by Dawn Lerman
The next day, separate 1 egg and put the yolk aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine the chilled risotto, the egg yolk, and the remaining 1⁄4 cup of Parmesan. Then add the mozzarella and parsley. Stir until all the ingredients are mixed together.
Place the beaten eggs in a large bowl. Next put the flour on a large plate and then the bread crumbs on another large plate. Roll your risotto into balls. Dip each ball into the beaten eggs, then into the flour, then into the bread crumbs. Next, heat up the oil in a large skillet. When the oil is hot, start frying the croquettes. Keep turning them so they are brown on all sides. Remove the risotto balls to paper towel–lined plates. Give a quick blot and then serve.
6
Swapping Moms
Grandma Ethel’s New York Egg Cream, Saucy Susan Chicken Thighs and Legs
Entering the Little Red School House in fourth grade was akin to entering a foreign land. All the girls had long straggly hair past their butts, and the boys did not look that much different. It was 1972, and McGovern was running against Nixon for president. The kids in my new class all seemed to be a walking billboard for the McGovern campaign—sporting several buttons and stickers on their clothes and backpacks. As my first day of school began, a girl with bright red hair and freckles named Marley led me to the circle of students already seated on the floor, and another girl named Robyn handed me a friendship bracelet made from daisies that she’d picked at her country house in Upstate New York. Ginger, the teacher, who we were to call by her first name, instructed us to one by one introduce ourselves. Ginger told us that as we said our name, we should make a hand gesture that represented our inner essence. I made mine with big open arms above my head, representing that I was full of sunshine. When I told the class where I previously lived, David, the boy sitting next to me, said that he was a Cubs fan and proceeded to massage my earlobe. I was paralyzed as this strange, chubby boy with rips in his jeans was touching me, and I was even more amazed that the teacher just kept smiling at him with admiration. In my old school, we were always told to keep our hands on our own body. But here the rules seemed to be different.
Suzanne and I were the only two kids that were new. Suzanne was not from another city like me: she was just transferring from a public school uptown in Washington Heights, which she said felt like a different city. To close the circle and begin our learning day, we all took three deep tummy breaths in unison, honoring the beginning of a new school year. Thoroughly centered, we shook out all the stress from our bodies, then slowly and peacefully walked to our seat of choice, while Ginger hummed the melody to “Kumbaya.”
Ginger, exotic and beautiful, with shiny hair as dark as licorice, began to tell us about the wonderful trip we were going to be taking the next day to the Bronx Zoo. The study of animals and their habitats was going to be our area of concentration for the year. For the trip, we were advised to wear sun hats so we would not get burned, and for a special treat we would be allowed to pack sodas in our lunch boxes since it was supposed to be a really scorching day. I raised my hand and asked, “If we bring ice cream sodas, won’t they spill and melt all over our lunch bags?” Everybody started laughing, and Ginger clarified her statement: “I am sorry. I’m talking about sodas, like Pepsi and 7UP.” In Chicago, those drinks were not called soda, but pop. I felt my face get flushed from embarrassment.
Next we had to line up to go to shop. Shop was something I did with my grandmother on the weekends but never with my class. Little did I know “shop” meant woodworking, which I discovered upon entering the crafts studio. Our shop teacher’s name was Leo; he had long, thinning hair, which was braided, and the longest beard I had ever seen—also braided. Most of my peers had been at the school since they were five, and they were very comfortable in the workshop, sawing and carving away. Some kids were making cabinets, others chairs, and one boy, Jonathan, whom everybody called Hucky, was making a go-cart—that would actually be able to go. I decided I would make a lamp. When Leo asked me if I wanted to shape it like a tree, I said, “Sure. A redwood, maybe.” I was not sure why I decided that, but moments later, I was going through National Geographics looking for pictures to cut out and then trace on three pieces of wood that I would cut with a jigsaw, before carving and chiseling.
Leo not only guided us on our projects, but also talked about activism, speaking passionately about his choice for the next president. Most of the kids, well versed on this subject, had walked in anti–Vietnam War protests in Washington and had raised money for Greenpeace. Some of them had even made inspirational cards for the inmates at the Women’s House of Detention on the corner of Tenth Street and Sixth Avenue, before Mayor Lindsay shut the jail down. Although some of the inmates were actual criminals, many of them were writers, activists, and Communists—including former Little Red student Angela Davis, who fought for racial and social equality.
Recess was next, which was not held at our school but at a vacant lot around the corner. There were no swings, or slides, or monkey bars—just a big open space with basketball hoops and hard, gray concrete, which my head hit within moments of entering, when David knocked me over while playing Poison Ball. Everyone was running around wildly, and I kept getting bumped and hit in the face with the volleyball that was supposedly poisoned. “You’re out, you’re out,” the boys kept shouting. No longer able to take the danger, I removed myself from the chaos. I sat alone, against the warm iron fence that encased the play space, until it was time to go inside for lunch.
Lunch was held in a dingy, hot basement with large exposed pipes and red peeling paint. Following the other kids, I picked up an orange plastic tray and stood on line. A lunch lady plopped hard, crusty, lukewarm macaroni and cheese and mushy green beans onto my plate. I noticed that most of the kids brought their own food in square metal lunch boxes that had their favorite music groups on them, like the Jackson Five, Sonny and Cher, or the Partridge Family.
