Fish or Cut Bait

Fish or Cut Bait

“Hey, Sweetheart, should I pick up anything on my way home?” John asked, as the cell phone crackled. I thought the call would evaporate. “Some sliced turkey,” I shouted, as if speaking louder would help the connection. “What are we having, chef’s salad?”  

“No, I ran out of fish food.”  Silence at the other end.  

It’s been three years since I had a maple tree removed in the front yard. Now, in place of the stump is a hole big enough for a pond. I’d read that cultivating a water element would bring prosperity. It was the summer of 2001, and everyone was embracing Fung Shui, the ancient Japanese art of “spatial design,” -- an antidote for the Y2K frenzy that made us feel that our lives had become overly technical. I invested seven thousand dollars to erect the five thousand gallon site complete with an eight-foot cast-iron fountain. Prosperity doesn’t come cheap.  

We piled into the car and headed south for an hour until we reached the koi farm, a backyard-run deal with impressive pools filled with even more impressive specimens. I caught sight of a big white fish with one single red dot planted on his forehead.

“I like that one,” pointing out the one that resembled the Japanese flag. “Twelve hundred…dollars,” countered Matt, the koi farmer. “It’s a tancho, very special.”  John and I have three children between us and college funds to think about.  “Not exactly what I had in mind,” I said, silently adding up the numbers and wondering why we hadn’t gone, instead, to the fish department of Wal-Mart.  “Any ‘red tag’ fish?” I asked with conviction. “I don’t mind seconds.” Matt looked at me with disappointment and shuffled me off to a big plastic drum. “These guys are a hundred bucks each -- they’ll grow,” he said, walking away to cultivate a sale with a couple that had just pulled up in a limited-edition Range Rover. “Okay kids, over here!” I yelled and did my best to convince them that these were the ringers. 

It’s hard to convince even a five-year-old to walk away from a pool of showstoppers in lieu of a group that looked like overgrown carnival prizes. They each, however, left with a fish that they named, and an immediate rivalry was started to see whose would grow the fastest. Before leaving the farm I did calculate my budget, and bought two bluebloods -- a pair of kushi-beni, aptly named “lipstick” in Japanese because of the red ring of color around their mouths. Two weeks after bringing them home, one kushi died, and I was flabbergasted to find out that live fish don’t come with a warrantee. 

For three winters, I waited patiently to catch a glimpse of the investment of koi. Each year, each fish grew a bit bigger and brighter. As the ice thawed, their body temperature rose, and they shook off the faint slumber of the freezing cold water. And each spring, I would anticipate that this year the pond would look magnificent.

Each summer is a battle against algae, each autumn an onslaught of falling leaves to be skimmed before they bottom out in a layer of sludge. Three years of trying to establish a beautiful water garden and all I had to show for it was a pond that looked like a huge trough of pea soup. String algae had taken over the interior walls. Once, while removing it with my bare hands, I fell in, and immerged looking like, the “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” As the fish surfaced to get a hint of sunlight they eyed me with disdain. Cold blooded things. How in the world do folks see these animals as pets? I’ve heard that in Japan a pedigree can sell for over twenty thousand US dollars.  

Luckily, the nearest koi enthusiast was right across the street. Ted, a long time Woodstocker who owned The Corner Cupboard Deli, had offered help if it was needed. I cut across the lawn and let myself into his tiny yard. Behind the gate was a small but perfect example of what offensively loomed in my own yard. Tall water irises rose from the corners, their blue heads plump with color, and clean water flowed through the pump, which Ted had fashioned from an old whisky barrel. As I peered into the deep water, a white behemoth surfaced and opened its huge mouth. I was speechless in the presence of this fish which looked as if you could put it on a leash and take it for a walk.

“That’s Big White,” Ted said in his characteristically relaxed voice. “Had him since the time he was this big.” He showed me four inches with his hand. I shook my head in disbelief and guilt for the muck hole I had created. “I need you, Obi-one…you’re my only hope,” I said humbly. Ted took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket, lit it slowly, and smiled. He put his arm around my shoulder and added with the consternation of a doctor, “What are you feeding them?” “Cold cuts,” I said -- half statement, half question. He lowered his head and laughed. Ted was the “cold cut king.” How he got away with preparing sandwiches for his patrons with a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth was beyond me.  “Oy!” he replied with compassion.

The next day I woke to see a foursome scrutinizing the conditions. Ted, and his ever cheerful wife, Mary, looked up as I hustled outside in my bathrobe. “Don’t take it so bad,” she consoled. “We went through the same thing.”  She was dressed plainly in polyester and eyed my velvet leopard robe as if I had beamed in from Planet Strange.  “You know Suki,” Ted interrupted, introducing a woman I had known from a distance for many years, “and her husband Tim?” I greeted them with one hand and clasped my robe at the neck with the other. Suki and Tim did not seem amused. “Why would you have fish if you can’t seem them?” she asked flatly. I’d heard from Ted that they were serious afficionados.  I felt so exposed.

