by Jen Nails
We were talking about the wedding and then about Nina’s recital coming up, how we were all driving to Charlotte together, and then Harry said he was going to paint the wall in the backyard this summer and did we want to help, and we said yes.
It was a buzzy morning, so different from mornings with Dad and his newspaper. Truth was, I loved both kinds of mornings.
We made an everything omelet, kind of a Kitchen Sink omelet. You basically went into the fridge and took out anything that would taste remotely good with eggs. Could be mushrooms, onions, sausage, shredded cheese, ham, peppers, whatever. Once it was all chopped up, you threw that stuff and whisked eggs in a pan to fry up with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. We had ours with toast and potatoes.
Harry was asking me and Nina all about the move and if we liked our rooms and what we needed, and we said everything was good and thank you.
“So, listen,” he said. “I don’t want to say too much here, and I won’t talk about this again unless you guys want to. But any time you feel like you want to see your dad, it’s okay with us. Also, I don’t want you to think you ever need to . . . Well, just always call me Harry, okay?”
Nina said okay and I nodded, and I was glad we were eating because I had something to do with my face besides cry. Nobody said anything about how with Dad, you didn’t really have a choice about seeing him. He was either around or not, his choice. I guessed it’d just always be like that. Maybe.
They insisted on cleaning up and sent us up to our new rooms, where we got busy. I taped up a picture of me and Dad and Nina eating ice cream at Uncle Louie’s. Next to that I put one of me and Mom and Nina and Jean and Helen at the Place. I decorated the walls with these giant orange flowery stickers and put some stuff in my drawers. I framed the dollar that Great-Aunt Lucy had given me, and it hung over my bed. In the bathroom, I put the new hairbrushes that I got us.
My summer was stretching out in front of me. More time in the fancy kitchen, experimenting with the fizzy-water thing and soda maker, biking around the new neighborhood, my cooking classes at Elon that I won, a visit to Charlotte for the recital. Going to Grasshoppers games with Lisa.
I set out a big framed picture of us at the wedding. Nina with her hair up on top of her head, her muscly arms dangling at her sides, her face painted all womany. Or was that an actual woman in there and not just the makeup doing it? My sister’s beauty hid underneath me being scared of her sometimes, but in the picture there it was, all glamorous and perfect.
And there were Harry and Auntie Gina with their arms around each other, their eyes reaching out to me with the excitement of their day. And me by my sister, lots going on under my smile, mostly wanting to know what was coming next.
My family.
But my mom would always be my family, and my dad would always be my family. And there was Jean Sawyer, too.
My family was spread all over the place like bread crumbs, and sometimes I didn’t know where it was all leading. But it was like Kitchen Sink, where you started out with a batch of stuff, and an idea, and then what you came up with at the end was a completely different flavor. It could still be delicious.
Kitchen Sink Cookbook: A Year in Recipes
An Autobiography by Steffany Falcon Sandolini
Dear Steffany,
I hope this isn’t wrong, but I am writing this the day before it’s due. Honestly, Mrs. Ashton (I am saying that to you directly, even though it’s supposed to be a letter to me about me—but technically you’re reading it right now, right?), honestly, I made notes like you suggested. I outlined. I wrote down stories about what people told me I did when I was little and memories that I thought I had. But on this night, the day before this is due, everything’s different.
I’ve been kind of studying my mom’s old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from before she got into a car accident. Before she kind of had to stop being a mom who took care of us. I’ve been kind of studying not the ones that are printed in the book that everyone in the world could look at who has this cookbook, but her own special ones that she thought to tear out of the Greensboro Daily News or a magazine, or write down on a scrap of paper, or ask for someone to give to her. Those ones. There are a total of 77 of them spilling out from under the front cover of the cookbook.
What I liked doing when I was studying them was holding them between my fingers and reading them and rereading them. What I liked about it was that I imagined my mom writing the recipe down, and I imagined her planning to make it. I wondered what the occasion was. Was there an occasion? Was it just because it sounded good? I wondered if she had made those recipes for my dad and which ones he liked best. On a wrinkled piece of paper bag there was a scribbled one with no title that had a bay leaf, pineapple, and other stuff. There were lots of brownie recipes in my mom’s cursive. An icing recipe written in shakier cursive than my mom’s (maybe my grandmother’s) on a tiny envelope like the ones that you get in the valentines-for-your-class package.
What I also liked was looking at the dates on some of them. Most of the ones she cut out from the newspaper had dates on them. I got shivers when there was a date that was a few months before I was born or before my sister, Nina, was born. I saw my mom, sitting there with my dad, dreaming up a good meal, thinking about when she’d make it, feeling us rumbling around in her stomach.
What I didn’t know would happen was that I was scared of those dates because they meant that it was before she got hurt. I was scared of those dates because it was when we didn’t know that something bad was going to happen. I don’t let myself think about her accident too much or about riding in cars. About how if she was in pain and how bad it was and about how she almost died. About how my dad had to leave because of being scared, and he couldn’t even really be there to be our dad anymore. I don’t let myself think about that too much, and for the first time in my entire life, I am telling myself that’s okay. And it’s okay to sometimes get bored when we visit her.
