MEET THE PARENTS: FIRE AND ICE

A couple of weekends ago, Meghan's boyfriend, Ben, came to St. Louis to meet the family. He's from Syracuse, NY and thoughtfully brought an ice storm with him. Not the best hostess gift, but what are you going to do?




He and Meghan stayed at Meghan's dad's house for the weekend and Jenni and Tim stayed with me; after sliding into St. Louis Friday night. Jenni said they drove the entire way in the ice storm. Correction; the last half hour they travelled in a driving rainstorm. After they got here, the temperature dropped and everything froze.

The next morning, I was to host a brunch so Ben could meet my family. We had everything perfectly planned. What's that saying, Man Plans, God Laughs.

(It is important to know that twice in 2006, I was without power after storms. Once in July and I was out of power over night. The second time was the ice storm in early December when the power was out for 2 nights. I was fortunate as a number of my friends were without power for nearly a week.)

Saturday morning, I woke up around 6:00 am and had this little conversation with myself.

Me: Thank heaven I didn't lose power in the storm.

Me: How do you know you didn't lose power? Your eyes are still closed.

Me: I know because it's still warm in the house.

Me: You know you are going to have to open you eyes soon and see for sure.

Me: (sigh) (I open my eyes and look at the clock. Dark. I turn on the bedside lamp. Nothing)

Me and Me in Unison: Crap!!

Jenni got up soon after I did. She was awake at 5:30 in the morning when she heard the transformer blow and already knew the power was out. Options were discussed and it was decided we'd pack up everything and go over to her dad's for the brunch. She did call him to let him know that was happening, but he was already at a seminar he was attending that day.

We woke up Tim who happily went out to chip a Grand Prix out of a maroon block of ice. And when I say "happily", I'm lying. He really really wanted to be sleeping. Really.

We got to the ex's and I started preparing the apple-stuffed French toast, oven-fried brown-sugar bacon and cantaloupe and berry fruit salad. Jenni and Meghan helped with peeling apples for the filling, and with preparing the cantaloupe and berry fruit salad. Tim showered and Ben kept us company in the kitchen.

As I was putting the French toast into the oven to bake, I noticed there was some debris in the bottom of the oven from a prior culinary dust-up. This was out of the norm for my ex, but I was there to cook, not judge.

After the French toast had cooked for half of its time, I opened the oven door, coughed at the smoke that came out of the oven from the stuff on the oven floor, and put the topping on the casserole. It was made with butter, brown sugar, pecans and flour. I thought the smoke was just from the stuff on the bottom of the oven burning off and it would be no problem.

I put everything back into the oven, closed the door and started making the sausage. Jenni walked into the kitchen and exclaimed at how smoky it was. Then she yelled, "FIRE!" and pointed at the oven. Through the glass in the oven door, we could see a lovely fire merrily crackling away underneath my beautiful apple-stuffed French toast.

Jenni dashed out to ask her sister for a fire extinguisher. I opened the pantry door and found one. I opened the oven door, pulled the extinguisher's pin, counted to three and lobbed ---- oh. wait. That's for hand grenades.

I opened the oven door, pulled the pin, and aimed the extinguisher at the base of the flames.

Pfft. Some white foamy stuff trickled into the oven. It was like spraying an almost-empty can of whipped cream.

I shook the extinguisher and tried again. Pfft.

OK, third time. SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! Finally! Sheesh. And all of this time as the house was filling up with smoke, we heard this from the smoke detector:

Detector: silence.

Jenni ran into the kitchen and applauded my efforts. I took the French Toast out of the oven and set it on the counter. It was now covered in a white dust. I announced brunch was ruined and we'd have to go out. Jenni said the meal looked delicious. I pointed out that the topping was fire extinguisher chemicals, not powdered sugar.

"Oh," she said.

As each person arrived in the kitchen, they too said the meal looked good and were also disappointed to find out the real name of the garnish.

Tim arrived with my parents, none of them knowing what had happened and coughing at the rather thick air.

Smoke detector: silence

They, too, marveled at how delicious the French toast looked.

I marveled at how much smoke can build up before the smoke detector would go off.

So a half hour later, we were placing our orders at a local restaurant and then we returned to the crime scene the girls' dad's house to clean up the oven. And stuff.

When we walked into the house, we noticed we didn't smell anything unusual. In fact, it smelled like someone was broiling steaks. Also, I noticed a picture Meghan had made for her dad for Christmas. She had taken a photograph of the three of them; (Dad, Meghan and Jenni), shellacked it on a tile and added text that said "Families are a gift from God; as much of a gift to them as to you. Or something like that. Meghan gave me a similar picture, only with the girls and me. And the text on mine said "Families are like fudge; sweet with a few nuts."

"HEY!" I exclaimed. "How come he gets God and I get the nuts?"

Jenni just looked at me and said, "I can't believe you are asking that today."



Jenni and Tim scrub away.


Ben helps Jenni inspect the oven.)

We got the oven and kitchen looking better than it did before. We discussed the fact that since the house smelled like broiling steaks; and everything looked fine, that their dad didn't need to be told that I tried to burn up his oven. But Jenni was our weak link and insisted he be told.

So I left and went back to my home where power had been restored (YAY). The girls baked some chocolate chip cookies to help fill the house with more good smells. Jenni put the plate of freshly baked cookies in front of her dad and then told him what happened.