I weighed the seriousness with which she asked her question, as they huddled around me like a team initiating a rookie; I told them I would do what ever it took. “They don’t care much for meat,” I added. The group looked at me as if I had two heads, both with antennae. 

We relocated our wet pets to a five hundred gallon holding tank; prepared it with filters and an oxygen supply; pumped out the pond; spent eight hours power-washing the interior, and bucketed out the goop. John designed and installed a new filtration system that bordered on overkill and filled the now spotless cavity with a tanker load of clean water. Just as the holding tank was showing signs of “green tea,” the fish were introduced to their renovated digs. The price tag of their watery abode now stood at ten thousand. As a gift for making such a wholehearted attempt, Suki offered me three well-grown fish. She was also renovating her pond and was weeding out the mutts.  

“If you want to train them to eat out of your hand, get some fried shrimp. Stand in the same spot every day and offer it to them. “These three,” she said, pointing out the adoptees, “are already trained.”

I was a gourmet wannabe but was resigned to serving the conventional fish fare -- floating cereal sticks. If it was fried shrimp they wanted, it was fried shrimp they’d get!  That night I breaded and sautéed an army-sized batch of popcorn minis and stood by the pond in hopeful anticipation. I dropped one in and watched as it floated for a minute then started its slow descent.  

No takers. 

The fish swam by the appetizer with indifference. I broke the next one in half and again watched as it was passed by my less than entertained school of fish. One after another I dropped the breaded shrimp into the pond, until a rainbow of colors from the oil slick convinced me to stop. I had tried lettuce, bread, broccoli, cold cuts, raw catfish, and now fried shrimp. Either this group of fish had no taste buds or I was one terrible koi hobbyist.

Ted and Mary retired to greener pastures in Colorado and dismantled their pond. Suki got Big White. I received four others, including an overweight eleven-year-old goldfish which meandered sideways through the water, half due to her size and half due to an old bout with tail rot. They also bestowed on us a giant pot of water irises which became the spawning ground for our pregnant females. 

“They’re having a real party with that plant,” I told Ted on his last day in town. “Don’t count on breeding,” he said, squelching my exuberance. “It’s very hard for a beginner to raise baby koi. Besides, the fish will devour the fertilized eggs.”  I was glad to hear that they had a penchant for anything gourmet.

Two months later I spotted movement in one of the three fountain bowls and was caught off guard. Little tadpoles, I thought. But how in the world would a frog have gotten up here? To my delight and amazement they were tiny fish, the smallest fry imaginable. The fertilized eggs had been swept through the pond, been sucked up through the fountain’s pump, and were sprayed into the air, only to land in the bottom fountain bowl. We immediately set up a house aquarium to incubate the five siblings; but within a month’s time four mysteriously died. As autumn was well in progress, the one survivor was about to meet his destiny. 

“Well, Buddy, this is it. If you stay inside you’re sure to go the way of your brothers,” I said, lowering him into what I thought would be his swan song. “If you’re here in the spring, I’ll name you Lucky.”

It wasn’t until late the following summer that John stood out by the pond shouting, “Hey, it’s Lucky! He made it!” The little sucker outweighed the odds by sticking close to the submerged iris plant, away from the bigger fish. He was orange with black markings, a spot over one eye, like a pirate’s eye patch. Lucky, indeed!  John and I stood arm in arm looking at the baby, as if we had just become grandparents. I ran into Suki at the market, and she asked how the pond was looking.

“Oh, the water is clear, and the fish seem happy enough.” I was trying my best to convince her that the three she gave me were in good hands. “Good,” she answered with what felt like the slightest bit of condescension.  I was eager to impress her. I told her the miraculous story of Lucky and she brushed it off by saying, “That happens.”  “Yep, everything is just great,” I added. “They’re getting big and we love watching the colors develop as they grow.” 

The fish sponsored by John’s young son, originally black and silver, had surfaced the first spring with a drastic change to light blue. The second year it emerged with butterfly fins, and the following year sported a light-blue nose. That last move certainly closed the gap on the rivalry started three years earlier by the children. My son, Austin, walked off in disgust after seeing this “blue wonder,” remarking with considerable jealousy that the only thing left for this fish to do was to “grow friggin’ legs and walk out of the pond.” 

“That happens,” she said, again, placing her groceries on the conveyer belt. 

“What I don’t get,” I said, “Is the trick with the fried shrimp.”

She looked at me incredulously. “What?”

“The fried shrimp -- forget about them taking it from my hand, they won’t even go near the stuff.” 

“Who said anything about fried shrimp?”

“You said give ‘em fried shrimp.”

“I said dried shrimp.”

“What the hell is dried shrimp?”

“You get it at the pet store.” She looked me over and cracked a derisive smile. “Fish don’t eat popcorn shrimp.”

I purchased a peanut-sized can of dried krill for twenty- five bucks and made an appointment with a hearing specialist. I pinched one of the crispy critters between my fingers and held it in the water until my joints were numb. Sure enough, one of Suki’s protégés came close and snatched it from me. By the end of a full season every last one of them had learned the trick. Now seeing me at the water’s edge brings all seventeen tearing down the surface, their tails wagging them forward, like a pack of greyhounds after a rabbit. 

