Festive Fish Stories

I can’t think why I gain weight during the holidays. I’m sure to eat a balanced diet from every food group: food made with cream soup, food made with Cool Whip, food that combines fruit with marshmallows in a creative way, and food that distant relatives make. And I’m always careful to use garnishes, such as triple chocolate cake in hot fudge sauce, with discretion.

But here I am again, straining the seams of my purple puppy dog pajamas and forcing the elastic in my stretchy pants to call for reinforcements. To take the stress off my seams, I generally go easy in the “food that distant relatives make” category.

What is it about seeing people only once a year that makes them think they can try out their experimental recipes without fear of retribution? Everybody has an aunt on a health food kick that makes everything with soy milk or an uncle who specialty is peanut butter casserole, but my family members have a special place in the Food Terrors Hall of Fame. (Their motto is “Smell This!”)

In honor of family unity, I have always suffered through the asparagus jello of a forgotten time, but from now on, I’m taking a stand on the Spinach and Raisin MangoTomato Balls.

I find that I can resist:

1. Any dish that combines candied cherries, chipped beef, and spices I can't pronounce.

2. Any dish that blends chocolate chips with any type of canned fish product.

3. Any finger food that leaves a residue on my hands that requires turpentine to remove.

The Captain always tries to find a way to avoid the experimental food festivities. Last year a friend asked him to go fly-fishing over the holidays, but instead he spent time in the local emergency room where they applied a topical medication that smelled like trout.

But now I’ve concocted a secret weapon. So next time I’m faced with Sauerkraut and Strawberry Casserole or Better Than Roadkill Chili, I’ll whip the top off the mason jar I’m keeping for such an occasion.

“What’s that?” the Captain asked me when the mixture etched a skull and crossbones on the inside of the jar.

I grinned and waved the jar tantalizingly under his nose. He jumped back. It takes less than that to make hardened criminals spill the details of their secret stash.

“Whoa. What IS that? Your great-grandaddy’s moonshine?”

“Better than that. My brother’s carp bait. He got the secret from Uncle Bud.”

“What’s in it?”

“I can't tell you,” I said, resealing the lid and cushioning the jar in a box lined with packing peanuts to insure the integrity of the solution.

“It’s an Old Family Recipe.”

“Oh.”

“As a matter of fact, that’s what killed Uncle Bud.”

“What did he do, eat it?”

“No, he went fishing on Christmas and Aunt Edna found out.”

Old Family Recipe

I can’t think why I gain weight during the holidays. I’m sure to eat a balanced diet from every food group: food made with cream soup, food made with Cool Whip, food that combines vegetables or fruits with marshmallows in a creative way, and food that distant relatives make. I’m always careful to use garnishes, such as triple chocolate cake and pecan pie with discretion.

But here I am again, straining the seams of my purple puppy dog pajamas and forcing the elastic in my stretchy pants to call for reinforcements. To take the stress off my seams, I find I can generally go easy in the “food that distant relatives make” category.

What is it about seeing people only once a year that makes them think they can try out their experimental recipes without fear of retribution? Everybody has an aunt on a health food kick that makes everything with soy milk and seaweed or an uncle whose specialty is peanut butter casserole, but my family members have earned honorary placement in the Food Terrors Hall of Fame. (Their motto is “Smell This!”) With an eye toward family unity, I have always suffered through the asparagus jello of a forgotten time, but from now on, I’m taking a stand on the Aunt Betty's Rice and Raisin Balls.

I also find that I can resist:

Any dish that combines crushed corn flakes, cottage cheese, and butterscotch topping.

Any dish that blends chocolate chips with a random type of canned fish product.

Any finger food that leaves a film on my hands that requires turpentine to wash away the evidence.

So now I’ve concocted a secret weapon. The next time I’m faced with Sauerkraut and Strawberry Casserole or Better Than Roadkill Chili, I’ll whip the top off the mason jar I’m keeping for such an occasion.

“What’s in there?” the Captain asked when the mixture etched a hangman's noose on the inside of the jar.

I grinned. “It’s an Old Family Recipe.”

“Your great-grandaddy’s moonshine?”

“Better than that."

I unscrewed the lid and a passing fly hit the lineoleum like the top scoop of vanilla on an August ice cream cone.

"My brother’s carp bait.”

Mixed Messages

Compared to my mom, Martha Stewart bakes with an Easy Bake Oven and a low wattage bulb. When I was a kid, my mother, the love child of June Cleaver and the Pillsbury Doughboy, baked enchanting birthday cakes that rose from piles of hand-measured ingredients: freshly sifted flour, cups of sweet milk, and eggs so fresh the hens were still thinking up baby names.

My sisters and I would search through cook books full of black-and-white pictures of prize-winning creations, picking the masterpiece we wanted for our birthday celebration. Mama would lovingly pull out her Mixmaster, line baking pans with waxed paper, and lock us out of the kitchen to keep our tiny fingers out of the double boiler.

Years whizzed by like a blender stuck on puree, and I stood contemplating a box with a fuzzy picture of a cake stamped on the front in brown ink. Bake from scratch? Excuse me? Are you here on a visa from the Land Where Whipped Cream is a Still a Dairy Product? My kids think ingredients are the bad things for you that are listed on the side of the box; the renegade roll call of –ites and –ates that begins with corn syrup and end with death. They believe that Red Dye number 2 is the only pathway to Nirvana and have abiding faith that Little Debbie is a natural Earth Mother that sprang to life from a carton of Cool Whip.

The first time my kids saw a round cake, they thought I’d cut off the burned corners. In their experience, cakes went straight from the mouth of the Betty Crocker box into my 11 x 13 baking dish and on to a fiery death in the bowels of our thermostat-challenged oven that raged from frozen food to flash fried in a matter of minutes. They thought cakes were bricks with chocolate frosting. But since they helped open the box and mix the mortar, they also thought chocolate bricks were the best invention since nunchucks for Ninja Turtles.

One Christmas when we made cookies together, I tried the old fashioned bake without a box method. By the time the butter softened and the eggs were room temperature, Santa’s reindeer had come and gone and the dog had long since digested the icicles off the tree. The next Christmas I snagged a roll of cookie dough that let me chop off cookies like I was slicing dough with a circular saw. They were ready in twenty minutes and the kids clustered around like cats around a cricket to pipe on red reindeer noses and Santa hats.

My mom would have known that red dye would smear into the other colors until Santa looked like a bloody-eyed zombie from Christmas past.

As I watched the kids giggle over their creations, I grabbed a warm cookie and took a bite.

Rolled cookie dough: $1.99. Soap to clean up the mess: $2.50. Happy kids making Satan cookies: Priceless. Mama would be proud.