Hesitantly sitting down at the table filled with giddy girls, Robyn looked at me and said, “You are not really going to eat that, are you?” I did not want to, but I was famished and disoriented. “Don’t worry. I have plenty,” she said, handing me a couple of Wasa crackers with lobster salad that her mother had prepared. They were sweet, creamy, and crunchy all at the same time. When I rolled my eyes in delight, Marley told me I could have some of her lunch too. She offered me a piece of honey-glazed turkey with lettuce, tomato, and Grey Poupon mustard on a French baguette. Both girls assured me that eating the cafeteria food was very risky.
Thanking them for sharing, I explained how much different my school in Chicago was. “We would never address our teachers by their first names. We always had assigned seats. In the morning, we would trace cursive letters in English, and in the afternoon, we practiced writing sentences in Hebrew—from right to left—instead of left to right. Before we ate our lunch, we always said a prayer, and the food was always kosher, always delicious, and always blessed by the rabbi.” Marley and Robyn were both Jewish but never said a Hebrew prayer before eating and didn’t know how to write the letters. I showed them how to make a blessing over the food and write the first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
Robyn informed me that her parents were divorced, and whenever she went to her dad’s, they would go to an amazing restaurant called the Palm, where they would order giant two-and-a-half-pound lobsters. Whatever was leftover from dinner, Robyn would bring home to her mother, who would make it into a lobster salad for her lunch the next day by adding chopped dates, pears, and mayonnaise so she would have something mouthwatering and special. Marley confided that her mother was usually working and suffered from bad headaches so she often made her own lunch or bought a sandwich from Zabar’s near where she lived on the Upper West Side.
Both Robyn and Marley were extremely friendly, and by the end of the first day they had made me feel like I was a part of their group. They even invited me into their secret clubhouse under Ginger’s desk, where, during free time, th
ey congregated to trade Wacky Pack stickers. Robyn gave me some of her duplicates so I could start my own collection. I couldn’t wait to purchase the stickers and show them to my dad, since they parodied everyday consumer products—like the kind he wrote commercials for. Some of the funniest ones were Grave Train Dog Food, Hurts Tomato Paste, Tied Laundry Detergent, and Hawaiian Punks Juice. Robyn’s collection was the most impressive in the class since she was allowed to buy a pack every day. If she was with her mom, she would be allowed to purchase one or two packs, but when she was with her dad, he always bought her five packs at a time—even allowing her to chew the stale gum that came with them.
Arriving home, I began rambling about everything that had occurred. I was so excited to share my day with my mother. “Slow down, slow down,” she insisted. “I can’t understand a word of what you are saying.”
“I need to pack a lunch, and I need some money for stickers so I can be a part of the club that hangs out under the teacher’s desk. Please, please, please, can we go to the Palm so we can make lobster salad for lunch?”
My mom quickly went from confused to aggravated to ballistic. “Are you out of your mind? The Palm? Lobster salad for lunch? Did you do any reading? What did you learn? And why were you under your teacher’s desk?” My mom’s tirade squashed my excitement.
“I learned a lot, I just need some money for stickers and lunch.”
“I have already paid for school lunch.”
“But it is disgusting. Nobody eats it!”
I told her what my friends brought for lunch, and she said, “They must be snobs. What kind of spoiled child brings lobster for lunch?” But it was not lobster, it was lobster salad, and they were not snobs—just the opposite; they were really generous and warm. Why couldn’t my mother understand that?
When Beauty phoned to find out about my new school, I fibbed. I knew she was worried about me, so I told her that my new school was great . . . which was kind of true. But I also told her the school food was wonderful. “You would be happy; we always have a vegetable with our entrée.” And I guess that was kind of true too—except the vegetables were just canned, salty, and inedible.
I eventually figured out how to pack my own lunch despite my mother’s protests and lack of interest. I had the twenty-dollar bill my grandmother sent me along with her weekly recipe card. I could shop, cook, and bring the leftovers to school. It was a lesson in ingenuity, independence, and survival. I was also learning to budget, which coincided nicely with what I was learning in school. In math, instead of having worksheets with tons of multiplication problems to memorize, we were given a fake checkbook and taught how to balance it.
Everything at Little Red was different from my old school in Chicago. They did not care about periods and commas, as long as you were expressing yourself when you wrote—luckily I had a lot to express. For homework, there were no books to take home, nothing that required sitting and memorizing. We were assigned to walk around the neighborhood pretending we were reporters asking questions about businesses and the history of stores and landmarks. We learned writing, math, and current events by asking questions like who, what, why, where, and when—culminating in the creation of a class newspaper. “The city is part of our classroom,” Ginger would say, and I loved it! While my mother did not understand me, she found me a school where they absolutely did.
But both my parents were pretty much uninvolved when it came to school. They were not like Robyn’s parents, who would always volunteer to chaperone on class trips and would always be involved in classroom projects.
