Kitchen

When you have 10 to 13 people at the dinner table 365 days a year you have to get creative. Always meat and potatoes with a serving of vegetables was a typical meal. Everyone sat down at the same time, we said grace and you ate what was on your plate. If it was asparagus, brussels sprouts, or cauliflower you rolled it up in your napkin, put it in you pocket or fed it to the dog with a piece of meat. There were always tears at the table for the child that tried to put it in their mouth but it never got passed their nose. The other children would laugh and make fun of the younger ones. Every dinner was hectic with a touch of bonding.

Cake mixes were introduced to the public supermarkets in 1948. They were never purchased for our house because one cake mix made 12 cupcakes. That was not enough to get through lunch and dinner for our clan. Everything was made from scratch, pie crust, cakes, dumplings, muffins, pancakes, waffles and dinner rolls. There was a wooden box over the stove that held hand written recipe cards from 4 generations. Everyone's favorite was 1 2 3 4 cake with chocolate butter cream icing. The girls in the family were never allowed in the kitchen when Nan was making breakfast, lunch or dinner. Our job was to take care of the younger children and keep everyone out of her way. 

I married for the first time at 21 and I did not know how to boil water. The first week I was in my new apartment in Baltimore, Maryland I decided I was going to surprise my husband and make a 1 2 3 4 cake for him. I called Nan and asked her for the recipe. I gathered all of the ingredients and thought it would be like Betty Crocker, just perfect. Nan never told me I had to soften the butter. Microwaves did not come into the home until 1967. I put the eggs and sugar in a bowl with a stick of hard butter and turned on the mixer. The bowl flew on the floor. Do you know what 4 eggs look like mixed with sugar on the floor? Bad News? The butter was stuck in the blades of the mixer. I started to cry. I cleaned up the mess and bought two Hershey bars.

The following week I opened my Dinner-4-Two cookbook and decided to make a meatloaf for dinner. I assembled all of the ingredients: eggs, ketchup, onion, Worcester sauce, oregano, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. I turned around after stirring the mixture and took the ground beef out of the freezer. No one ever told me you had to defrost the meat. I thought to myself "How do I get this liquid into the frozen meat"? I boiled water and threw the frozen ground beef into the water and let it cook. I drained the ground beef and drained the ground beef and drained the ground beef and tossed the mixture in with the ground beef. It looked like vomit. I added more bread crumbs, and more bread crumbs to firm the mixture. As I tried to form a loaf the water ran off the sides of the meat. I stuck it into the oven and the mixture burnt to a horrible odor. I put pasta sauce on top and put it on the table in front of my new husband.

Enjoy!