What I’m going to do is keep making these recipes for my mom and bringing them to her each time we visit, and in 77 weeks (well, 73, because I’ve already brought her 4 recipes so far) maybe she will remember something. Maybe she has been remembering all along.
I figured out this year that sometimes people want to be found and sometimes people don’t. My dad doesn’t (yet). My mom does.
Because of all the things that have happened with my dad this year, I have decided something. I decided that my autobiography is going to be the past year—the most important year of my life—in food. It will be a cookbook so that people will get to know me and remember me the way I know my mom, through my mom’s cookbook. Here are all the recipes I made this year:
Banana Bread
* 1¼ cups flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* ¼ teaspoon salt
* ½ teaspoon cinnamon
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 2 eggs
* ½ cup oil
* 3 overripe bananas (brown ones)
* ½ cup chopped walnuts, pecans, or chocolate chips (if you want)
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Put all dry ingredients together and stir.
3. Then put all wet ingredients together and blend.
4. Pour dry ingredients into wet and mix well.
5. Add chopped nuts or chocolate chips.
6. Pour batter into greased 9 x 5-inch pan and bake for 60 minutes at 375 degrees.
Grandpa Falcon’s Brussels Sprouts and Egg Whites
* 4–5 egg whites
* 2 cups chopped Brussels sprouts
* ¼ cup chopped scallions
* salt and pepper
* splash milk
* pat butter or margarine
1. Whisk together egg whites, chopped Brussels sprouts, and scallions.
2. Shake on some salt and pepper, and add milk for creaminess.
3. Melt butter in frying pan for a minute over medium heat and then add egg mixture.
4. After a few minutes of stirring, it’ll get fluffy and then it’s done.
5. Serve with toast and coffee.
Lunch Counter–Style Tuna Melts
* 1 large can tuna, drained (chunk white in water)
* 2 spoonfuls mayonnaise
* dash salt and pepper
* chopped-up pickle
* bread
* Cheddar cheese slices
1. Take out tuna and mix with mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and pickle in bowl.
2. Turn oven on to broil. Put bread on tinfoil and then scoop tuna mixture onto it.
3. Cover tuna with cheese slices. Add another slice of bread on top.
4. Cook in broiler for a few minutes.
5. It’ll look like regular toast on top—that’s when you know it’s done.
Spooky Jell-O
1. Basically, get package of orange Jell-O.
2. Follow directions on package.
3. Put it in the fridge for about an hour.
4. Take it out. Dump a bunch of gummy worms and spiders in it.
5. Pop it back into the fridge for a few hours.
Chicken and Waffles
Fried Chicken:
* 1½ pounds chicken breasts
* 2 eggs, blended
* splash of milk
* couple cups bread crumbs
* garlic salt
* parsley
* butter or margarine
1. Wash all your chicken.
2. Put eggs and milk together in flat dish.
3. Mix bread crumbs and seasonings in separate bowl.
4. Grease up frying pan and set stove to medium heat.
5. Wet each chicken breast in egg mixture, then roll it all over in bread crumbs.
6. Put breasts in pan.
7. Let cook for about 8 minutes on each side, or until breasts are cooked in middle.
Waffles:
* 1 cup flour
* ½ teaspoon baking powder
* ¼ teaspoon baking soda
* ¼ teaspoon salt
* 1 cup buttermilk
* 1 egg
* 2 tablespoons cooking oil
* syrup
1. Mix all dry ingredients in bowl.
2. In separate bowl, mix milk, egg, and oil.
3. Add wet ingredients to dry.
4. Pour into hot waffle iron and make as many waffles as batter will let you.
5. Put chicken breasts right on top of waffles, pour syrup all over them, and go to town.
Spicy Nina-ritos
* chopped garlic (a few cloves)
* ¼ cup chopped onion
* splash cooking oil
* 1 pound ground beef or turkey
* ⅓ cup salsa
* salt, cilantro, cumin, paprika
* sour cream
* guacamole
* diced tomatoes
* grated yellow cheese
* extra salsa
* flour tortillas
1. Toss garlic and onion into frying pan on stove.
2. Simmer in cooking oil and then open package of meat and break it up and sprinkle it over top. Mix together with garlic and onion.
3. Once meat is cooked all the way through, take it off heat and strain it to get grease out.
4. Transfer to serving bowl.
5. Pour in salsa and season with salt and cilantro, and if you like it spicy (we do), add cumin and paprika, but watch out. You might want to use lots of sour cream with every bite.
6. If you’re more wimpy, don’t use paprika or cumin at all. It’ll still taste good.
7. Get out yellow grated cheese, guacamole, diced tomatoes, and sour cream and put each topping in a little bowl on the table. For the guacamole, smush a couple avocados, add a packet of avocado seasoning, and stir.
