Blake Butler—
The very generous Brad Green has offered to award a copy of Molly Gaudry’s We Take Me Apart to an HTML Giant reader of choice. Because the book is so persuasive in the way it links childhood space with food and movement of time, comment with a food that evokes some long memory of yours. A selected winner gets the book late tomorrow evening.
my dad tried to make cioppino one new year’s eve and it didn’t turn out right. it tasted terrible and my mom made him take it out and bury it.
my dad tried to make cioppino one new year’s eve and it didn’t turn out right. it tasted terrible and my mom made him take it out and bury it.
i already have wtma, i read it at an airport. its an excellent book so someone who hasnt read it should read it. but since i got this loaded…
when i was in like second grade our teacher made everyone write original recipes for foods we already enjoyed, and to just try to think about how things were probably made. she published them all in this little thing thats like a recipe chapbook. most of the kids picked foods like chocolate cake or ice cream or hot dogs, there’s like five strawberry ice creams. i picked cottage cheese. heres my recipe
1 cup milk
2 cubes butter
3 cups cream
1 piece yellow cheese
stir ingredients and refrigerate for 2 minutes. it will be cold and lumpy when finished.
i already have wtma, i read it at an airport. its an excellent book so someone who hasnt read it should read it. but since i got this loaded…
when i was in like second grade our teacher made everyone write original recipes for foods we already enjoyed, and to just try to think about how things were probably made. she published them all in this little thing thats like a recipe chapbook. most of the kids picked foods like chocolate cake or ice cream or hot dogs, there’s like five strawberry ice creams. i picked cottage cheese. heres my recipe
1 cup milk
2 cubes butter
3 cups cream
1 piece yellow cheese
stir ingredients and refrigerate for 2 minutes. it will be cold and lumpy when finished.
Burritos always remind me of an April Fools’ Day many years ago when I pretended to be choking to death on one as a kind of last-ditch attempt to ‘fool’ my mom, which backfired horribly and resulted in a terrifying explosion of maternal love-rage. It was a pretty bad joke, although my dad thought the situation was hilarious and told me I should be an actor. I was 10.
Burritos always remind me of an April Fools’ Day many years ago when I pretended to be choking to death on one as a kind of last-ditch attempt to ‘fool’ my mom, which backfired horribly and resulted in a terrifying explosion of maternal love-rage. It was a pretty bad joke, although my dad thought the situation was hilarious and told me I should be an actor. I was 10.
when ziiip was just a baby zzippy, his mother baked gingersnaps often. little zzzippy would eat these gingersnaps with abandon. they came to mean everything to him. they were the background to his childhood: he would come home and there they would all be, cooling on their racks, and before his mother said he could have one, two or three would be in his pockets, and he would re-arrange the cookies on the racks so it looked like none had been taken. obvious weight issues which would plague zippp’s entire life were present in the manner in which he spirited away those secret cookies. it wasn’t the cookies themselves that he wanted, and it wasn’t their consumption either, for he ate them quickly, piggishly, in the bathroom, in an environment not generally considered conducive to the consumption of food. eating them, he felt ashamed. it was the taking and the filling that he wanted, that would never be a satisfaction… every month or so, so gorged on baking, his mother would find him propped up against a couch, spinning electrons, and she would say to him “zzziippy, you need to lose some weight. you’ve grown quite large,” and that being the only conversation in the house, besides that which occurred at meal-times, ziippy would shrug and grow embarrassed. he didn’t know how to speak about such things. if his father was present, he might say nothing, or say “oh, leave the boy alone.” to that mama zziipp would reply, “papa zzzipp, i’m concerned about his health!” and in the midst of this conversation zzzippy, too ashamed to zpeak, would slip off the couch and up to his room, to his bed underneath the big poster…
and do you know who was on that poster???
rickey henderson!
when ziiip was just a baby zzippy, his mother baked gingersnaps often. little zzzippy would eat these gingersnaps with abandon. they came to mean everything to him. they were the background to his childhood: he would come home and there they would all be, cooling on their racks, and before his mother said he could have one, two or three would be in his pockets, and he would re-arrange the cookies on the racks so it looked like none had been taken. obvious weight issues which would plague zippp’s entire life were present in the manner in which he spirited away those secret cookies. it wasn’t the cookies themselves that he wanted, and it wasn’t their consumption either, for he ate them quickly, piggishly, in the bathroom, in an environment not generally considered conducive to the consumption of food. eating them, he felt ashamed. it was the taking and the filling that he wanted, that would never be a satisfaction… every month or so, so gorged on baking, his mother would find him propped up against a couch, spinning electrons, and she would say to him “zzziippy, you need to lose some weight. you’ve grown quite large,” and that being the only conversation in the house, besides that which occurred at meal-times, ziippy would shrug and grow embarrassed. he didn’t know how to speak about such things. if his father was present, he might say nothing, or say “oh, leave the boy alone.” to that mama zziipp would reply, “papa zzzipp, i’m concerned about his health!” and in the midst of this conversation zzzippy, too ashamed to zpeak, would slip off the couch and up to his room, to his bed underneath the big poster…
and do you know who was on that poster???
rickey henderson!
