I was so ignorant of the male mind at this point, it truly depresses me. Anyway, to cut to the chase, after like 48 hours of ridiculous pseudo flirting, which I can only imagine was him trying to flirt with me, and me giggling uncontrollably because I am/was a completely moron when it comes to men, he offered to let me ride with him to the gas station to buy cigarettes.

(GOD, this story gets just more and more redneck with every sentence!!!! I disgust myself. I swear I am going to finish writing this story, and invent a new story about my first kiss)

We ride to the gas station, and I am sitting as closely as possible to the passenger side door as physics will allow. He suggests that, hey, maybe I should sit in the middle. Ummm, sure….(you fool!) and I move over, knowing exactly what is coming next.

The kiss.

Which was stupid.

He smelled like an ashtray.

First kisses are stupid, because like everything, you only get better at kissing with practice. And I can vouch that they are particularly stupid when they are will chain smoking carnies whom you will never see again (thankfully). The good news: There was absolutely nowhere to go but up, up, UP from there. And, 12 years later, it has most definitely went UP!

Pucker Up.

You never forget your first; even if, sometimes you wish you could.

Time to wind back the hands of time to freshman year. Oh!, the horror, the agony, the immaturity.

This was the year I had my first official boyfriend and got my first official kiss. Being that I was one of the first girl to get a boyfriend out of my friends, I had very few options to go to for advice seeking. I wanted to ask - how should I position my face? What flavor chapstick should I wear? What should I expect? What do I do with my tongue? Well, turns out I was flying solo on this one.

I remember thinking having a boyfriend wouldn't be a big deal. It's not like I was dating the varsity quarterback, so the whole "relationship" thing could go over pretty much on the D-L. Yeah, that was until J.H. decided to announce to my entire Spanish class that me and said boyfriend were a hot item. I didn't even know what a hot item was, and we definitely weren't that, but whatever... It was from that day forward that I felt like I was being watched - everyone knew were were dating, so we had to act like that.

Well, at age 15 - the problem is you don't really know how to act. You're at a very awkward phase. Your body is changing, you get pimples, skipping swimming in gym because you have your period is no longer an excuse...etc. Not to mention, when you are the youngest in the high school there is a lot to live up to. You see that "A-list" seniors macking in the hallway during breaks; you see those same "A-listers" dry humping at school dances. You wonder when you get to be that cool. (Okay, no you don't. Most of the normal kids never wanted to be that cool. You only did if you were an A-list froshie; of which, I definitely was not.)

So it all began at a school dance. Just happened to be on -gag- Valentine's Day. That marked the start of our relationship. Slow dancing and group photos included. (I despise the fact that my first 'will you be my girlfriend, I like you' happened on the most pathetic day for saps of the year. I have never liked the day, and never found this coincidence to be all that romantic. I'm a realist, not a dreamer.)

Things were good. We had fun hanging out with friends, talking on the phone until way too late, and just being normal confused 15 year olds. Well, this "puppy love" continued for about 3 months. Then the second phase of our relationship began. This was the "I think we should take it to the next level, but I'm too dip-shit scared to start" phase. A lot - I repeat, a lot, of sweaty hand holding took place at this phase. The Great Salt Lakes and "kiss tension." [I say "kiss tension" because sexual tension was too far out of reach].

Phase 2 continued on for about a month.

Then we hit the 4.5 month mark. Still, no smooching. It was getting uncomfortable. He'd walk (Yes, walk because neither one of us drove!) me home, we'd stand there in silence looking at our feet. I'd always get super impatience (and insecure) so I'd run inside and slam the door in his face. To hell if I was going to be making the first move - he was the boy!

We crept to month 5 - and that was it. We were going to lock lips. No more of this pussy footing around it - it was going to happen. I distinctly remember going out that day and knowing I was not leaving until it happened. I was determined. It didn't help that the week before he flat out said to my face that we had never kissed. Just as he puckered up, I fled. My first kiss was not going to be so forced, damn it. However, with him being so blunt I knew I had to "put out" or hit the high way. I did still like the kid, so breaking up was out of the question.

That next weekend we went for a ride - he was on his bike, I was on my roller blades. It was swell. We were cruising around the 'burb on a spring/summer day and it was all good. As we started to head back home, I started to get really nervous, even if I was not backing down. We stopped at what would become our "infamous" corner and did the usual - talked, awkward stares, uncomfortable giggles, talked...etc. This continued on for about 10 minutes. [Editor's note: I am still on my roller blades at this point and balance is not my strong suit.] Then it came. I think we both knew it was now or never. We leaned in and ....

whooooooooosh. It was over. It hadn't even started and it was over.

What the fuck? I waited my whole adult life for this - a 1/2 second kiss?

I was so unsatisfied with the lack of kiss that I bladed home. The whole way home I remember thinking how my parents, relatives...etc. had kissed me on the lips for longer than that stupid, lame-ass kiss. What a frickin' waste of dream!

We did improve, and in writing this I realize that I should write about my second kiss. [That one instead of being the shortest kiss ever, could be classified as one of the sloppiest messes of a kisses I'd ever received. That is, however, besides the point. This is about firsts. ;))].

Wonder if the feeling was mutual? Guess the world may never know. :P