Koi are the ultimate pet. And, just like four-legged domestics they have distinct personalities. But they don’t need walking or grooming, don’t mind being outside in the rain, and if, by chance or vacation, you don’t feed them for a day, the ASPCA doesn’t come looking for you. In all, it took four years, almost twelve thousand dollars, and countless trips to the supermarket for me to be trained. 

Popcorn Shrimp (for Humans)

5 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/8 teaspoons hot pepper sauce

1/2 cups Japanese bread crumbs (Panko)

1/2 teaspoons tarragon, dried

1 pound small shrimp, peeled and deveined

Directions:

1. Preheat broiler. Line broiler pan with aluminum foil. Spray foil with vegetable cooking spray.

  

2. In a small bowl, combine mayonnaise, mustard, parsley, lemon juice and hot pepper sauce.  Mix well.  On a sheet of waxed paper, combine bread crumbs and tarragon.  Mix well.

  

3. Dip shrimp in mayonnaise mixture, turning to coat. Dredge shrimp in bread crumb mixture, turning to coat and patting so crumbs adhere.

  

4. Place shrimp on prepared pan. Broil 4 inches from heat, turning once, until golden brown, about 5 minutes. 

Serves 4.

Mom's Remedy for the Blues

As puberty crept up and I became a passive passenger on a roller coaster of hormones, there’d be days that I just couldn’t shake the blues. It was a Jekyll-and-Hyde scenario that would haunt me for most of my fertile years. I never thought to look at the cause; my body was gearing up for a wham-bam of reproductive activity. I only saw the symptoms, which were moodiness and the ability to bite someone’s head off. My mother, Champion of Chocolate, held the key to my happiness. We were driving in her car one night, a flame-red Cadillac sedan DeVille, when she turned to me and said, “How’s about a hot fudge sundae?” They were words of salvation.

We pulled into Turner’s Ice Cream Parlor. That old building, near Hyannisport, with its clapboard siding and rickety double-hung windows, had been written about by JFK. A yellowed-with-age note signed by the former president hung in a frame on one of the “if-these-walls-could-talk” walls. I don’t know if the gray-haired woman who sat behind the counter, in her starched man-tailored blouse and apron, was Mrs. Turner. I just assumed it. Both the building and the woman were relics of the “olde Cape Cod,” sung about by Patti Page. It was decades before Ben met Jerry. Imported ice cream just didn’t exist. This was honest-to-goodness, homemade stuff, with flavors like penuche pecan, fresh summer melon, and the unicorn of all delights, frozen pudding -- a concoction of cream and dried candied fruit that seemed like a cross between holiday eggnog and cannoli filling.

We’d sit in that quaint shop, which had never been renovated to look the part, and be served hot gooey chocolate fudge. The kind where you can almost taste the sugar granules between your teeth, rather than the pasteurized goop that floats over soft serve today. A young girl, working her summer job, would open a refrigerator and pull out a large stainless steel bowl with a spatula stuck right in it. She’d give the contents a few turns and top the heavy glass sundae dish holding our overflowing desserts with a healthy dollop of the freshest whipped cream on Earth.

We made outings to Turner’s a weekly event. Mom always went for the fudge. I experimented with ice cream and topping combinations, growing particularly fond of ginger ice cream with claret sauce. The spicy bits of candied ginger were tempered by the sweet red sauce that tasted more like jelly apples than wine. I introduced many of my girlfriends to Turner’s -- girls that hadn’t yet found a food outlet for their hormonal highs and lows. It was hard to convince some of them that this was the real deal. Their palettes were dulled by too many air-filled shakes from Friendly’s.

My senior-year science teacher wouldn’t accept my thesis titled, “The Science of Ice Cream and Emotions.” I suppose it was too far-fetched a topic for the times. In 1972, PMS was only an acronym for “public message system.”

Over thirty years later, Mom’s remedy for the blues, i.e. hot fudge, along with its curative powers, still has the ability to pull me out of the lion’s den of emotion.


Mom’s Remedy for the Blues Hot Fudge

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

1 cup sugar

4 tablespoons butter, unsalted

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla


Directions:

1. Melt chocolate, sugar and butter in top of double boiler over low heat, until sugar is dissolved.

2. Stir often to avoid burning.

3. Slowly add milk. Stir till blended smooth.

4. Add baking powder and vanilla. Stir till thick


Makes about 1 cup.

Chasing Zorba

Sleeping to the sounds of the Yankees being slaughtered by the Texas Rangers is nearly impossible.
“Can you bring the volume down just a hair?” is my typical request, as I nuzzle into the sheets, like a cat kneading its paws into a comfy sweater. I listen, a sleepy captive audience, to the announcer rattling off batting averages, anxious for the moment when, my live-in boyfriend, John, might turn on his wireless headphones. In the background, the stadium organ is winding up, but instead of a fiery foot- stomping rendition of “We Will Rock You,” the organist reels off a few drawn-out bars of a song that sends me back thirty-five years.
“Can you name that tune?” I ask softly, without opening my eyes.
“Sounds familiar,” he offers.

