After I had arranged myself on the floor beside the coffee table with the girls beside me, I looked and looked at my salad trying to guess what it was. When it could not be avoided any longer I took a bite and it was tuna fish and marshmallows and walnuts and pimento (just for the pretty color, our hostess explained later when she was giving us the recipe) and chunks of pure white lettuce and boiled dressing. I almost gagged, both Anne and Joan nudged me and giggled, but most of the other ladies shrieked, “Delicious!” “Heavenly!” and “So different!” (that I could go along with) and so the beaming hostess gave us the recipe and we all wrote it down, using the same pencils and pads we had used to guess rivers beginning with B—cities with A—authors with B and historical events with Y, and Anne had won the crocheted coasters.
It was at another baby shower that I first encountered a ring mold of mushroom soup, hard-boiled eggs, canned shrimps (that special brand that taste like Lysol) and lime Jello, the center heaped with chopped sweet pickles, the whole topped with a mustardy, sweet salad dressing.
An evening party during elections produced casual refreshments of large cold slightly sweet hamburger buns spread with relish, sweet salad dressing, dried beef and cheese, then whisked under the broiler just long enough to make the cheese gummy and the relish warm.
At another shower (wedding, I believe) we were served tuna fish chow mein with rancid noodles. A garden club meeting, creamed tuna fish and peanuts over canned asparagus. A hospital group dredged up a salad of elbow macaroni, pineapple chunks, Spanish peanuts, chopped cabbage, chopped marshmallows, ripe olives and salad dressing.
I could go on and on ad nauseam and not even scratch the surface of the desserts which veer toward you “just take a devil’s food cake, make a filling of whipped cream, peanut brittle, chocolate chips and custard . . . and freeze.” I don’t know what is happening to the women of America but it ought to be stopped.
Another thing, why do terrible cooks always have their houses so hot, their coffee so cold?
The other day as I ironed I listened idly to a radio program for housewives. I was immediately irritated by the commentator, or whatever she calls herself, because she said “prolly” for “probably.” I was further irritated when, with a great deal of self-confidence and speaking slowly so that the listeners could get it all down, she gave a perfectly ghastly recipe for one of my favorite foods, pot roast. As nearly as I can remember she said, “This being spring you are prolly at the end of your ropes as far as meal planning is concerned and would prolly just love to know about an easy delicious meal to surprise your family. Well, here it is. Individual pot roasts. All you do is take a pot roast and cut it up into pieces, so that each member of the family has one, put them in individual casseroles, cover with plenty of water, add a couple of carrots and a turnip and bake until done. What a surprise for the family! Everybody with his own little pot roast!” From her recipe I would say, “Everybody with his own little chunk of boiled army blanket.”
Another female household-hinter gave a recipe for a big hearty main dish of elbow macaroni, mint jelly, lima beans, mayonnaise and cheese baked until “hot and yummy.” Unless my taste buds are paralyzed, this dish could be baked until hell freezes over and it might get hot but never “yummy.”
These women are also strong for what they term “tossed” salad and into which they tell their gullible listeners to “toss everything you have in the refrigerator.”
It is pretty obvious to me that they, as well as most of the cooks in the women’s magazines, operate on my grandmother’s old theory of “Don’t make it so awful good—men, the pigs, will eat anything.”
The only really good cook I have encountered via the women’s magazines is Ann Batchelder of the Ladies’ Home Journal. She has managed to retain a taste for simple food with good flavor and she obviously likes to eat, two infallible rules for a good cook.
Men’s magazines have much better recipes than women’s magazines, but are apt to go to the other extreme and demand “six tiny bitter oranges from the island of Crete, one-fourth litre of St. Emilion, Château Ausone, pounded into two pounds of fresh truffles.”
Everyone in our family likes to cook. My sister Mary, if she can be controlled on her occasional flights into “turnips stuffed with grated orange and old brandy,” is a marvelous cook. Anne and Joan are divine cooks. I am sometimes a very good cook but my weakness is “if a little is good a whole lot is better” and my leftovers are often carried from the table in tubs. My mother seldom varies from her goal of good food, simply prepared, well seasoned and beautifully served.
