Fortune Cookies and Aunt 'Nida

My father's younger sister, Anita was known as Aunt 'Nida for most of my childhood. I remember when I went off to college, she finally put her foot down and demanded I start including the "A" and pronouncing the "T" by emphasizing it in her letters and postcards.

Sometimes when my Mom needed a babysitter, I would make a request to Aunt 'Nida to babysit for me instead of my Mom hiring the local teen. Aunt 'Nida was rare in the sense that when asked to babysit or host a sleepover, she was not the type to complain or wish she had turned me down. In fact, she was quite the opposite. She always had something fun planned and there was never a dull moment. I wanted to be around her constantly and she never seemed to get annoyed by that. She had two daughters, both younger than me, Summer and Amber. My cousins and I would always create a scene. We would host our own karaoke shows or rollerskate in the basement. Neither of these activities were quiet ones and Aunt 'Nida would just watch and applaud.

Aunt 'Nida and Uncle JD owned what was known as "The Shop." Dancin' Tables, an outdoor furniture store with beautiful, handcrafted furniture that my Uncle made himself. They would let me hang out there all of the time- I would swing on the swing with my Aunt and she would make me laugh. Customers would show up and Aunt 'Nida would give them her sales pitch and I listened to learn about how to sell things. Sometimes, she would let me sit at her desk and I would answer the phone. I loved "playing store." Obviously this is the beginning of a long career in retail.

When we got hungry, we would walk down the street to Grandma's who lived only two blocks away in a cute, red brick house with a beautiful yard and garden. She would fix us something amazing in a jiffy. She always had incredible leftovers wrapped in tin foil in her fridge. Meatballs, sausage and peppers, and if you asked nicely, she would whip up some fried dough with powdered sugar. Sometimes Grandma would walk back up with us after dinner and she would have a glass of white wine with an ice cube. We would all sit together and Aunt 'Nida would make us laugh until we had tears in our eyes.

I remember a couple of times where I actually got Aunt 'Nida all to myself. There's the time that my class was going on a field trip to a bee farm and I couldn't go because I was allergic to bees. She picked me up and took me to Woodstock for a fun day of shopping and lunch. This trip was much better than the bee farm. Of course, I wasn't at the bee farm, but I can tell you a few bees and a stick of honey was not as good as a day with Aunt 'Nida.

Another time, we came across a recipe for fortune cookies. We just decided to make them. We cut strips of paper and we made up our own fortunes. I remember that I wanted her to write them because she had such nice handwriting and she also came up with some great fortunes. Her fortunes were much more clever than mine were. She would write things like, "You will soon eat a delicious cookie." This would have me rolling with laughter.

The first few cookies did not turn out well, but she was determined to make these work. If you have ever made fortune cookies, you know that the batter is very thin and you have to work quickly. They have to be cooked at the perfect temperature. If it is too hot, they will stick and if it is too cool, they will set up like cake. She finally got the hang of it and she would flip them off the pan and hand them to me to quickly fold. We made beautiful cookies and we had so much fun while making them.

If you're ever going to make fortune cookies, I suggest you contact my Aunt AniTa. They can be frustrating and disastrous to make without her. Take it from one who knows.

Shrimp and Kenon

Santa Claus was pretty much ruined for me by the time I was 5. My friend Jenny told me that there was no Santa and I ran home crying to my Mom praying that she was lying. However, Christmas was not ruined. My parents always kept the spirit alive and with 3 younger siblings leaving cookies and wish lists out for Santa, how could someone not enjoy Christmas?

Until I was twelve, we always spent Christmas at my Grandmother's. But then we had to move to Connecticut and most of the time, it was just us kids with my parents. We all liked being together on Christmas and created many of our own traditions in Connecticut.

Once we were all grown up, we realized that Mom was always in the kitchen preparing a beautiful dinner and we wanted to spend more time with her instead. She finally agreed to cook lasagna, which she would prep the night before and throw in the oven on Christmas Day. We now have garlic bread, salad and lasagna for Christmas dinner. Before this, she would cook a dinner that you would think was impossible to cook in a day. Ham, scalloped potatoes, broccoli, rolls, salad, fruit salad, desserts (there was always a choice of what you could have for dessert).