John is an insomniac who thrives on alpha waves and is vigilant about rooting for his favorite team -- right up to the last inning of the losing game. But, would a guy raised by a German immigrant father and a Native American mother recognize a Greek cultural anthem? I tell him it’s called “Zorba the Greek.”
“It’s a person, a song, and the title of a movie, I add, reaching for the earplugs, which are never too far from my side of the bed.
“Ever think of being on Jeopardy?” John asks dryly. He’s probably wondering if this is the movie starring the actor that looks like Aristotle Onassis.
Pulling a pillow over my head to blot out the flickering light of the television, I drift off and hear the music from memory.

Some days, Stacey Tillman and I walk home from school together. Today the aroma from Mom’s kitchen makes it all the way up Concord Avenue meeting us full on when we open the front door. She is baking something because the air is thick with browned butter. Dance music plays in the background. We set our books and coats down in the front vestibule.
“What music is that?” Stacey asks, completely dumbfounded.
“That’s ‘ba-zook-key’ music,” I answer, ashamed. While other housewives on our block are listening to pop, my mother is bustling around the house to Greek Muzak.
“I didn’t know you were Greek,” she says matter-of-factly.
“We’re not,” I reply flatly.

My father had recently started taking mandolin lessons, and every Thursday after he put in his eight hours selling cosmetics to “mom-and-pop” drugstores, a tutor would come to the house and wearily try to get my uncoordinated dad to manipulate the tiny strings. My sister and I had a running bet to see how long it would take before the beautiful mandolin with its rosewood neck became kindling. The year before, he had wrapped his nine iron around a tree out back, and the golf lessons were history.

My mother was up to her elbows in sheets of filo dough. The kitchen table was a wreck, scattered with wet dish towels and baking sheets. She pulled a tray out of the oven; it was full of triangular-shaped parcels that looked like apple turnovers but had a savory rather than a sweet smell. I curiously lifted one of the wet towels to see what was underneath.
“No, don’t touch!” she snapped, pulling the wet rag down. “It’s very important to keep the moisture in. Otherwise the sheets will break before I roll them.” She rarely improvised, following a recipe to the letter. “So, kiddo, how was show-and- tell, did anyone guess it right?” She looked up briefly and blotted her eye makeup with the back of a finger. She wasn’t exactly June Cleaver in pearls, but Mom was a definite looker. She had perfectly arched eyebrows above hazel eyes and wavy black hair, made even fuller with an additional “fall” that sat on the top of her head and cascaded down her back.
“Mom, no one knew they were rocks from the Acropolis,” I said acerbically, punishing her for making the suggestion in the first place. She was a Sunday archaeologist, and our house was filled with artifacts that surpassed common antique furnishings. Her style of decorating was eclectic. Ours was the only house where framed gravestone rubbings from ancient cemeteries hung beside crystal sconces and Mexican bark art.
“They thought I picked them off the street. I looked like an idiot!” I said. She swept her bangs to one side with the back of her wrist and in one motion pushed away my testiness.
My parents had recently returned from a trip to Athens and the Greek Islands. Had the Ministry of Antiquities known my mother had heisted a few pebbles from a national monument, they may never have let her leave the country. But they were smuggled past customs in the bottom of Dad’s cigarette pack. She loved the fact that a small piece of ancient Greece now resided on Long Island. On a previous trip to the Middle East they had returned with a Ziploc bag full of soil from Jerusalem. It had carefully been packed in their suitcase, sandwiched between layers of clothing, eluding airport security. “Isn’t it against the law to bring soil from a foreign country -- something about disease and bacteria?” I pointedly asked my father.
“Unless you want me to go to prison, don’t ever tell anyone it’s here!” he said with life-threatening seriousness. The bag of dirt remained well hidden in my father’s basement office for several years. It was a relic that we never spoke of until the day my grandfather was buried. Standing above the casket vault, my father pulled the bag from his overcoat and scattered the contents over the simple wooden box. They were straight, law-abiding citizens, but each of them had a passion and for this they bent the rules.