8. If you want, warm the flour tortillas in the microwave before serving them.
Crock-Pot Thanksgiving Dinner
* a turkey (9 pounds or smaller if you can find one—fresh, not frozen)
* ½ cup finely chopped onion
* 2 cups diced celery
* ½ cup butter
* 8 cups bread, cubed and firmly packed
* ½ tablespoon salt
* 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
* ¼ teaspoon pepper
* 1 cup water
* ½ can turkey stock
1. Wash turkey.
2. Take out gross innards bag.
3. Let turkey dry overnight in the fridge.
4. In the morning, cook onion and celery in butter in frying pan over low heat, stirring until onion is tender.
5. In large bowl, blend bread cubes and seasonings.
6. Add celery and onion to bread.
7. Toss lightly to blend.
8. Pour water gradually over mixture.
9. Put turkey in Crock-Pot and then stuff stuffing into turkey.
10. Pour turkey stock all over.
11. Put lid on and check your Crock-Pot settings.Cook for the equivalent of 4–5 normal, in the-regular-oven hours. (In our Crock-Pot that would be 6–8 hours on “Auto.”)
Safety note: when cooking stuffing inside the turkey, make sure the turkey reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Use a food thermometer to check. For more safety tips about cooking turkey, check out www.cdc.gov/features/turkeytime.
Day-after-Thanksgiving Kitchen Sink
* ½ cup sliced green peppers
* ½ cup sliced mushrooms
* 1 tablespoon butter
* garlic salt
* 2 cups bits of cooked turkey meat
* 8-ounce can tomato sauce
* 6-ounce can tomato paste
* eggs
* 2 cups cooked rice
1. Fry peppers and mushrooms in frying pan in butter.
2. Season with garlic salt.
3. Add turkey meat and pour tomato sauce and paste over if you want. (When I made this it turned out gross, but maybe you’ll have better luck than me.)
4. In another pan, scramble some eggs (about 3).
5. Dump egg mixture into vegetable pan and let cleesh (allow all the ingredients to blend together into one thing).
6. Serve on lettuce leaves as burritos with cooked rice.
Chicken Parmesan
* precooked breaded chicken breasts
* 12-ounce jar pasta sauce
* mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses
1. Put sauce all over chicken, then put cheeses on top of sauce.
2. Bake in oven at around 375 degrees for about 15 minutes. Test chicken for doneness. (It’s fully cooked already, but check it anyway.)
Caramel Corn
* 4 bags microwave popcorn
* 1 stick butter or margarine
* ¾ cup brown sugar
* ½ cup light Karo syrup
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 cup salted, diced pecans
1. Pop corn and set aside.
2. Melt butter.
3. Add brown sugar while butter is still medium hot, then add Karo syrup.
4. Add vanilla and stir.
5. Stir and stir and then stir again.
6. Keep stirring.
7. It shouldn’t boil, but it should be hot, and you should keep stirring.
8. Once it starts to thicken, pour in pecans and stir for about another minute or two. You’ll know when it’s thickened enough. You’ll just feel it.
9. Take it off stove and scoop it right onto popcorn.
10. Mix it all together but be careful. You don’t want to break some of the popcorns like I did. Refrigerate overnight.
Sausage-and-Pepper Rolls
* 6 sweet or spicy (or a few of both) Italian sausages
* 1–2 capfuls olive oil
* pizza dough
* sliced green peppers
* butter (if you want)
1. Fry up sausages in olive oil over medium heat.
2. Drain grease after they’re fully cooked. Set them aside.
3. Roll out pizza dough
and cut into pieces.
4. Put sausage and peppers onto dough and then roll like burritos.
5. Press dough back together to seal it up so you can’t see the sausage.
6. Bake rolls at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes.
7. Turn over and bake on other side for about 5–8 more minutes.
8. If you want, spread a little butter over rolls right when you take them out.
Gnocchi
* 3–4 medium-sized potatoes
* 10 cups water for the potatoes
* 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
* ½ cup milk
* dash salt
* 5 cups flour
* 3 eggs
* 1 capful olive oil
* extra flour
* 10 quarts water for the pasta
* grated parmesan or Romano cheese
1. Boil potatoes until soft. Peel off skins.
2. Use fork or blender on high speed to mash potatoes. Add butter and milk while you’re mashing. Sprinkle on salt.
3. Add mashed potatoes to flour. Mix with wooden spoon until it’s evened out into thick crumbs. Add eggs. Mix more with spoon.
4. Then get flour on your hands and knead. Just knead it and knead it and knead it for about 15 or 20 minutes until it’s a pretty much kept-together ball.
5. Pour olive oil into the palm of your hand (like lotion) and rub over dough.
6. Sprinkle some flour on table, then put dough on top. Then cover with big bowl for 30 minutes to cleesh.
7. Lift bowl and cut off slab of dough. Flour up your rolling pin and roll it out about ¼ inch thick.
8. Cut that slab into about ½-inch-sized strips.
9. Cut strips into small pieces.
10. Schweet each piece (stick your finger in it, making a little dent). Set aside in big area with flour sprinkled under and on top of gnocchi.
11. When it’s all cut, boil big pot of water and add dash salt.
12. Boil gnocchi for about 6–8 minutes but test before turning off water.
13. Rinse gnocchi in colander.
14. Top with sauce (see here) and cheese. Mmmmm.