Most of the time when I am cooking I feel that I have been more than usually fortunate in my choice of a mate, because Don is a true gourmet and a delight to cook for. He has only one tiny flaw in this department—he would like Beef Stroganoff for every meal. I like Beef Stroganoff but it is quite a bore to make with its “strips of beef the size of a lead pencil,” should be served as soon as it is made and does not combine well with guests who prolong the cocktail hour until eleven P.M.
Every time I make Beef Stroganoff I think of the first time we entertained my managing editor. It was one of those unexpectedly raw spring days we specialize in up here. A day when your flesh seems all huddled around your neck and you feel as if the wind were blowing directly on your bare bones.
We met George at the two-thirty ferry and, though he was wearing a thin raincoat and looked blue, he didn’t protest when Don suggested a drive around the island. I sat in the back, and he sat hunched in the front and nobody said much as Don drove seventy-five miles an hour past cemeteries, the Vashon dump, the big patch of burned-off land on Maury Island, mud flats, abandoned farms, farms which should have been abandoned because the well was obviously dry, the old brick yard. It was pretty depressing, made more so by the fact that I was shy, George was shy, Don was shy and the heater was broken.
At four o’clock we came home. Don said, “Betty is going to make Beef Stroganoff for dinner.”
George said, “That’s fine.”
I said, “I love Hollywood. In fact my secret vice is reading movie magazines.”
George said, “Oh, no!”
Then I remembered that he had been editor of the Saturday Review, and I was just going to change the subject to a book by André Gide, when Don handed us each a martini and said, “Betty certainly does like movie magazines. Last week she spent two dollars and seventy-one cents on them—the week before three dollars and eighty-seven cents—the week before three dollars and forty-five cents—the week before. . .”
The upshot of the whole thing was that I had the Beef Stroganoff done and on the table at four forty-five and we were all yawning by seven five.
I invited Maggie Cousins, the Managing Editor of Good Housekeeping, to dinner during my first early innocent days of being a writer—before we remodeled the kitchen. Anne and Joan and I planned the menu of baked ham, stuffed peppers, scalloped potatoes, hot rolls, green salad and wild blackberry pie. Everything to be baked, but the salad, and we had only one small oven. As a result the ham was raw, the potatoes curdled, the green peppers burned, the rolls hard and the pie runny but Maggie was darling.
One thing about Good Old Don, his drinks are always frequent and strong, and even without a signal of distress from me, he can be counted on to have those not already under, crawling to the table or at least softened past the point where they might be pettish about scorched string beans.
Don likes to cook too, but like most males in the kitchen even the making of a fried-egg sandwich produces the attitude of a Vienna-trained surgeon repairing the trachea of a new-born baby. “Hand me that pan! Where is the butter? Now some coarse ground pepper, careful not too much. Is the bread buttered? Heat the plates! Have you made the coffee? Hand me the spatula, no, the big one. Move faster, things are getting cold.” He demands much of his staff as he busies himself turning the clean kitchen into something that looks as if it had been attacked by a gang of dope-crazed teen-aged vandals.
r /> One of Don’s culinary specialties is Monte Cristo sandwiches, a concoction of ham, Swiss cheese, turkey between two slices of white bread, the whole dipped in egg and fried in butter. He will make them any time for anybody but prefers serving them to favorite friends around three A.M. Came our second New Year’s Eve on Vashon and we had invited some of our dearest friends to celebrate. The morning of New Year’s Eve dawned and I realized that I had what was unmistakably the flu. I was hot and my chest hurt and I didn’t even want to read. Don brought me a cup of coffee and two aspirin tablets and then later another cup of coffee and two more aspirin. Each time he asked me wistfully if I didn’t feel well enough “to get up now?” I drank the coffee, took the aspirin, got up and washed my face and then got right back in bed again. I felt awful. Like bulbar polio with double pneumonia and a touch of cholera.
