My Fat Dad

by Dawn Lerman

  I first became acquainted with Olga a couple weeks after transferring into the school. She saw me sneak into the cafeteria during April’s lunch period. I was eyeing what April chose to put on her tray. If I wasn’t there to remind April, she would often just choose grilled cheese or a jelly sandwich and forget to eat something healthy. If I noticed April didn’t have any vegetables or fruit on her tray, I would run up in the line and grab a couple of carrots, a slice of melon, and a few pieces of broccoli, and add them to her tray. April usually looked bothered, and her friends teased her, saying she had a weird sister who spied on her. I told the girls, “It is very important to eat fruits and vegetables every day if you want to grow up smart and beautiful.” Most of the time April would stick up for me, saying I was not weird, but just a big worrywart, which is what my mother always called me. One afternoon when Olga caught me fussing with April’s plate, she warned me that I had to wait until my own lunch period to enter the cafeteria; otherwise, I would be reported to my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Grand, for sneaking out of math class.

  “But April will get a headache and will be cranky if she doesn’t eat enough, and if her vegetables are not cut really small, and if her orange is not peeled and sectioned for her, she will not eat it.”

  “Go back to your classroom. Nobody is going to starve or get malnourished in my lunchroom.”

  Seeing the look of fear on my face, she smiled, assuring me that she would fill April’s plate personally. After that day, I noticed that she also seemed to add extra vegetables to my tray. I felt like we had an unspoken bond, one that did not require words.

  Since the Jim incident and the discovery of an apparent lack of parental guidance at home, Mr. Frank, the principal, thought it would be beneficial for me to visit the school psychologist, Ms. Thurman, who was always waiting for me to confess something horrible and disturbing about my home life. She would sit there in her big chair, with her pleated, black pin-striped suit, and just glare at me. I never spoke. After several sessions where she tried to bond with me over a game of checkers, she told me she would not blame me if I had a deep resentment toward my mother and sister for abandoning me. “It’s okay to express your rage here,” she would say, setting out a little plastic robot that I could throw fake punches at.

  “I love my sister. I’m the one who helped her get the role as an orphan. And I’m excited for her, not jealous or angry.”

  “I see,” she always responded.

  I hated how coldly she looked at me, thinking she knew how I felt. She clearly had no clue. I loved my sister and I worried about her constantly. I felt sorry for Ms. Thurman, thinking that maybe she had never loved somebody so much that she didn’t understand sacrifice. Week after week, I sat there, feeling like a therapy failure. I knew she wanted me to scream, to cry, to have some kind of emotional outburst. But every time she said in her stoic voice, “How does that make you feel?” the only feeling I had was wanting to escape from her small, claustrophobic torture chamber that smelled like mothballs and diner coffee.

  The sessions were supposed to offer me some kind of relief and support, but they did just the opposite. The more Ms. Thurman wanted me to reveal, the more I felt I needed to conceal. She wrote down everything I said or did not say, scribbling her observations on her yellow lined legal pad. The more she questioned me with her dark beady eyes, her canned questions, and her false sense of empathy, the more I froze. I did not tell her that my dad often did not come home, that I wished I had some kind of talent, that I thought my sister didn’t need me anymore, and how this was killing me inside. I could not tell her that I was completely alone, and I just wanted someone to love me, to take care of me. I could not tell her that I was insecure and not popular. I could not tell her anything that would get my parents in trouble or compromise my sister’s career or make me seem weak.

  Olga never asked me direct questions about my family, but she engaged me in conversation by asking me what I thought of the lunch. Did I like the turkey as an open-faced sandwich with gravy or did I like it better served with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce? Did I like the hamburger meat ground in a rich tomato sauce or did I prefer it as a burger? Olga never wanted me to yes her or gratuitously compliment her cooking. She seemed genuinely interested in my opinion and what I had to say—and I definitely had a lot to say when it came to preparing food. I even offered her some suggestions on ways to make her delicious recipes healthier without compromising the taste, like using fresh garlic and chicken broth in her mashed potatoes instead of butter and cream. She encouraged my input, and my words effortlessly flowed when I was with her.