The ridiculous part of all of this is that my mother began feeding us from the time we woke up on Christmas. Mom and Dad would have their coffee and then we would dig through our stockings to find breakfast- always Hershey's Kisses and an amazing amount of Christmas colored, peanut M&Ms. This was a delicious breakfast.

Immediately following opening the vast amount of gifts left by Santa under the tree, we would retire to the kitchen area where my Mom began laying out appetizers. You would think that there were guests coming for dinner, but no, it was just us. She would always have a veggie platter which consisted of your usual carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes with delicious Marie's Bleu Cheese dressing. Then the cheese and crackers. She loves Monterey Jack cheese and that was always included next to the cheddar. Perhaps a red wine cheese ball too.

One year, for the appetizers, my Mom picked up a small, frozen shrimp cocktail ring that you find at the grocery, often overstocked for the holidays. I don't know if she knew if we would like it or not, but she was looking forward to it herself. She did not forget to thaw it out overnight in the fridge. She set the shrimp cocktail on the kitchen table, grabbed a shrimp and gobbled it up. I remember my brother, Kenon, who was probably 8 at the time, sitting at the table with a look of amazement. I tried a shrimp, I liked it a lot and then had another piece of cheese. My Mom walked away to get a drink, turned back and the shrimp was gone- all of their tails lying on the empty plastic ring. My brother had eaten all of the shrimp!

The following holiday, my Mom purchased two small, frozen shrimp cocktail rings. My Mom and I had a couple of shrimp before she put the first ring on the table. Sure enough, the first ring was demolished. Second ring- gone. From then on, my Mom seems to buy the extra-large frozen shrimp cocktail rings- and we all seem to know that there isn't a chance in hell that you will get more than one shrimp.

For a skinny, little fellow, my brother sure can handle a few pounds of shrimp.

The Pinata and the Clown

Mrs. Bernard was my 1st Grade teacher at Ernest C. Myer Elementary School. She was an Upstate NY transplant direct from Boston. She was one of my favorite teachers and she seemed to applaud the fact when any of her students were different. With her Boston accent, she would read us stories and we would laugh whenever she said words like "park" or "car."

One of the best things about being in Mrs. Bernard's class was that every year she put on a big carnival for her students. This was a big announcement on the very first day of class in September. We spent a good part of the school year preparing for the carnival. She would split us up into groups and we would be assigned a committee: decorations, games, prizes and refreshments. I, of course, pleaded to be on the decoration committee and immediately commanded my group to come up with a theme. I don't quite remember what the theme was, but I remember vetoing several themes that the group collectively came up with and settling for one that involved cutting out giant circus animals from construction paper and scotch taping them to the huge classroom windows.

We always had a Room Mother. I remember thinking that whoever was the Room Mother that year, my Mom would do a much better job than they did. My Mom was incredibly creative and she would come up with a theme and stick to it to the point where we would be driving all over town looking for the proper colored paper plates and matching plasticware. There was no stopping my mother- she could pull off a theme on a budget in a day. However, my Mom worked full-time and Jayne's Mom didn't. So Jayne's Mom was the Room Mother. Jayne was a sweet girl who even though my birthday would be after the last day of school, she would bring me a gift. She was sad for me that my birthday did not fall in the school year and we couldn't have cupcakes for lunch. Sometimes my birthday would be the last day of school and that is a holiday that cannot be trumped by a grade schooler's birthday, although my Mom always sent me with the cupcakes if that was the case.

Surely the Room Mother was responsible for gathering parents, permission slips and donations to these crazy causes. They always seemed to miss out on every holiday except for Halloween and Valentine's Day. I always thought St. Patrick's Day was a big miss. Halloween, we would get something like a popcorn ball in a paper bag with a ghost on it and Valentine's Day, a box of Conversation Hearts with "From: the PTA" written with a ball point pen. I don't know how much time and money these things took up, but my Mom never really seemed to have the time to become involved. You couldn't blame her, with a 2 year-old at home, a first-grader and a full-time job. I don't remember ever complaining that she wasn't my Room Mother or even mentioning that she should be.