“Can Stacey stay for dinner?” I asked, picking at the dried scraps that sat in a heap on the table. “What are we having?” The stuff was paper-white and dry as parchment paper. I figured this was the mistake pile that got too much air.
“Oh my, I didn’t even get the chicken in the oven. It’s Friday!” she blurted, dropping her pastry brush, sticky with oil, and covering up her pastry sheets with the delicacy of handling a Fabergé egg. “Chicken, noodle kugel, and cantaloupe, same as every Friday,” she recited by rote, moving into multitask mode. We weren’t a religious family by any means: we ate bacon on Sunday mornings and only attended synagogue on the High Holy Days, or for an occasional bar mitzvah. Both of my parents were Jews who believed that the way to keep the religion alive was to eat the food their parents ate. The only requirements for my siblings and me as we grew to adulthood would be to eat roast chicken and kugel every Friday night -- and to marry Jewish.
“So what’s this stuff for?” I asked, looking at the odd pastries and moving over to the pan of kugel that sat on the stove. The tops of the thin egg noodles were golden, and the rich smell reminded me of grandma’s kitchen.
“The borekas are for the girls,” she said, dragging a five-pound roaster out of the fridge. She quickly assembled the ingredients and starting rubbing it down with a paste of garlic powder, paprika, and vegetable oil. It was always a big chicken on Friday nights. Dad spent the rest of the weekend picking at the cold meat, washing it down with Old Milwaukee beer.
“The canasta girls?” I asked.
Mom was moving her trays of dough around the kitchen, looking for any available counter space, balancing them wherever they wound up. She reminded me of the guy that spun plates on the Ed Sullivan show.
“No, not canasta,” she said, licking the garlic from a finger, the way I would if it were frosting. She’d been spending more time with a group of sisterhood gals, whose Sephardic parents had come over from Greece and Turkey. Unlike her longtime canasta friends, Diane and Barbara, whose parents were Ashkenazi, these new friends were colorful and loud, with names like Joya, Ida, and Gay. They wore heaps of gold costume jewelry, which highlighted their angular features and almond-shaped eyes. The religion was the same; the differences in interpretation were subtle enough to be dismissed. The Yiddish-raised “girls” were conventional in style and infinitely dissimilar to the foreign “girls”, whose lineage had been born of assimilation.
“The mah-jongg girls?” I asked.
She placed the bird into a pan and lavished it with some more garlic, the way some ladies used talc.
“No, not mah-jongg,” she replied.
Stacey picked up the phone receiver and dialed her mother to let her know that she was home from school.
“You staying to eat?” I asked, while the numbers were still spinning on the rotary dial. It seemed that every night was spaghetti-and-meatball night at their house. It may have been the only thing that Bunny Tillman knew how to cook -- or that because of its simplicity she could work on her abstract paintings up until the last second before feeding her family. When Stacey had a sleep-over party for her ninth birthday, we were allowed to hang out in her folks’ room, out of the way of the older brothers, while Bunny and Hal watched television by candlelight in the den. We locked the door for privacy, and twelve of us crammed onto their king-sized platform bed to play strip poker. We laughed at each other’s underwear, and stayed up all night. We sang, “Come on...come on...come on and touch me babe. Can’t you see that I am not afraid…?”
Bunny wouldn’t let her daughter watch the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows thinking that it would give her daughter nightmares. But for Bunny, the idea of a bunch of flat-chested girls jumping up and down in their Carter’s was just fine.

I noticed a travel brochure stuck behind the phone, advertising a hotel in “the beautiful Catskill Mountains” where your “vacation awaits you.” A blue-paper insert had the word L-A-S-H-A in bold type and Greek Get Away underneath that. Now it was all making sense, I thought. These newly found friends had enlisted my parents into some cult. Was the Ladies Auxiliary Sephardic Home for the Aging responsible for this strange immersion in Greek culture? I quickly assessed that their leader had brainwashed my parents under the pretense of Judaism. I felt suddenly sick, and the temperature in the kitchen rose so quickly I could feel my ears burning. I just wanted my family to be like everyone else’s. I missed the days when Johnny Mathis was the only record Dad listened to. And what was the story with all the dark eyeliner and mascara that Mom was wearing? I wanted to go to Disneyworld, not the boondocks of upstate New York with a bunch of bazuki-loving senior citizens! I glared at my mother as if she were a Stepford wife.
Stacey was speaking quietly to her mother around the corner of the kitchen, the long phone cord stretched beyond recognition to reach the next room.
“Nah, we’re having leftovers,” she announced. By that she meant second-day spaghetti and meatballs. But it won out over our traditional Jewish menu and whatever Greek side dish --which were our leftovers.
Stacey always had to be home before 4:00 p.m. That’s when I dutifully watched the newest episode of Dark Shadows; Bunny knew that if Stacey stayed she’d be captivated. She’d leave our house and hit the local Carvel for a thick shake on the way home. It would fill her belly and stave off her appetite for one more serving of Italian food.
I ran into the bedroom I shared with my sister and, like a tight-rope speed walker, paced the invisible line that ran down the center.
“Don’t even think about it,” Lisa growled without taking her nose out of a book. She must have sensed that at any moment I would pounce.
Oblivious to her mood, which was distinctively pensive; I wanted only for her to keep me company. She was a serious girl with long black hair, dark eyes, and an acute set of boundaries. I wasn’t allowed to join her friends when they came over to the house, and was by no means supposed to speak to her when we passed each other in the corridor at elementary school. Lisa was three years older and light years aloof. She had been on the defensive since my parents brought me home from the hospital; repulsed by my in-your-face style of affection. We were nothing alike and I adored her. She managed through nine years with as little contact with me as possible. Then my parents had a baby, and I was forced to move into her room.
“Come on…it’s four o’clock!” I pleaded from my side of the line.
She snapped the box closed and looked at me with contempt. “Okay, and then leave me alone!”
We did have one thing in common: the mystery of the alluring vampire Barnabas Collins and his beautiful wife, the haunting witch, Angelique. The show was pure escapism from our day-to-day confines; an exotic realm miles away from split-level suburbia.