  Olga always seemed amused by my stories. We talked about my grandmother, my visits with April, and the lavish cast parties with the most incredible spreads of food—and my dad, who was forever dieting. Olga could relate to my dad’s struggles and was impressed with my healthy diet tips. Like my dad, she was overweight and loved hearing about new diets—even though she had no time or real motivation to diet herself. When people looked at her, they could instantly see she loved food, and she didn’t mind that. She also could never imagine cooking without sampling everything she made.

  “When Olga makes something, you know it is delicious,” she professed, having me taste the goulash with tender chunks of beef, onions, celery, and tons of real paprika. Never McCormick in Olga’s recipes. “A goulash is only as good as the paprika,” she’d say, writing down the address of where to buy the key ingredient. “Schaller and Weber has more than ten different varieties of paprika,” she’d add in her quiet voice. I never heard Olga talk so softly, but I guess the secret to her goulash was not for all ears to hear. “Remember to purchase one sweet and one sharp paprika, and make sure to tell them Olga sent you.”

  Olga loved that I was inquisitive and valued the importance of her life’s work. “Cooking food that children look forward to is hard work. I love watching the children gobbling down my food, cleaning their plates even if it is something they have never seen before like roulades—thin slices of beef rolled with sour pickles and mustard.”

  Olga told me that both her daughters grew up watching her cook and enjoying her food, but neither of them ever showed any real interest in learning to do it themselves. They had bigger dreams. “Magda is now an accountant and Heike a corporate lawyer. With their big fancy jobs, they can barely boil an egg or water for themselves.” I told her I spent every Sunday making care packages of baked goods for April. Olga would just pat my head, telling me she knew how much I loved and missed my sister.

  I did love my sister, and the idea of being jealous, which the therapist suggested, never occurred to me. “How can you be jealous of someone you love?” I asked Olga.

  “When you are different, people try to put you into a box or define you in a way they can understand. Ms. Thurman is a very nice woman, doing her job the best way she knows how. We all do what we know how.”

  Although she never said it, I felt that Olga’s relationship with her own children was probably not as close as she would like. She had pictures of them next to her food supply list on the corkboard near the refrigerator, and she talked incessantly about how brilliant and successful they were, and how proud she was of them. But in all the years she worked at the school, they never visited, and when she spoke about them, I thought there was a longing or a sense of despair. Whenever Olga and I would have emotional moments, she would tell me she needed to get back to work and I should try to spend some time with friends my own age. “It is not healthy to spend so much time with an old woman.”

  Olga encouraged me to make more plans with the girls in my class after school. “Ask Sarah to bake with you. I used to see you girls sitting together all the time at lunch.”

  Sarah had been my best friend in seventh grade. But now, in eighth grade, she was more concerned with being popular. When we first met, we bonded instantly as we were both new to the school, we were both shy, and we were both the shortest
girls in the class; but now Sarah wore makeup, and she was all chummy with the popular girls.

  “Just because she is friends with other girls does not mean she can’t be friends with you.”

  Serving me a heaping bowl of the banana pudding, Olga said, “Sometimes you have to look outside of yourself. You have no idea what is going on in someone’s life unless you ask. And you cannot expect people to know what is going on in your head unless you tell them.”

  “Everyone and everything is changing and I am not sure how I feel about anything.”

  “Why don’t you help me roll the dough for the biscuits?” As we put them in the oven and watched them rise, she said, “Things are always changing. And change is not bad, but necessary.

  “You are changing, your sister is changing, but that does not mean your relationship will not be as special. She is enjoying her life, and you need to enjoy yours. It will not make you love her any less. I will see you at lunch tomorrow, but not before or after!”