The Carnival day finally arrived. I remember being filled with excitement and Mrs. Bernard telling us that we would begin after lunch. Immediately following a dreadful lunch, we all lined up outside of the classroom door. She finally let us inside and many of the kids' parents had shown up and were waiting for us. They manned all of the booths set up- fishing, throwing a bean bag through a clown's mouth, and a ring toss, of course. There were also candied apples and even a little bag of dollar-store party favors with our names on it sitting at each of our desks.

Then came the pinata. The pinata was not store-bought, but one that we had made in art class with Mrs. Barrish. A basic craft consisting of a punching balloon and newspaper dipped in glue. The sad part of it, there was no design. Mrs. Barrish was probably more of an abstract artist herself and she insisted the entire class have a go at decorating it. Well. This pinata was painted so many times, it became brown and it had a few feathers, popsicle sticks and clothespins stuck to it. But that's okay, we all saw the candy being loaded a few days before so the janitor could help Mrs. Bernard hang it from the ceiling.

We stood in line to be blindfolded and spun around by one of the parents. Each of us took one turn to hit the pinata. I was not in front of the line, so I anticipated that I'd have to step on a few kids to get the candy that I knew I would leave school with.

Surprisingly, none of the kids ended up hitting the pinata. It was finally my turn and one of the parents blindfolded me. They spun me around and walked me toward the pinata and told me to take a shot. I missed. I reached to take my blindfold off and there was a clown standing in front of me. One that I did not recognize. A painted on red nose, a wig and a funny plaid clown costume. Everyone was staring at me. I finally realized that it was my Mom. She had taken the afternoon off to come be a clown at my school carnival! She gave me a big hug and we went off to play some games together. After awhile, I started recognizing my Mom's costume- old clothes my Dad had probably painted in with a few added decorations- something she came up with last minute. This, a perfect example to the theme on a budget in a day.

Not only did my Mom come for the carnival, but she stayed and gave me a ride home so I didn't have to take the bus that day. I remember my Smurfs lunchbox being completely overloaded with candy: tootsie rolls (and not just the chocolate ones, but the fruit-flavored ones too), starbursts, pop rocks, Smarties, Lemonheads, those little caramel candies with the white, chalky centers, my candied apple wrapped in waxed paper and tied with a rubberband, and my leftover cracker jax still in the box.

Someone eventually broke open the pinata because that must be where I got my bag of candy but all I can remember is being so happy that my Mom was with me at school for my carnival.

Sky Bars and Dad

Saturday mornings were always the same when I was in grade school. Mom was still working full-time for the supermarket and usually had Wednesdays off. This meant she had to work on Saturdays. By the time I woke up on Saturday morning, she was already gone. Sometimes I would wake up early enough to say goodbye and catch her in her light blue and yellow polyester uniform which was the dress code for Weiss Market. If I could catch her before she left, she would get out the box of Honey Nut Cheerios for me and put it next to a bowl with the gallon jug of milk.

Mom actually seemed to like her job there and she had many friends at work. When we did our grocery shopping, you would think my mother was famous. First and foremost, when we walked into the store, we would immediately go by the cash office and say hello to whoever was there. While my Mom was talking to her friends, whoever was at the bakery next door would notice me and call me over for my free, warm chocolate chip cookie. It was an over-sized cookie and usually lasted me a few aisles of shopping. Sometimes, secretly, my Mom would get me another one to last me until we made it to the checkout line. At the checkout, inevitably, a dozen people would come say hello to us saying things like, "Linda told us you were here, we were trying to find you." Or "Julie! Look how big he is now, how old is he?" All the while, my Mom keeping complete focus on her stack of coupons for double-coupon day and double-checking her detailed grocery list to be sure she hadn't forgotten anything.

