Posted tagged ‘Chinese sausage’

“Every day my mother had tea. My dad has his ritual cigar. They had their evening cocktail. Those rituals were done nicely, with flair and feeling.”

March 27, 2017

Today is chilly, damp and cloudy. Last night it rained, and the ground is still wet. More rain is expected today. My dance card is empty so I’m staying close to hearth and home. I’m declaring today a sloth day. It’s a sit on the couch, watch TV, and snack day. It is comfy clothes including a sweatshirt that has seen better days. It is not fit for public viewing.

It has been a quiet news day. The front page of the Globe had only a single Trump article, and it was at the bottom of the page: “Trump girds for tax fight and Prepares to reverse Obama climate plan.”

When I’d visit my mother, she and I had rituals. We’d sit for hours at the kitchen table playing Big Boggle. We’d order take out for dinner. She paid and I picked up. On Saturday, we did some shopping. Both she and I liked off-beat places, never a mall. Sometimes we’d venture afar. One Saturday we went as far as North Conway, and we shopped and had lunch. We were gone so long my father figured we were lost, wandering aimlessly from backroad to backroad. Little did he realize that my mother and I loved backroads, even when we had no idea where we’d end up. On Saturday night, depending on the season, my father barbecued. It was always a couple of different meats, chips, a potato salad or pepper and egg. Chinese sausage was the favorite meat one year, but my mother’s marinated steak tips were perennial favorites. On Sunday morning my dad went out early for donuts. He was a plain donut guy, and he spread butter on it. He’d then start cooking breakfast. It was always eggs, bacon and toast. The eggs were easy over and the bacon crispy. I’d sit at the kitchen table to keep him company    Sometimes I was on toast duty. Sunday afternoons were for cribbage. When I won, it was the luck of the draw. When my dad won, it was expertise. I lived to skunk him.

“Men cook outside. Women make the three-bean salad.”

June 9, 2014

On the weather front, today is warm but cloudy. On the tooth front, my dentist is out-of-town. The ice skate extraction from Castaway is beginning to have some appeal, and all the movies I’ve seen with crazed dentists are flashing through my memory banks. The worst is the scene in The Marathon Man when SS dentist Szell tortures Dustin Hoffman by sticking a probe into his teeth. I swear I screamed along with Dustin. Dentists are never heroes.

I have a former student who is an oral surgeon. I called his office, whined a little and mentioned the ice skates so they are seeing me at two, but I suspect I’ll have to wait until Thursday for any work because of the blood thinner I take. Okay, I’m done with the teeth talk. It’s creeping me out!

Today is quiet. The birds are the only sounds I hear. The neighborhood is deserted. I like it quite after the hubbub of the weekend.

During the summer, we didn’t have too many Sunday family dinners. The kitchen was small and keeping the oven on made the room swelter. Mostly we had barbecues, meat cooked outside but eaten inside. My dad would put his grill by the back steps so he could sit and read while the meat cooked. He used charcoal briquets as did most backyard cooks back then. My dad was a member of the use as much charcoal lighter fluid as you can school of thought. The height of the flames determined status. My dad was king.

When we moved down the cape and had a large yard, my dad would sit on a wooden lawn chair and tend his grill. He’d have a few drinks. Every now and then we’d hear the whoosh of the flames and knew fluid had been added then we’d check to make sure my dad hadn’t set himself on fire. He did that on occasion.

When they moved off Cape, the new house also had a big yard, and my father assumed his rightful position outside keeping an eye on the meat. He liked to use both a hibachi and a grill to accommodate the growing offerings as the menu had expanded well beyond hot dogs and hamburgers of my childhood. Now he cooked chicken, steak tips, Chinese sausages, kielbasa and even pork tenderloins.

What amazed me was that my father always cooked the meat just right despite the fires and the flames and the pops of his favorite alcohol passed to him through the open window. He was the backyard master of the grill.