Chocolate Milk
I acted like a little shit in elementary school. If I wasn’t picking fights in the sand-filled tire at the bottom of the slide or pushing people off the parallel monkey bars, I would mess with someone’s food.
My schoolmates and I all sat at long tables for lunch. One day would be pizza, the next burgers, then meatloaf and so on, repeating week after week. The one constant, though, was milk, white and chocolate. Any self-respecting elementary school student always chose chocolate.
Jaime went for seconds of the fish sticks on one of my shittiest days. It was at that time that my boldest plan was birthed. Salt. In the chocolate milk. Genius!
I poured about half a shaker before he returned. He sat down, stuck a fish stick into his mouth, and realized he needed something to wash it down with. I watched him like an ice-skating judge. He pinched the milk carton’s mouth, brought it up to his own, and took a deep swig.
The milk came back out from where it went, along with some vomit. He began to cry, and I began to laugh.
I took my usual seat outside Mr. Crossland’s door, just in view of the wholly paddle.
Chocolate Milk
I acted like a little shit in elementary school. If I wasn’t picking fights in the sand-filled tire at the bottom of the slide or pushing people off the parallel monkey bars, I would mess with someone’s food.
My schoolmates and I all sat at long tables for lunch. One day would be pizza, the next burgers, then meatloaf and so on, repeating week after week. The one constant, though, was milk, white and chocolate. Any self-respecting elementary school student always chose chocolate.
Jaime went for seconds of the fish sticks on one of my shittiest days. It was at that time that my boldest plan was birthed. Salt. In the chocolate milk. Genius!
I poured about half a shaker before he returned. He sat down, stuck a fish stick into his mouth, and realized he needed something to wash it down with. I watched him like an ice-skating judge. He pinched the milk carton’s mouth, brought it up to his own, and took a deep swig.
The milk came back out from where it went, along with some vomit. He began to cry, and I began to laugh.
I took my usual seat outside Mr. Crossland’s door, just in view of the wholly paddle.
Ha ha ha! Even at an early age you gave ’em hell, eh Darby?
Ha ha ha! Even at an early age you gave ’em hell, eh Darby?
Bury it!
Bury it!
Cheese n’ Onions:
A distant relative (Aunt Nancy’s cousin?) always brought Cheese n’ Onions to Thanksgiving. What is it? A sauce? A kind of salad? I still do not know, but I want to say it was just Velveeta melted in a crockpot full of pearl onions.
Cheese n’ Onions:
A distant relative (Aunt Nancy’s cousin?) always brought Cheese n’ Onions to Thanksgiving. What is it? A sauce? A kind of salad? I still do not know, but I want to say it was just Velveeta melted in a crockpot full of pearl onions.
Fried dough. That’s it. Just lumps of dough, fried. Not beignets, not elephant ears, not nothing man, just fried dough. Sure some people called them zeppole, but not us. Reminds me of time alone in a kitchen full of zii, when I didn’t know any better, when I could still get lost, before whatever this is now, when I can’t.
Fried dough. That’s it. Just lumps of dough, fried. Not beignets, not elephant ears, not nothing man, just fried dough. Sure some people called them zeppole, but not us. Reminds me of time alone in a kitchen full of zii, when I didn’t know any better, when I could still get lost, before whatever this is now, when I can’t.
Fish Sticks
Three hours after the last time I ate fish sticks I kept screaming to my dad “I’m gonna throw up,” over and over again. It felt like I was going to, but he didn’t care, or to me it didn’t seem like he did. He just kept telling me to go to the bathroom. I would go and he wouldn’t follow, so I would go back to the living room and yell, “I’m gonna throw up.” Then when I did have to I didn’t make it to the bathroom in time. I did make it to the door and some of the vomit made it into the toilet and some of the vomit made it into the sink and some of the vomit made it into the bathtub. My dad had to clean it up. That was twenty years ago.
The End.
Fish Sticks
Three hours after the last time I ate fish sticks I kept screaming to my dad “I’m gonna throw up,” over and over again. It felt like I was going to, but he didn’t care, or to me it didn’t seem like he did. He just kept telling me to go to the bathroom. I would go and he wouldn’t follow, so I would go back to the living room and yell, “I’m gonna throw up.” Then when I did have to I didn’t make it to the bathroom in time. I did make it to the door and some of the vomit made it into the toilet and some of the vomit made it into the sink and some of the vomit made it into the bathtub. My dad had to clean it up. That was twenty years ago.