  Olga packed some warm rolls in a round Tupperware container. “Use the container to send the cookies to April. It is airtight and will keep them fresh longer than tin foil and a shipping box.”

  For the next week, I did not visit Olga. I just went home after school and moped, until finally I gathered the courage to ask Sarah if I could go with her, Natalie, and Lauren to Mariella’s for pizza. While they were all wearing blue eye shadow and had cut their long hair into Farrah Fawcett flips, they were still the same girls as last year, deciding who would host a weekend sleepover, who they thought would make the volleyball team, who loved Olga’s banana pudding the best, and who was most likely to be the class president.

  During my next therapy session with Dr. Thurman, I realized that one of Olga’s greatest gifts was not just her cooking—delicious though it was—but rather her ability to make each and every child feel special and cared for without words or questions. Each girl believed she was Olga’s favorite, and for once, I was not the exception.

  Beef Goulash

  Yield: 6–8 servings

  3 tablespoons flour

  3 teaspoons Hungarian fine sweet paprika, divided

  2 pounds stew meat (chunks)

  4 tablespoons butter

  Fat from 4 ounces of bacon or 4 tablespoons oil

  2 garlic cloves, minced

  1 large onion, peeled and diced

  2 celery stalks, chopped

  1⁄2 cup red wine

  3 teaspoons tomato paste

  32 ounces beef broth

  Salt and pepper, to taste

  1 teaspoon hot paprika

  2 bay leaves

  Dollop of sour cream, for garnish

  In a small bowl, mix together the flour and a generous teaspoon of the sweet paprika. Dust the beef stew chunks with the flour and paprika. Mix and toss it so that all the pieces are well coated. In a heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter on medium heat. Add a generous tablespoon of the bacon fat to the butter, to keep it from burning. Fry the meat pieces in small batches on high heat and brown them on all sides.

  Scoop out the beef and set it aside on a plate. Repeat until all the beef is browned. Add some more butter to the same pot. Toss in the garlic and onion and sauté for a few minutes, until it all turns soft and translucent. Add the celery and sauté for a few more minutes. Then pour in the wine. Add the tomato paste and beef broth to the pot. Add the hot paprika and bring the liquid to a boil.

  Next, add the meat back to the pot, including the juices. Season the stew with salt and pepper and half the remaining sweet paprika. Add the bay leaves to the pot, cover, and let the stew simmer on medium-low heat for 11⁄2 to 2 hours. The longer you cook the goulash the thicker it will become. Stir occasionally. While the stew simmers you’ll notice a film of fat form on the top. Skim off the fat and add in the remainder of the paprika. Serve over egg noodles or spatzles (see note) and garnish with a spoonful of sour cream. If you like a thicker goulash you can stir in the sour cream before you spoon over noodles or spatzles.

  Note: Spatzle is a German dumpling made from flour, milk, and eggs.

  Olga’s Creamy Banana Pudding with Nilla Wafers

  Yield: 8 servings

  3⁄4 cup sugar, divided

  1⁄3 cup all-purpose flour

  Dash of salt

  3 eggs, separated

  2 cups milk

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  40 Nilla wafers

  6 ripe bananas, sliced

  Additional wafers and banana slices, for garnish

  Mix 1⁄2 cup of the sugar, the flour, and salt in the top of a double boiler. Blend in the egg yolks and milk. Cook, uncovered, over boiling water, stirring constantly, for 10 minutes, or until thickened. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Spread a small amount of the custard on the bottom of a 11⁄2-quart casserole and cover with a layer of the wafers and a layer of sliced bananas. Pour about one-third of the custard over the bananas. Continue to layer wafers, bananas, and custard to make a total of 3 layers of each, ending with custard.

  For topping, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form; gradually add the remaining 1⁄4 cup sugar and beat until stiff but not dry. Spoon the mixture on top of the pudding, spreading evenly to cover the entire surface. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until browned. Cool and garnish with additional wafers and banana slices just before serving.