In 1970 it seemed everyone, young and old, was looking to escape somewhere, somehow. The death toll from the war in Vietnam was over 34,000, the Ohio National Guard had opened fire, shot, and killed four students at Kent State, and even though the album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, by Simon & Garfunkel won three Grammy awards, Vice President Spiro Agnew stated that the song was about heroin addiction.

Mom was scooping up the last of the filling for her borekas; a slurry of chopped spinach, eggs, and feta cheese. I took a quick count of the number of pieces she had prepared. There were several dozen, with a tray still in the oven.
“What girls are these for?” I asked.
“The belly dancers,” Mom said with a wink.
Tomorrow she’d walk through the doors of Isadora’s Dance Studio, armed with borekas and a heap of gold jewelry; she’d leave the status quo and enter the sublime.

Joya’s Spinach Boreka Filling

Ingredients:

1 (16 ounce) bag frozen, chopped spinach,
thawed and drained in a colander

2 eggs, beaten with 1 tablespoon water, divided

1/4 pound feta cheese, crumbled

1/2 cup ricotta cheese

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Salt and black pepper, to taste

1/2 teaspoon za'atar (a Middle Eastern spice mixture), optional
1 box prepared filo dough (frozen food section of market)
1/2 cup vegetable oil


Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Combine all filling ingredients, reserving 1 tablespoon of the egg wash for the tops of the borekas.

3. Spray a large cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray.

4. Remove filo dough from it’s box, unroll entire package and using a pair of sharp kitchen scissors or knife, divide dough in half creating two long stacks. Immediately cover with a dampened towel.

5. Remove one sheet of dough at a time. Brush with vegetable oil. Place 3-4 heaping tablespoons of filling at one end of dough strip. Form the borekas into a triangle by lifting the right corner up to the left. Continue folding parcel up the entire strip of dough until a triangular parcel is formed.

6. Paint with the egg wash and sprinkle with the za'atar or sesame seeds.
7. Bake the borekas in the center of the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until puffy and golden brown.

Makes 10 large borekas.

FAST FOOD

In the wee morning hours, home delivery trucks dotted the streets of our suburban neighborhood. White-capped milkmen ran from house to house filling galvanized tin boxes with fresh milk and dairy products. And snack foods like potato chips and pretzels went to other homes. Out from behind a brown speckled van, with the logo “Charles Chips,” a deliveryman would balance two or three impressively huge cans and drop them at their destination. We were, however, the first family to get delivery of Cott soda. Two cases of heavy glass quarts arrived every Friday: an assortment of grape, cola, black cherry, and the coveted cream -- always the first one tapped. No wonder there was always a milk-fed friend begging to have dinner with us.

Mom liked to sleep in. Getting up with the sun to serve a warm breakfast to her school-aged children wasn’t high on her list of priorities. She waited till the house was empty -- free and clear of questions and demands -- before having her coffee and buttered roll with a paperback romance novel. The day I started kindergarten was the day I received a crash course in the morning routine.

“Get up and get dressed,” My older sister, Lisa, ordered, like a drill sergeant. “Mom, laid out your clothes last night,” she said, pointing to the ensemble at the foot of my bed.
“Where’s Mom,” I yawned.
“Upstairs, don’t make any noise,” she said, tiptoeing down the hall.
The worst transgression in our house would have been to wake a sleeping parent. My sister and I had already been taught the moral principle of “consideration,” after it had been smacked into our asses.
“Isn’t Mom going to make us breakfast?” I asked, hoping for a hot bowl of Farina.
“Mom doesn’t get up early, get used to it,” she replied derisively, walking off to forage through the assortment of Drake’s cakes stored in the oven.

So my folks never had a problem finding a teenaged babysitter, because the word was out about our junk-food stockpile. Whipped cream from a can was a trendy delicacy when it hit the market, and we always had a can or two. That stuff which miraculously propelled itself from the funny white nozzle was good for a half an hour of entertainment. Lisa and I would compete by standing with our mouths gaping open as the babysitter injected as much whipped cream as the space would hold. Whoever gagged, lost.

We ate Yankee Doodles for breakfast and had Swanson TV dinners every Saturday night. Even after I had been to college, had revolutionized my dietary world, and returned home with an armful of bottles from the health food store to concoct a soy lecithin, wheat germ and organic honey gruel, Dad was still doing the morning cup of coffee -- with a cupcake chaser.

My father was a cosmetics salesman, and, though he was raised in an orthodox Jewish household by a mother that adhered to the kosher principles, he lived on a steady diet of quick-stop specialties, regardless of their orientation.

On Sunday mornings Mom would fry up some bacon and eggs, and then we’d pile into Dad’s ‘67 Impala; headed to Brooklyn for a visit with his parents. They were Polish immigrants who spoke only Yiddish and had raised four children in their two-bedroom apartment. For most of his youth Dad slept on a cot in the cramped kitchen, only acquiring a bedroom once all of his older sisters were married.

