You've got to love a guy who liked green Jello, don't you?!! I sure did. But, Dad was not the big exotic foodie I am. Did he love food? Yes. Was he, consequently, an adventurous eater, always trying new things? No, a resounding no! And he was always being teased and cajoled by my mother, who couldn't figure out how anyone could hate eggplant. My sisters didn't like trying new foods either and how could my mother complain when our own father was what my mother and I regarded as a poster boy for gastronomical mediocrity? I felt a great amount of pride when I was very young and my mother told friends and family that I was "the daughter who'll try anything. A wonderful eater." I'm even more glad now, because those words probably were the ones which encouraged me to want to try the more exotic dishes throughout my life. I felt it was a slight betrayel to Dad, but what six year old doesn't like to have their mother bragging about them? My father was better than your normal "meat and potatoes" man, but only a little.
Dad loved a good chili size, spaghetti and meatballs, and beef stew, but they'd better have no garlic that he knows about or can taste. And not too much onion. The area of food was, perhaps, the only area my parents were diametrically different. I'm positive my mother never, ever even saw a chili size and, if she had, she would have added garlic to it and had raw chopped onions piled on top.
Most business people like to eat lunch out. Not Dad. He took the sports page reverantly out of the L.A. Times each morning, read the rest of the paper with a bowl of corn flakes, waffles, or fried eggs and bacon, kissed Mom, and left, briefcase, blueprints and sports page in hand. The sports page was saved for the hour at Clifton's cafeteria or the greasy spoon nearest one of the job sites he would be around at noon. Dad was a contractor, besieged by plumbing, electrical, drywall, lumber, and all the other disciplines' subcontractors all day, not to mention the client. His hour of food, Don Drysdale and Gale Goodrich was hallowed, and alone. It was to the cafeteria that he took me to one summer's day when I worked at his office while his secretary, Bee, was on vacation.
"Come on," he said, "I'll take you to lunch." I thought we'd go to the Golden Lantern, a place down Laurel Canyon Boulevard, dark inside, with good steaks and spaghetti, or the Shakey's next door, because I love pizza. Instead, we drove ten minutes to a surprise destination. All he would tell me was that it was "special."
It was. A very special cafeteria. At least the senior citizens getting out of the bus in front must have thought so. Dad and I lowered the average age to seventy when we walked in. I remember lots of rounded chrome chairs, chrome counters, red/orange patent leather upholstery, and a black and white tiled floor. I think there was a mural too, a large abstract of lime green, bright turquoise and orange cut glass. (and no, I am NOT that old! It was retro.......or, probably, it hadn't been redone in all those years!!!)
I knew Dad was giving up the sports page for me, so that cheered me up! To tell you the truth, I was so happy to have Dad all to myself, I would have smiled if he'd taken me over to the office hotplate and we'd shared a Cup o'Soup, if it had been invented yet.
I followed Dad and the chink-chink noise that came from his keys bouncing in his pocket, up to the counters full of green jello, cold rolls, bowls of mashed potatoes and gravy and salad plates covered with plastic, He got serious, filled with awe. "Today, the special is stuffed peppers. Mmmmmm, they're real good here, Z." He introduced me to the lady behind the peppers. "Or, you can have any of the things down there, like tuna casserole, that's not too bad, real good short ribs, or rice with creamed chicken on it." We both had the stuffed peppers. And they were pretty good. It certainly wasn't the best food I ever ate, but, in some ways, it was the best lunch I ever had.
The only slightly uncomfortable moments Mom and Dad ever showed us in their very happy marriage were over the dinner table! Mom would have prepared her terrific beef stew, large chunks of beef dredged in flour before they hit the pan, carrots, potatoes, and celery (about the only time I like it cooked). She served it with fluffy white Parker House Rolls which were delicious when you sopped them in the thick gravy the flour helped create in the hours the stew simmered. It even got more scrumptious when you had put a little bit of butter on the roll first. The uncomfortable moment came when Dad would smile, then look sheepish. "I had beef stew at the cafeteria today, too." He didn't really mind, I'm sure, but he had to tease her because she always got grouchy and complained when he said that, as if she’d given him the same thing for Christmas that somebody else had, the surprise was ruined! Of course, he always said that Mom's stew, short ribs or corned beef and cabbage were better, and they definitely were.
In their forty-four years of marriage, Mom got Dad to actually like eggplant, avocadoes, only if they were in guacamole, fish (only bass, halibut, salmon and sand dabs), a little garlic in some things, some spicy sauces, and caviar, which was quite a feat considering the fact that one of his favorite snacks from his childhood was a piece of Weber's white bread with catsup on it.
The last thing Dad had, around eleven o'clock on the morning he died, was an ice cream float, he loved vanilla or strawberry ice cream with 7-up. After we got back from the hospital.... without him...... my numb brain took in the empty glass at the coffee table where he'd last put it down, the dried foam from the mixture of seven-up and ice cream still filmy on the glass. I took out the straw and I have it still, these 14 years later.
So, though Dad did love food, he wasn't what some people call a gourmet. But I'll bet those people can't get nearly as excited over stuffed peppers, spaghetti, beef stew, or catsup on Weber's bread, as he could. That's a gift. One he gave to me. As much as I love to cook exotic or time consuming recipes, people laugh that my favorite types of food are spaghetti and meatballs or macaroni and cheese. I proudly carry that gift, one of so many more important ones I got from my Dad, but I’m a foodie and wanted to share this particular gift today, on Father’s Day. I cherish that gift almost as much as I cherish that blue and white striped straw from that final vanilla float.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad……I love you as much now as I ever did.
And HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all you fathers out there. For you young ones, remember that everything you say to your kids and do with your kids will be remembered, even the things you wouldn't have thought, like green Jello at the cafeteria. Make them good.