When Mom worked her Saturdays, Dad stayed home with us kids. He would usually wake up early and get some things done first. Mow the lawn, rake the leaves, sweep the driveway, wash the car or clean out the shed. We would get these tasks out of the way just in time for some sort of sports event on TV. He would turn his stereo on and play a variety of music throughout the day and would sit and watch the game. Usually we were left alone to either watch with him or find something else to do. Sometimes his friends would stop by and they would share a six pack of beer and a giant sized bag of barbecue potato chips.

One Saturday, my Mom didn't have to work and she told me that Dad was going to take me to the park and she would stay home with my brother. Sure enough, we woke up early Saturday morning and we went to the Kay Bee toy store. Dad told me to pick out a kite. I chose a rainbow kite and he grabbed the bolt of string. We drove over to Delaware Avenue and stopped at Hasbrouck Park. When we arrived, I noticed a chubby kid from school, Patrick and his Dad. There were a few other kids with their parents too, and I figured this must be what guys do with their Dads on Saturdays.

Dad said he would get the kite up and flying and then pass it to me. Well, I knew that this was highly unlikely. It was not a very windy day and the other kids did not have a kite in the air. In fact, there was one kite, a Superman kite, torn and stuck in a tree. All signs pointed towards a crashing kite. Sure enough, my Dad ran quickly through the park and with a little finesse, the kite took off beautifully. He handed me the string and with little confidence, I began flying my own kite as the other kids watched. I remember my kite staying in the air for quite some time as my Dad helped reel it in.

Afterward, we stopped at a little local joint adjacent to the park. I remember it being a candy store, but in retrospect, it was probably just a little convenience store. This was an older store and there were a few aisles of wooden shelves with all kinds of candy. My father told me to pick whatever I wanted and as usual, this type of task took some time. I had to look at each one as my Dad spoke to the man behind the counter. They seemed to be friends, but in all actuality, my father probably didn't know the man at all. He always made easy conversation and I remember wishing that I could be just like him.

I finally chose Charms candy. For those of you who are not familiar with Charms, they are the squares of fruit-flavored hard candy, each individually wrapped and rolled together in a package not unlike Lifesavers. They tasted different than Lifesavers though. They came in Lime, Grape, Lemon, Orange, Raspberry and Cherry. The package was a metallic white and spelled "Charms" in rainbow letters. Obviously, the rainbow, a big theme in my life...

My father was pleased with my choice, and actually got me two rolls, probably to be sure that he could have a few as well. Walking toward the register, the chocolate bar section caught his eye. This was not uncommon, as my Dad usually craved a chocolate bar of some kind and most days you could catch him with a Fifth Avenue candy bar, which was one of his favorites. He enjoyed a good piece of chocolate. He saw the Sky Bar by Necco Candies. He asked if I had ever tried one. No, I hadn't even heard of it. He told me it was his favorite when he was a kid and sold me the bar.

The Sky Bar, in its bright yellow package was a molded chocolate bar with four very distinct sections. Each section could be broken off and eaten separately without disturbing the neighboring section. The sections had four flavors- Caramel, Vanilla, Peanut and Fudge. The Necco factory probably did not have amazing quality control or crazy technology. Sometimes you would get two squares of one flavor and miss out on one of the others. However, I thought this was the coolest invention since television. You basically got four chocolate bars for the price of one. This was the perfect bar for someone who could not make a decision. Odds are, one of the flavors was something you were craving.

It can be difficult to find Charms and Sky Bars these days. But they are still around and you can even order them online. I usually scout out the best candy shops in whichever city I am in and will find them all alone, nobody knowing what they are and will stock up my inventory. The taste and quality of a Sky Bar will not impress anyone nowadays. There is that fake chocolate flavor, there is the caramel that poses as peanut butter, you can confuse the vanilla with marshmallow and you can actually feel the sugar grains in your teeth.

What it does for me is remind me of this day in Hasbrouck Park. Just me and my Dad.

