Just Improvise

My mother was a charming woman who loved a good party, but cooking a meal was not her forte. Her idea of salad was a head of iceberg lettuce whacked into 4 quarters smothered with bottled French dressing. Meat was cooked juiceless, potatoes boiled, and chicken baked dry. Vegetables arrived in cans, and no fish ever swam past the front door.

 Mother couldn’t stand the smell of peanut butter, so there was no escape until our neighbor, Mrs. So-and-So, took her yearly sojourn to Europe. In her absence, I climbed her apple tree and happily gorged on green apples until my stomach ached. For years she blamed pesky rabbits for the missing carrots in her garden, and my Mother fretted about my lack of appetite. She thought a daily glass of fatty whole milk would solve the problem, and then she wondered why no plant near my chair would live for very long. I knew that if a glass of milk could make a plant droop, it certainly wouldn’t be good for me.

 Consequently, I avoided Mother’s kitchen, and never cooked a meal until I got married. Luckily, my bridegroom had recently mustered out of the army, and he thought it a gourmet feast if the tapioca pudding didn’t land on top of the mashed potatoes.

 My first cooking attempt was a qualified success. He drank two cups of what I put in front of him before he asked, “What is this?” “Meatloaf,” I replied. “Well,” taking another sip, he replied, “I’ve never had it like this before, but it tastes pretty good.  Are you sure it’s meatloaf?” “No,” I replied, “Just drink it.”

 Happily, my mother-in-law was a creative cook and taught me a valuable lesson along the way, “If you don’t have the proper ingredients---improvise!”

 When our son was two weeks old, my husband called me from his office. “I am driving a visiting scientist to the airport. Can I bring him to the apartment for a drink?”  “No problem,” I replied. Turns out that the scientist asked for a dry martini. Since we had no vermouth, I mixed him the driest martini he had ever had. Once he was able to separate his lips, he said, “That is a fantastic drink.”

 Little did he know that the delicious pate that I fed him was cemented to the crackers with a jar of baby food. Some scientist!

 I promised to send his wife the recipe.  I lied!

 Esther Blumenfeld (The How did you do that? How did you do that?  How did you do that? How did you do that? Cook).