Unlike Marley’s parents or mine, Robyn’s parents were very attentive and were always around—devoted to every aspect of her life. Robyn was an only child, and her parents were recently separated, so her parents were worried that she was lonely. Both parents were always more than happy to entertain Robyn and her friends after school. Marley and I were always happy to oblige.
Robyn’s dad was in advertising like my dad. He even was a fan of my dad’s work, telling me my father was a genius creative director, quoting his famous tagline for Schlitz: “Go for the Gusto.” But unlike my dad, scheduling time to hang out with Robyn and her friends seemed to be his top priority. As soon as she walked out of the classroom, he would hug her tightly and fling her onto his shoulders. Marley and I would shout to her, “Duck your head, duck your head,” as we exited the building, because he was super-tall. Sometimes, after school, he would buy all the kids in the class ice cream from the Mister Softee truck. While Robyn was on his shoulders, her vanilla cone would drip onto his wavy locks, but he never seemed to mind. Everything she did, he smiled in delight. I occasionally wondered if my dad didn’t come to school because he was self-conscious of his size or if he was just too busy. I never asked or complained—but I thought Robyn was lucky.
I loved spending time with Robyn’s dad. I learned a lot about gourmet ingredients and cooking from him. He lived on Ninth Street and Sixth Avenue, above Balducci’s market, which specialized in upscale foods from around the world. And when we went to his house after school to do homework, he always had a spread of exotic fruits, like pomegranates, kiwis, and ladyfinger apples for snacks. If I was allowed to stay for dinner—which I usually was, unless I had to pick up April from preschool—he would show off his culinary skills by making Spinach Fettuccini Alfredo with real cream and butter or Caesar Salad with Portuguese anchovies, homemade croutons, and coddled eggs, so the yolk becomes thick and warm. I never made the fettuccini for my dad, but the salad with the anchovy dressing I made often, adding extra anchovies and eliminating the croutons. My dad’s diets changed constantly, but the elimination of bread seemed to be a universal theme in most of the diets he was on.
While I loved going to both Robyn’s mom’s and her dad’s house, she equally loved coming to my house—although I could not figure out why. She said it was so much fun playing with April, and it was hard being the center of attention and being fussed over all the time. After being best buddies for many months and sleeping at each other’s houses constantly, we came up with the brilliant idea to switch lives for a week. I was in awe of all the restaurants she went to with her dad, and how her mother tucked her in bed with a story every night. She loved the fact that I was not an only child, and my mother did not ask me questions every minute or rely on me for friendship or her own happiness.
Telling our mothers our brilliant plan, we were shocked when they both agreed to the idea, thinking it would help us to appreciate how lucky we each were. Whenever I felt upset about something, my mother would scream at me, “You are so spoiled; if you really want something to feel sorry about, I will leave you in the gutter with the rats for a night, and then you will really have something to feel sorry for.” Robyn’s mother would constantly tell her how she retired from the soap opera As the World Turns to raise her because her own mother had to clean houses to support her when she was a child and so she was never around. She wanted to be present for Robyn and did not want to miss one second of her childhood. Everything Robyn did or said seemed to be a monumental event for her.
Since Robyn and I had become friends, our moms, although their parenting styles were different, found they had a lot in common and also became friends. They both loved theater, poetry, and astrology, and struggled to find themselves with men who were immersed in the fast life of advertising, where spouses were usually not included in their social lives. Brenda, Robyn’s mom, was very political and convinced my mom to work alongside her on the McGovern campaign. My mom rallied Robyn’s mom, who was devastated about her separation, to go to the theater and dinner with her at night when Robyn was with her dad. My mom always had a two-for-one coupon for everything, and now she had someone to use them with.
They seemed to admire and respect each other for their common interests and their differences. For a New Year’s resolution, they both read the self-actualizing book Fear of Flying by Erica Jong, which I used to hear them debate a
bout late at night.
After a lot of conversations, the plan to switch moms was actually coming to fruition, with some compromises. Robyn was going to spend four nights at my house, and I was going to spend four nights at her mom’s apartment. Robyn would help with April, and I would help train Robyn’s new pet rock, which she promised wouldn’t bite me.
When I blurted out the plan to my grandmother, she thought my mother had gone more crazy than usual and couldn’t believe her daughter would agree to such a cockamamie plan. But our parents did agree. While Robyn was having second thoughts, I couldn’t wait to have a home-cooked meal and be kissed good night—something Robyn’s mother always did.
On the first day, I felt very awkward sitting at the little half table next to the kitchen wall in her mom’s living room, where I used to always sit with Robyn. Now her mom and I were sitting there talking about my day, sorting my stickers, caressing her pet rock, and looking at the book Where Did I Come From?—which had explicit illustrated pictures of body parts.
Robyn’s parents were very free and comfortable with their bodies—they were both nudists, along with Robyn’s Grandma Ethel. The entire family walked around the house nude, even in front of guests. I remember the first time Robyn’s mom answered the door without any clothes on—my face went white. Robyn told me it was normal, and her dad would walk around naked all the time too, but fortunately he never did this when I was at his apartment. While I had never seen a grown-up’s bare body before, I thought my mom would appreciate the fact that they saved a lot of money on buying clothes.