At lunchtime Anne brought me a bowl of heavenly vegetable soup she had made especially and asked me hopefully if I didn’t feel all right? “Like getting up now?” I ate the soup, took two more aspirin, got up and washed my face then fell back in bed. Later on, Joanie built a fire in the bedroom fireplace and Anne brought me a pot of tea.
“Now do you feel like getting up?” they asked anxiously.
“I feel rotten,” I said. “Terrible. I guess you’ll have to be the hostesses for the party tonight.”
Don came in with some coal for the fire (we were beginning to learn something about fuel by that time) and said, “Oh, you’ll be all right by tonight. Just stay quiet this afternoon and you’ll feel fine by tonight.”
But I didn’t. I felt worse if anything and finally reminded the family, who were still urging me to my feet and post at the helm, that after all I had had t.b. and it was time they realized that I was not as big and strong as I apparently looked. I added faintly that my sight was dimming and I ached all over. Anne called Mother, who came out on the next ferry and all I can say is that I know that there have been great strides made in psychiatry and I realize that analysis is a fine thing, but just let somebody try to cut my umbilical cord. Mother merely walks into the house and there is peace. Peace, comfort and smoke.
“I feel horrible,” I told her tearfully, “and I’m feverish and all Don and the girls do is try and prod me to my feet, like a sick horse. They’re worried about that damn party.”
“I don’t know why anyone should worry about the party,” Mother said, lighting what was undoubtedly her ninetieth cigarette for that day. “The house looks lovely, there is plenty of food and liquor and wood, and unless the people are bores they should have a good time. It’s not your fault you’re sick and the party will be good experience for the girls. I’m going to move you into my room away from the noise. I’ve got two hot water bottles in the bed. Mary sent you out these sleeping pills and here’s an Angela Thirkell you haven’t read.”
About two A.M. I was awakened from a deep sleep by Don switching on the light and slapping a plate down on my chest. “Look what I brought you,” he said proudly. “Eat it quick, while it’s hot.”
I knew it was a Monte Cristo sandwich, a big, greasy, hot Monte Cristo sandwich and next to a spinal puncture, it was the very last thing in the world I wanted. I still felt horrible and in addition was half drugged. Weakly but kindly, I said, “I’m really not a bit hungry, dear.”
“Of course, you are,” Don said heartly, turning on two more hundred-watt lights. “The trouble with you is that you haven’t eaten all day. Anyway, this is the very first sandwich I have made tonight and I want you to taste it.”
I said, “Why don’t you taste it while I wake up?”
“Okay,” Don said cheerfully picking up the sandwich and taking a huge bite. Immediately with his mouth open wide he began to howl, “‘Oothpicks, ‘atch out for ‘ooth-picks.” He began pulling halves of toothpicks out of the roof of his mouth like quills from a porcupine.
While he was occupied, Anne and Joan came in with a cup of coffee for me. Anne said, “I told you not to break those toothpicks in two and hide them in the sandwiches, Don.”
Joan said, “You had better get back to your cooking, Don, the whole house is filled with smoke.”
As soon as Don had gone, they both began to laugh hysterically. “What’s so funny?” I asked sleepily.
Joan said, “Well, I came out in the kitchen and Don was breaking eggs into a bowl. Squashing them in his hands and letting the egg run through his fingers the way he says chefs do. I noticed a couple of feathers and an awful lot of pepper in the bowl but I didn’t say anything until he finished cracking the eggs and began grinding in more pepper. Then I said, ‘Aren’t you putting an awful lot of pepper in that batter?’ He said, ‘I haven’t put any in yet.’ I said, ‘You did too. I saw it. Look.’ I showed him the billions of black specks and he said, ‘That isn’t pepper.’ I asked him what it was then and he said, ‘Probably just a little old chicken manure.’ Then I looked at the eggs and they were the ones he always gets from that crazy Mrs. Elchin and of course they were covered with feathers and chicken manure. I told Don he’d better throw the eggs out and start over and he said, ‘Vitamin B-12 is very healthful. Anyway nobody will know the difference’ and kept right on grinding the pepper.”