Oddly, he was OK with his ex wife's culinary disaster when he wasn't at home. Go figure.

But more important we all got to meet the unflappable Ben who handled ice, fire, and nuts very nicely.



Epilogue: I e-mailed my ex early the next week to offer to replace the fire extinguisher. He said I didn't need to worry about it. I mentioned that it appeared to have been really low anyway and mentioned that the smoke detector (which is hard-wired into the house) wasn't working properly. I pointed out that I had alerted him to these malfunctions and hopefully avoided a disaster. Basically, I saved his life.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

(And he didn't even say "Thank you!")

CHRISTMAS BY JENNI

Once upon a time, in a land far away (Chicago in the early 1980's), I had embroidered small wall hangings for the Italian aunts who hosted the family Christmas dinners, Auntie Julia (a/k/a Auntie Cheech) and Auntie Yolle. The embroidered work had a white background with "Christmas by Julia" and "Christmas by Yolle" embroidered in red. My daughters told me their aunts hung up the small ovals every Christmas, even after I was no longer a part of the family.

Those two dear souls have since left us; Julia passed away several years ago and Yolanda left us a year ago last August. The legacy they left was wonderful memories of Christmas featuring their homemade ravioli. Neither one had daughters, and Yolle's sons have no interest in cooking, yet their nieces and grandnieces have picked up the baton and have continued the tradition.

Aunties Cheech and Yolle spent about three days on the preparations; one day for the filling, one day for the pasta and filling them; and one day for the sauce. When they could no longer manage it on their own, it took several nieces, sisters and sisters-in-law to help out. It takes a village to make the meal. Well, several villages; Elmwood Park, River Forest, Lake Forest, Des Plaines and Hinsdale. From the stories I've heard, a wonderful bonding experience.




This year is Jenni's and Tim's first Christmas in their new home and Jenni wanted to continue the tradition, even though the preparations would be made with the non-Italian side of the family. But once upon a time, I did have personal instructions from Auntie Yolle on how to make the ravioli.

Jenni had the filling ready by the time we got there, and that Saturday, we prepared the pasta.


Jenni prepares the dough......

.....and starts kneading it.


Then the rolling started.



Jenni kept imitating her aunts; "Tinner, tinner!" she'd say. "If you tink it's tin enough, keep rolling to make it tinner."




Tim's t-shirt either expressed his thoughts on the process or he was early for Talk Like A Pirate Day. (Actually, it was the name of his basketball team)



Mom and Meghan filled the raviolis and cut and crimped them. Mom had difficulty getting into it. We had just started rolling out the dough and she said, "If this doesn't work, we can always make a pot roast."




We assured her it WAS going to work.

She also mentioned that McDonald's was going to be closed on Christmas Day and suggested a back-up plan.

We've always accused her kidded around about the fact that my sister Carol is the Golden Child. She can do no wrong. During the rolling process, Mom mentioned that Carol prepared the perfect Christmas dinner when she and Dad were there the week before; she popped a frozen lasagna into the oven and didn't have to deal with the fuss and muss. But then, Mom and Carol don't enjoy cooking, whereas I do and Jenni and Meghan are developing nicely in that area.







But we wore Mom out and she headed for the couch.



And then.......... it was Christmas morning!



Jenni also prepared another traditional meal in her family; Christmas breakfast of Aebelskivers, fried apples and bacon.



I was usually the first one awake in the morning and asked Jenni if there was anything she wanted me to start when I woke up. She told me that she could handle it. Christmas morning, she was awake before I was. My assignment was cooking the bacon and sausage. Other than asking me a couple of questions, Jenni handled the fried apples and aebelskivers herself and did a wonderful job.

Later, Tim confided in me that Jenni set her alarm to make sure she was up before me to make sure I didn't get things started before her.

And then it was time for the presents:






By the way, you may have noticed the presence of a dog.



This is Sammy. I accused Jenni and Tim of renting a dog for the holidays, but they were dog sitting. They were also cat sitting, but they didn't have the cat at the house; Tim went to the cat's home every morning and evening. I always thought cats were fairly self-reliant, but this cat needs specially prepared food and apparently is a bit of a diva. Jenni mentioned that in their small town, those that stay at home for the holidays end up doing the pet sitting.

They did enjoy having Sammy and are considering getting a dog. Even though it means getting up early in the morning for dog chores.

For the early morning walk, Jenni "walked the dog" by standing on the steps to the deck holding the leash while Sammy did the walking in the back yard.





















And then it was time for the ravioli.



They were good. Since my parents didn't seem overwhelmed by the idea, we also prepared steaksoup as a back-up for them.


Meghan sneaks in with the devilled eggs she prepared.




Following dinner, there were the traditional post-pasta comas....




And then the football game.



The next morning, we all headed to the airport and went in different directions; Jenni and Tim to Florida, Mom and Dad to Texas to visit my younger sister Janice, and Meghan and I back to St. Louis.

I think for future ravioli making, I'm going to buy a pasta machine. It has no difficulty with the "tinner tinner" and your arms don't hurt as much the next day. (I left that part out. Our arms were KILLING us. On top of that, Meghan put guns to our heads and made Jenni and I go to the gym and work out, so other muscles were sore as well.) For the purists in the crowd, the pasta machine I have in mind is made by Italians. I'm willing to loan it out and would ask for nothing in return.

Except for the family brigidini recipe.

:)