Lobster and Marlene

I think I was about 8 when my friend Marlene invited me to have dinner with her family. Marlene was a tom boy and she always smelled like grape bubblegum. I thought she was very funny and being the awkward “toothpick” that I was in those days; playing kickball with the boys was not a possibility unless I showed up with Marlene. She would always stick up for me if the boys said they didn’t want me to play- they knew she could kick the ball into outer space and they wanted her on their team. She wouldn’t play unless they let me play too. Don’t kid yourself, Marlene was nothing without me- I was her biggest cheerleader. There is also the plain fact that as much as Marlene got me in with the boys, I got her in with the girls…

Marlene had a big family, from what I can remember. She was the youngest. There was the high school-age sister, Lisa who babysat for me and my brother on rare occasions when my parents went out on the town. Lisa was fun because she never talked on the phone like all of our other sitters- best of all- she always brought Marlene over with her! We would spend the nights playing Monopoly or Scrabble which I’m sure was a blast for Lisa, since our vocabulary at that age consisted of three and four-letter words like “Cat.” Not a lot to build off of using seven Scrabble tiles.

Marlene and Lisa lived in a big white house up on a hill. There was a wrap-around porch which was screened-in and housed a table that could seat the entire family. Before my Mom and I got in the car to drop me off, I remember her on the phone with Marlene’s mom: “Ohhhhhhhhh, mmmm hmmm, how nice! Uh oh, oh, hmmm, I’m not sure, lemme ask him.” “Kaline, they’re having lobster, honey, you’ve never had that before, do you still want to go?” “Yes MOM!”

I had never had seafood before with the exception of one of my Mom’s many specialties: Fish Sticks with tartar sauce from some sea in Europe called Van de Kamp. My mother always told me in her best secret voice that my father did not like seafood, nor did he like the smell of it, so she could not cook it in the house. I must admit, my mother tried anyway. She cooked flounder in butter on her days off and we would share it for a secret lunch. Afterward, she would burn a candle and open all of the windows to get rid of the fish smell. She also cooked a lobster once. I know this because I remember it rattling around in the paper bag in the backseat of the car and heard it screaming on the grill a few hours later. I don’t know why she had a lobster or why she cooked it, I just know she did. Years later, my father told me that he couldn’t eat something that carried their house around with them- you never knew the last time they cleaned it. Well I couldn’t wait to hear what all of this seafood hype was over and was dying to try lobster. Even more important, I was going to see my friend, Marlene.

Perhaps I should have paused at my mother’s urgency in her voice when she asked if I wanted lobster. I ate the whole thing. I even had seconds. I didn’t want to eat anything else after my first bite of lobster. I ate slowly, carefully dipping it in the melted butter provided in a tiny dish. This dinner was fancy and I felt that I should be very well-mannered. I skipped the corn on the cob. I passed on the potatoes and I was not interested in the salad. I figured lobster will do and then I will wait and see what Marlene’s mom brings out for dessert. Dessert never came out. But all of the lobster I ate did. All over the dinner table. All over Marlene’s denim skirt.

My father picked me up instead of my mother. When Dad asked me why I was crying, I told him that I was embarrassed that I vomited in front of everyone and that they probably couldn’t stomach eating dessert now. Their evening was surely ruined. My father said, “You’re probably allergic to it, just don’t eat seafood again.”

I didn’t listen. And I’m not allergic.

Popcorn and Cher

I am the oldest of four children, so it is unusual for me to remember a time where I was alone while growing up. My oldest sibling, my brother is four years younger than me, so I must’ve had a few years where I had my mom all to myself, it’s just difficult to remember when I was two years old. The one thing I remember most at that age is when my mother became pregnant with my brother and we had to come up with a name for him. My father campaigned for the name Jason which was completely inappropriate for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that the neighbor’s kid was named Jason, so that was obviously confusing. Imagine yelling out into the neighborhood letting Jason know that dinner was ready. The second reason is that with my name being Kaline, I was not about to have a brother named Jason. Torturing, namecalling and constantly having to explain it and spell it for people was going to have to be a part of my younger brother’s life as much as it was mine. And so my brother Kenon was born shortly after my 4th birthday.