Anne said, “And I told him everybody would puncture the roofs of their mouths on those broken toothpicks but he wouldn’t pay any attention. He’s using about a pound of butter for each sandwich and he has grease splattered clear up on those high windows.”
“How is the party going?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s all right,” Anne said. “Everybody is talking loud and laughing, Harriet Crawford’s drunk, but she was when she came, Mary Arden is acting like a goo-goo over Bob Crawford and Mrs. Roanoke is giving Joan and me hard eyes because we aren’t in bed.”
Joan said, “Don’s been adorable. He only let the fire go out twice.”
“What’s Margar doing?” I asked.
“Smoking and talking to people,” Joan said. “She offered to help Don with the sandwiches but he said he wanted to do the whole thing himself.”
“Do you think we should tell Margar about the chicken manure?” Anne asked.
“Let Don tell her,” I said, laughing. “After all he’s the chef.”
“Wow, it’s almost two-thirty,” Joan said, looking at my clock. “Gee, I love to stay up late.”
“Don’t you think you’d better go to bed?” I asked anxiously.
“You said we could stay up as late as we wanted on New Year’s Eve,” Anne said, yawning.
“I know,” I said, “but aren’t you tired?”
“Kind of,” Anne said. “But we don’t want to go to bed until we watch the people eat those awful sandwiches. Do you feel better, Mommy?”
“Lots better,” I said.
“Well, then we’d better flush this sandwich down the toilet before you get sick again,” she said, beginning to giggle. They were both laughing hysterically as they left.
One of the nicest things Don ever did for the girls was to find the “Turkey Squasher” in a small obscure cutlery shop. One fall day when he picked me up at the dentist’s, he said with the ecstatic look of a man who has just come upon a ten-pound chunk of ambergris, “I’ve got something to show you. Something wonderful!”
We drove downtown and after he had parked the car, he took my arm and led me into the cutlery shop. The foxy little man who owned it said, “Ah, ha, you brought her,” and disappeared behind a dark green portière at the back of the shop. In a few minutes he came staggering out with a plank about the size of a door, attached to one side of which was a large shiny machine. Setting it down carefully on the counter, he said, “Now, what do you think of that?”
“What is it?” I asked unenthusiastically.
“What is it?” the man repeated scornfully. “What is it? Why it’s a carving board. All you do is put the bird here, lower the prongs, set the vise, adjust this screw, loosen this spring nut and the bird is secure, ready to carve.”
Don’s face bore the
enraptured glaze of the true gadget lover. “Isn’t it a dandy?” he said. “Just what we needed?”
Taking my clean handkerchief out of my purse, I removed a heavy coating of dust from the machine part, then said evenly to the foxy little man, “Not too much in demand, are they?”
“Very scarce item,” he countered quickly. “All handmade.”
“Looks awfully complicated for just carving a turkey,” I said.
“Complicated!” Don and the cutlery man said together. “It’s not complicated, it’s simple.”
“How much is it?” I asked suspiciously.
“Only twenty-five dollars,” the cutleryman said smoothly, the implication being that twenty-five dollars was a mere coin in the fountain.
“Twenty-five dollars!” I shrieked. “It would be cheaper to send our turkeys to France and have them carved.”
“It is expensive,” Don said seriously, as he stroked the carving board, “but it is very well made and will last a lifetime.”
“It would last a lifetime if it was made out of crêpe paper,” I said scornfully, “because nobody would ever use it. Anyway we can’t afford it.”
“I know it,” Don said sadly. “I just wanted you to see it.”
When, with a triumphant smile I said goodbye to the little cutleryman and thanked him for his trouble, I had a feeling he looked smug.
I didn’t give another thought to the carving board until Christmas morning when I came downstairs and saw under the tree, at my place, a box as big as a coffin that could only, and of course did, contain a Turkey Squasher.