How are you? I hope you're doing swell.

This afternoon at the last second I decided I should invite my parents for dinner. I made Sophia Loren's spaghetti, our very most favorite. Except not my Dad's favorite because the recipe is, to him, glaringly meatless, but to me, gloriously so. Therefore, I assuaged my Dad's fear of a meat omission (he knows me, and I know him) by frying up some Italian sausage on the side. We didn't mention it was chicken sausage, and so he was quite satisfied. Also today I was checking out an AOL skit on what ingredients you can skimp on and still come out ahead - in taste and money. This wasn't anything I researched on purpose, it was just one of AOL's daily flash-ups. And guess what the girl was making for her mother? A pasta dish. And it had 4 ingredients as opposed to Sophia's 6 ingredients. All the ingredients matched except Sophia has garlic, basil and salt and AOL girl did not but had balsamic vinegar, which Sophia does not. Well. That interested me. The tomatoes, olive oil and sugar were the common ingredients. Okay, so I could have said that a lot simpler, but it's already said. So OF COURSE when I made mine tonight, I had to splash in some balsamic vinegar (lemon juice is good, too, when I think about it, which has been once, so far). When I tasted it out of the pot I thought b vinegar added a nice punch. But by the time I sat down to eat it, I forgot I had ever added b vinegar. Because you know when you are the cook and you FINALLY get to sit down and eat, you are too exhausted to know anything, much less taste anything. I made a green soup the color of Spinach Cocktail, but it was the chilled zucchini soup, aren't you relieved? I added some cucumber because two of my four zucchini were weird and I zinged them in the trash. Their flesh looked soaking wet in spots, there were some brown streaks and the cores we SPONGY. I could press my thumb right through the 1/2" sliced rounds. GROSS! Don't you hate it when your produce lets you down like that? Honestly. This soup has lots of basil in it, too, hence the favoring of spinach green. We ate baked custard from the old-fashioned Better Homes and Garden New Cookbook, p.200. I guess in 1950-something it was "new" because Better Homes seems to go WAY BACK. I love that cookbook, most ladies do, I understand the very old copies get snatched up at flea markets. I personally own two of those, one from each of my grandmothers. But the pages are brittle, they literally crumble in your hands and that's not very good, is it? So when the 1950ish vintage version was reprinted, I snatched it up so fast. Also got a reprint of Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls, from which I use the meatloaf recipe my stepson is so in love with. Also have Better Homes Junior Cookbook for the Hostess and Host of Tomorrow. I think these cookbooks are perfect and if I had no other responsibilities, I would spend every day leisurely perusing them and preparing fabulous dinners, just like Aunt Bea. I so love a dependable family dinner. Once my brother and I and some others were watching a Father Knows Best (or some such show) episode and the family sat down to dinner. I fell into a trace of bliss and I LOVE DINNER slipped from my lips quite by accident. I sort of uttered it in an airy, reverential tone, emphasizing each word. My brother, who was THE FUNNIEST PERSON I EVER MET IN MY LIFE, went into a fit. He howled with laughter and started imitiating me, I LOVE DINNER, I LOVE DINNER. And he, Michael, never let me live it down as long as he lived, which wasn't too much longer. He was the type person who could get you screaming with laughter in 1.3 seconds. He had natural comedic physical expressions and used them liberally since he thrived on creating hilarity. It didn't matter what the subject matter was, the world and everything in it was his comedy stage. His props could be an ordinary pair of salt and pepper shakers on the table, and he'd work them so fast you'd be on the floor rolling around in pain. And he'd keep going. There were times I'd be laughing so hard that I literally could not breathe. I'd clutch my throat, and with what was nearly my last gasp cry, Stop, Stop. It saddens me greatly that he only lived to age 32. A lot of laughter died out when he did.

Speaking of family dinners, my mother did that. She was a naturally good cook, nothing fancy, but she had a knack. Especially with meat. Her meatloaf, pork chops, fried chicken, yummy! She also made the baked custard a lot. And gelatin salads. But her Signature Dish, which made frequent appearances at the dinner table, was 4 ingredients, and also very, very tasty. You won't believe it when I list the 4, but it's true. Ground beef, onions, green pepper and a can of kidney beans. Have you ever? Bang for buck. My Dad said when they were first married her Signature Dish was boiled yellow crookneck squash. Ev-a-ree night. Boy, he can't hack yellow squash anymore - loathes it. It's a good thing meat entered her recipe repertoire, eh? Oh, and her other Signature Dish was baked beans, recipe also courtesy of the good old Better Homes and Garden, p. 300. She took those beans in her blue covered casserole to the annual neighborhood Easter Egg hunt/pot-luck and to picnics at the beach. I was telling my friend about my Mom's good beans, and my friend jumped in and rattled off the ingredients - turns out her mom made the same recipe. I guess everyone's mom did . . . brown sugar, dry mustard, ketchup, bacon. Do you ever long for the simple past? But maybe every kid grows up and longs for his simple past because when you're a kid you just don't get it yet.

Yesterday I was not happy at Gorilla Vacuum Repair. Had to know what became of the gorilla on the roof, and the desk man said, See those two gorillas out front? Yes (and added in my mind, Those puny little imposters). Those are all we've ever had, he says. He acted like there was never a gorilla on the roof. WHAT?????? But now that I'm thinking about it, I think that man is wrong, even if he is the store owner maybe. Maybe I was so discombobulated to hear there was never a giant gorilla on the roof, that I missed something he was saying. But if there ever was a gorilla on the roof, it was definitely one of those two out front. They are human-sized, I went up and examined them closely. They are really only mannequins with a gorilla costume. I could tell that because one of them, who was wearing a lei-like necklace, had the head part of the costume detatched at the neck and it needed to be pulled down, his fake fur face was in danger of blowing off, you could see a couple inches of white plastic neck. Honestly, the least they could do is dress their gorillas well. I'm going to have to call back over there and get them to run this story by me one more time. I need to pin them down because I know I saw a gorilla on the roof at some point, and it's going to take A LOT to convince me otherwise. He did tell me that the kids who stole the gorillas were college girls. They thought a gorilla would look extra good in their dorm. Also, when I asked the repair man how often I should change the bag, he said, When it looks full. I thought that was insolent.

Gots to go,
KEM