Somewhere along the way we’d stop for burgers and fries. McDonald’s, before the dawn of the Big Mac, was the ultimate roadside attraction. Outside, a red-and-white-tiled wraparound bench ran below impressive glass walls. Pressing our faces up against the window, Lisa and I spied burgers sizzling on an automated circular grill and an assembly line of men in starched white clothes churn out perfectly packaged sandwiches. The graceful beauty of their aligned posture, accurate aim, and controlled speed captivated my imagination.
When Burger King debuted in our hometown, we actually got dressed for dinner, eager to line up and sample their flame-broiled brand. There was no drive-through in those days, and the term “fast food” wasn’t common knowledge.

We ate the stuff in the backseat, balanced the cold soda cups between our knees and used the fries as swords in a duel, while Dad drove and Mom bit her nails. Before arriving at my grandparents’ third-floor walk-up in Flatbush, a small, dank apartment that was filled with the aroma of garlic and onions, Dad would stop at a dumpster and throw away any remnants of our lunch -- including all the paper packaging. The four of us would get out of the car so he could spray it down with Lysol. Then we’d jump back in, turn the block and arrive. Dad had always led his mother to believe that we were the fruits of an authentically kosher womb. He figured what Grandma didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

And she had her own way of faking out the powers that be. We would bring shopping bags of fruit from the farmers market on Long Island for her to use in the apple cake recipe that came from the old country. If the previous weeks’ produce hadn’t been processed; she had an ingenious, if not totally devious, method for letting us know.

“Hello, this is the operator with a collect call for Mrs. Noapel,” the long-distance lady would say.
“I’m sorry, there’s nobody here by that name,” my father answered, declining the incoming charges. As Grandmother and Father silently listened, using the phone line as the operative, “NO APPLE” was decoded.
“No fruit, straight to Flatbush,” Dad would proudly announce after hanging up the receiver.

Grandma Sylvia’s Apple Cake
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1/4 cup orange juice
1 cup vegetable oil
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 teaspoons baking powder
6 apples
3 teaspoons cinnamon
6 tablespoons sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a large rectangular pan (lasagna-type).
2. Combine the first seven ingredients and beat at medium speed for 10 minutes.
3. Peel and thickly slice the apples and add cinnamon and sugar.
4. Layer half of the batter in pan; add apples, then the rest of the batter. Sprinkle top with additional cinnamon and sugar.

5. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the top crust is crisp.

Serves 16.

Featured in "Latina Magazine"

Latin Fusion Lovers! What a wonderful response we have received from our coverage in Latina Magazine...keep those e-mails coming! Here's two favorites from the Cuba and Brazil menus. Enjoy!



CONKIES

3 cups grated coconut
3/4 pound pumpkin, peeled and grated
1/2 pound sweet potato, peeled and grated
1/2 pound brown sugar
1 teaspoon powdered cinnamon
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups corn flour
½ cup all-purpose flour
4 ounces raisins (optional)
6 ounces shortening
1 cup milk
Wax paper or plantain leaves – cut to 8” wide strips

Mix grated coconut, pumpkin and sweet potato with sugar and spices. Add raisins and flours last and combine well. Melt shortening over low heat; add milk, then combine with other ingredients. Place a few tablespoons of the mixture onto wax paper or leaves. Fold securely with seam down on steamer rack. Steam over boiling water until they are firm and cooked. Cool before unwrapping.

Makes 24 bars.

Conkies are perfect with the next recipe!

BRAZILIAN ICED CHOCOLATE

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
¼ cup sugar
1 cup double strength coffee, hot
2 ½ cups milk
1 ½ cup cola, chilled
Whipped Cream
Vanilla Ice Cream

In the top of a double boiler, over hot water, melt the chocolate squares. Stir in the sugar. Gradually stir in the hot coffee, mixing thoroughly. Add the milk and continue cooking until all particles of the chocolate are dissolved and the mixture is smooth, about 10 minutes. Pour into a jar.

Cover and chill. When ready to serve, stir in the chilled Coca-Cola. Serve over ice cubes in tall glasses.

For a beverage, top with whipped cream.

For a dessert, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Serves 4 .

Out to Launch - One 'Mo Time

2005 was a great year for our "Recipe Deck" series manufactured by Boston Warehouse Trading Corporation, with over 70,000 copies sold! Look for three new titles at a gift store near you: Salad Gourmet, Soup Gourmet, and Snack Crazy! The line makes it's debut at the Atlanta GiftMart January 10-18, 2006 at the Dougan-Bliss showroom.

The Gravy Train

Gra-vy: noun 1:a sauce made from the thickened and seasoned juices of cooked meat. 2.something additional or unexpected that is pleasing or valuable.
--Merriam Webster’s Dictionary

It comes to mind that most of my childhood meals were very dry. My mother was a great homemaker and our family did enjoy her “from scratch” dishes, though most fell under the heading “B.C.” -- Burnt Cookery. It was not any more appetizing than it sounds.