Long before my brother came along, we lived in a trailer park. It was a decent park, actually with not very many trailers in the park. I seem to remember it being kind of pretty. This was not the average lot where there were rows and rows of trailers set up like you should be camping. Our trailer was the grooviest- orange shag carpet and green velvet furniture with fantastic lamps. My father had an insane amount of records that were always spinning Steely Dan or the Average White Band. Friends dropped by at their leisure and there were two of my parent’s best friends next door- Linda and Buddy Bunt. Linda and Buddy were the fun kind of couple that everyone wanted to be friends with and they were also the type of people that would do anything for you when you were in trouble- and you would do anything for them. They had a daughter, Jenny that was my age and therefore became my default best friend in early childhood because we usually were thrown together in a babysitting situation. Most of what I remember about Jenny is that we liked each other very much and we got along great. However, she used to stop speaking to me because I messed up her coloring books by not coloring exactly the same way that she was coloring. Allegedly, I did this by coloring outside the lines or accidentally tearing a page because I had pressed the crayons too hard against the paper.

My father always seemed to work. He worked more than one job- and one of those jobs was a bartending stint. During this time, there were a lot of nights where my mom and I would be home alone together. One of my favorite memories comes from this time period. I’m sure my mom doesn’t necessarily look at this as fondly as I do because it probably was not her favorite thing that her husband was at a bar all hours of the night and not at home with her. Mom would not cook a full meal when dad wasn’t home- “why bother cooking if it is just you and me?,” she would say. And I knew it was going to be fun night. TV Dinners! The old Swanson dinner in tin foil that took 75 minutes to heat up in the oven. When it finally did heat up, there was nothing like that rubbery Salisbury steak in congealed “gravy” that you could not cut into if you tried. You had to pick it up with your fork and take a bite out- there was no cutting the steak. The obligatory vegetable- usually peas that sometimes tipped into the gravy during cooking and then there were the gritty mashed potatoes. In order to handle the potatoes, you had to pick gravy or butter and drown them. The best part, as everyone knows was the dessert. Nobody really knows exactly what it was, but it was called either cherry crisp or apple pie. The tiny dessert compartment would be decimated by the long stay in the oven. What would be left was a small scoop of sticky syrup with a few crumbs on top and piece of fruit that was barely recognizable. Most importantly, it was filled with sugar. I always saved it for last just like they did on the commercial.

After “dinner” she would pop corn in the old fashioned corn popper. The popper with the yellow cover that conveniently turned into a bowl immediately following popping. Mom would pop two batches and she would melt a stick of butter and let me pour it over the top as I stood on a chair to reach the counter and she would stop to shake it up each time I poured. Specifically vivid to me is that mom never separated the popcorn into separate bowls like lots of parents do. We would spread the crocheted blanket out on the floor in front of the giant Zenith console tv set, put the giant bowl of popcorn in the center and quickly turn the channel to Donny & Marie. Marie would prance around the stage in a flowery dress and sing Paper Roses (or inevitably something like it) with a giant smile. Donny would wear one of his fun pant suits and charm the crowd. The whole time, I was shoveling greasy, buttery popcorn into my mouth with no fear that we would run out because we had the two batches! Next, Sonny & Cher. Now, I would have liked to have combined the two shows and had Donny & Cher. No offense, Marie. But everyone knows that women watched that show and a few of us gay guys. We watched for Donny and then we watched for Cher. Everyone knows that. Cher never failed to disappoint with her countless costume changes (always into another Mackie dress). She wore the things you saw in magazines, but never found at your local rural shopping mall. Always bedazzled, always sparkling under the light, always wild and daring. She sang songs that made almost no sense, but you didn’t care because you were mesmerized by her jewelry, hair and costume. Sonny did something funny and then it was time for bed. I got to sleep in Mom’s bed until Dad came home and carried me into my own bed. In my dreams, I would get the Donny & Marie record player from Santa and the Cher doll. I did end up with the record player, but I am still waiting for the Cher doll.

To this day, I still have not had popcorn that tasted that way ever again. The Pop Secret microwavable snack size bags just don’t fill the gap.