  15

  Dawn’s Desserts and Sarah’s Sweets

  Carob Chip Cookies, Protein-Packed Linzer Cookies, Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

  In high school, my friend Sarah saved my life a dozen times, a dozen ways. She lived around the corner from school, on Seventy-First and Lexington, making her house the perfect hangout and retreat. It was always clean, always the perfect temperature, and always loaded with glass bottles of Perrier and several boxes of Entenmann’s chocolate chip crumb cake and powdered sugar doughnuts, which her mother laid out on their marble kitchen counter before she left for a long day of work.

  Sarah had a lot of freedom, like me, as her mother Elaine and stepfather Arnie did not come home most nights until after eight o’clock. But unlike me, there was a structure and order to her life. Her mother made sure that she was always impeccably dressed, her grades were the best in the class, and their kitchen was meticulously stocked with groceries and fancy leftovers from the best New York City restaurants, where the family would dine on the weekends. Chicken Kiev from the Russian Tea Room, Veal Paillard from Café des Artistes, and Steak Diane from Les Pleiades were a few of the gourmet dishes that were left for nibbling.

  The first time I ate at Sarah’s house, I felt like I was in an episode of Robin Leach’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Sarah was well-off but acted a lot haughtier than the Upper East Side life that her mother, a public relations executive for Sotheby’s, and her stepfather, a marketing consultant and jazz musician, provided for her. Sarah liked to speak in an affected French accent and knew how to make the ordinary extraordinary—serving sparkling water instead of tap, which she garnished with slices of lime, or serving sweet cakes on china instead of paper plates, which she would decorate with fresh berries and lots of confectioner’s sugar.

  Everything Sarah did was fabulous, from the way she accessorized her uniform with silk Chanel scarves to the way she tucked her shirt into her perfectly pleated navy skirt to the way she had her closet organized. She had tons of sweaters and shoes that were arranged like a department store. The shoes were in boxes and labeled “summer,” “weekend,” and “school,” and the sweaters were folded in special bags with tissue paper so as not to get moths or wrinkles. Sarah was like a sophisticated society woman trapped in the body of a little girl.

  In every school that I had ever attended, I was the shortest, but Sarah stood four foot six, to my four foot eight, and she was rail thin—although she had one of the heartiest appetites I had e
ver seen. She could battle my voracious appetite, bite for bite, when we would sit around her kitchen table devouring the contents of her refrigerator and cupboards. Sarah introduced me to Brie and apples, prime rib with horseradish, and smoked salmon with crème frâiche and capers.

  The only difference in the way we ate was when it came to sugar and carbohydrates. Sarah had a wicked sweet tooth and could eat three pain au chocolats smothered in Nutella. The nutty chocolate spread was sent to her by her cousins who lived abroad. I had never had a filled croissant with a big chunk of chocolate in the center, let alone one that was swimming in a sea of frosting. “More for me,” she said, as I passed on the second croissant, opting for more pâté. Sarah thought it was weird that I would eat spoonful after spoonful of duck liver—but always refused the crispy baguettes or Carr’s Water Crackers that she tried to pair with it.

  “The way you eat is not very French,” she would tell me in a disapproving tone.

  “Well, the way you eat would never be Atkins-approved.”

  “I do not know what that means. Can you please explain yourself?” Sometimes when Sarah spoke, I had to do a double take to check that it was really her, not some old schoolmarm that had invaded her little body.

  I started reciting the rules of the Atkins Diet as well as telling Sarah everything I ate and did not eat. But then I remembered what my mother had told me—how I would have no friends if I scrutinized and put down the way other people ate. But diet rules had been such a major part of my life, and it was what I was best at talking about. I knew how important proper food choices were, and my best skill was transforming traditional recipes into nutritional powerhouses. Most grown-ups were impressed with my expertise. I could create a meal plan for any of my teachers or my friends’ parents without a second thought. But I wasn’t trying to convert Sarah; I was just trying to make a good friend.