Pepper steak from the Westinghouse electric wok was my favorite. Never a fan of nightshades, I couldn’t handle the peppers and cared less for the onions, but the thin slices of tender beef soaked through and through with salty teriyaki sauce was right on the money. Come to think of it, that may have been the only dish in her repertoire where sauce was fundamental to the recipe, not optional. She may have had a moral issue with gravy, akin to the sacrilege of putting ketchup on steak. Quite possibly, she wanted one less pot to clean. Either way, we never got it.

Every Friday night, year in and year out, was the traditional roasted chicken meal. One night, though, after seeing that the white meat was parched to the wishbone and gravy wasn’t being served à la carte, I decided to challenge the powers that be.

“Can we vote on it?” I asked my parents, regarding the weekly poultry ritual.
“No, there’ll be no voting in this house!” barked my father, with the ultimate voice of authority.
“Some families take votes,” I murmured quietly into my fork.
“Are you under the impression that this house is a democracy?” he said, raised his lung power. My mother was silent when Dad was about to rage. Even my sister knew enough to keep her mouth shut. I, on the other hand, always took the bait.
“Yes,” I said. (Wrong answer.)

He hunched his shoulders menacingly. “This is not a democracy,” he said slapping down his drumstick,” his dark eyes sparked with fire. “This is a dictatorship!” That was just too complex a statement to be easily answered or solved by a ten-year-old. “What do you think of that?” he asked.

“I don’t like it,” I said. I was definitely flirting with disaster.

My sister slouched inconspicuously into her chair, feeling a victim of circumstance. There were six chairs at our kitchen table, and only four of us. Lisa always set the dishes and, with artful subtlety, placed me right next to Dad. Her plate at the other end of the table made her so close, yet so far away. Oh, there were times when I’d undo her clever handiwork and slide my place setting next to hers. But, miraculously, as we all sat down, my dish was back in its original position. Damn, she was good, always employing me as interference to the striking range.

“If you don’t like it, leave!” was his familiar retort. The Hobson principle, of apparent free choice offering no real alternative, was my father’s standard. “You’ll take what’s given to you, or have nothing at all!”

To present a counterargument would have gotten me kicked out of the kitchen, and surmising that my options were as limited as the dinner menu, I replied simply, “Dibs on the dark meat.”

Pepper Steak

1 1/4 cups beef broth, divided
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup thinly sliced mild onions

1 (1 1/2 pound) boneless round steak, cut into strips
1 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil
4 medium green bell peppers, cut into julienne strips
2 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 tablespoons cornstarch
Hot cooked rice

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, combine 3/4 cup of the broth, soy sauce, ginger, sugar and pepper; set aside.
2. In a skillet or electric wok over medium-high heat, brown beef and garlic in oil.
3. Add peppers and tomatoes. Cook and stir until peppers are crisp-tender, about 3 minutes.
4. Stir the soy sauce mixture and add to pan. Cover and cook until the meat is tender, about 15 minutes.
5. Combine cornstarch with the remaining broth until smooth; add to pan. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes.
6. Serve over rice.

Mystery Pie

I was standing in line at the school cafeteria, pushing a tray full of carbohydrates. It was Thanksgiving season, and through the cardboard cutouts of cornucopias I detected that there was just one choice for dessert. Kids were grabbing the plates as if under a blue-light special. I scrutinized the little paper plate with the orange concoction.

“It won’t bite you,” said the kid next to me to keep the line moving. I was looking around for a red Jell-O alternative. “C’mon Shorty, take it of leave it!” he snapped.

“It smells like spice cake,” I said to him with my nose in it, though he wasn’t interested in discussing the matter.
“She’s smelling the pie -- gross!” remarked someone else.
“She once licked her plate after spaghetti.”

They side-stepped me like I was toxic waste. I happened to think the school’s spaghetti and sauce entrée was quite delicious and took their comments in stride. I had eaten spice cake once at the school’s holiday carnival, but this stuff wiggled like pudding. The smooth and dense texture filled my mouth. The sweet fragrance of the custard sent waves of pleasure right down to my Buster Browns. I felt a bit naughty eating something that seemed so exotic.

When I came home that night and explained the details of the dessert to my mother she replied simply, “Oh that’s pumpkin pie.”

“How come we never have it?” I asked in utter amazement. “It’s really good!”
She looked at me as if I had just suggested that we start celebrating Christmas.
“My mother never served it.” She bit off every word. “NOT a very Jewish dish.” I had gotten the same comment once before, regarding spice cake.

I didn’t understand the explanation at the time. My mother was an atheist, and didn’t believe in the existence of a supreme being. But she was very devout in regard to tradition. She called herself a gastronomic Jew and thought that if a dish fell outside the parameters of traditional Jewish cuisine it wasn’t worth serving.
But it went deeper than that. To mother, Thanksgiving was an assimilated non-holiday. She celebrated the event with little enthusiasm knowing that those people weren’t her forefathers. There hadn’t been one Jewish Pilgrim at the original Thanksgiving table and she resented that! So, she held out on pumpkin pie for as long as she could. Now that the secret was out, she had no objection if I ate it -- she just wouldn’t bake it. From that year on, I had to purchase Entenmanns’s from the convenience store if I wanted pumpkin pie with Thanksgiving dinner.