The End.
ahh fish sticks…
ahh fish sticks…
Split pea soup, without fail, always makes me think of a nightmare I had as a child. In the nightmare, I was in my grandma’s apartment, standing on her black and white checkerboard kitchen floor. The tile I was standing on lowered down into a chasm and at the bottom of was an ocean of green boiling split pea soup. I woke up before being dunked.
I hated split pea soup as a child and refused to try it for years until fairly recently when my dad made it. Even at the age of 25 (or 24?), I was still hesitant to try it, because of that damn dream.
Split pea soup, without fail, always makes me think of a nightmare I had as a child. In the nightmare, I was in my grandma’s apartment, standing on her black and white checkerboard kitchen floor. The tile I was standing on lowered down into a chasm and at the bottom of was an ocean of green boiling split pea soup. I woke up before being dunked.
I hated split pea soup as a child and refused to try it for years until fairly recently when my dad made it. Even at the age of 25 (or 24?), I was still hesitant to try it, because of that damn dream.
chicken in a biskit – i used to stare at the box wondering how they did it
chicken in a biskit – i used to stare at the box wondering how they did it
Glazed donuts –
Between the ages of probably 4 & 16 my parents made me to go to church and – thus – Sunday school. In Sunday school they fed us glazed donuts every week in this damp cramped basement room where we were forced to meet – emphasis on ‘forced’. The taste of donuts – even the smell of them, even the look of them, sometimes – puts me back in that damn basement.
Glazed donuts –
Between the ages of probably 4 & 16 my parents made me to go to church and – thus – Sunday school. In Sunday school they fed us glazed donuts every week in this damp cramped basement room where we were forced to meet – emphasis on ‘forced’. The taste of donuts – even the smell of them, even the look of them, sometimes – puts me back in that damn basement.
Milk.
I used to drink milk whenever I felt happy. When I was very young I confused happy and thirsty.
Milk.
I used to drink milk whenever I felt happy. When I was very young I confused happy and thirsty.
Every summer found weeks turning to months in my grandmother’s house. We spent afternoons planning elaborate tea parties, but, somehow, all those magnificent pies and root beer floats and mountains of, well, anything (it was about the altitude, the thrust, not the character of the heap) were supplanted by popsicles. This necessitated sharing, the distastefulness of which was hard to ignore. If two of us desired that flavor, then why make it necessary to truncate it into two ragged “halves”? Did my grandmother, who otherwise pressed food upon us as if it were a poultice — as it it would not fill up huner so much as draw it out of the ill weather brewing in our stomachs — believe we could not finish a whole each all on his or her own.
When we were done and there was nothing left to suck but the bitterly bland possibility of splinters, my grandmother would take us out to the backyard and have us dig out a dormant place for those sticks. She promised us that a popsicle tree would grow from that burying. (Even then, we dared not call it a planting.) Every June, then, we arrived at her house in waiting. And every year we had to be content with popsicles from her vault-like freezer. That disappointment took any last savor out of the treat. I think now that my grandmother’s aim was to absolve us of our weakness for frozen treats. I think it worked, too. To this day, I can’t even drink a frozen margarita.
But if my grandmother hadreally wanted to do kill a craving, she would have made the tree real somehow. She would have granted your wish so you could get over wishing in the first place.
The business of harvesting still haunts me. My grandmother, eternally smocked in a pink housecoat with an elephant screen-printed on one pocket, would never do anything so undignified as climb a tree.
My grandmother, with her thin legs, bruised by too many years of poor circulation, wrapped up in the highest, papery leaves, looking up into the melting fruit, trying to pluck for us (hopping crazily in place) far too early in the morning, before the sun had utterly denuded the branches. Would it have resembled that? An orange, syrupy tear flops down onto the fine creases of her cheek as she exceeds her reach.
Suddenly it is very real to me that my grandmother, this woman who shrunk as if, when she said with every birthday that she was just 29, is still somehow growing backwards, life over but still with much receding to accomplish. Yes, she had left me behind to be stern with myself. Fat chance.
Every summer found weeks turning to months in my grandmother’s house. We spent afternoons planning elaborate tea parties, but, somehow, all those magnificent pies and root beer floats and mountains of, well, anything (it was about the altitude, the thrust, not the character of the heap) were supplanted by popsicles. This necessitated sharing, the distastefulness of which was hard to ignore. If two of us desired that flavor, then why make it necessary to truncate it into two ragged “halves”? Did my grandmother, who otherwise pressed food upon us as if it were a poultice — as it it would not fill up huner so much as draw it out of the ill weather brewing in our stomachs — believe we could not finish a whole each all on his or her own.
When we were done and there was nothing left to suck but the bitterly bland possibility of splinters, my grandmother would take us out to the backyard and have us dig out a dormant place for those sticks. She promised us that a popsicle tree would grow from that burying. (Even then, we dared not call it a planting.) Every June, then, we arrived at her house in waiting. And every year we had to be content with popsicles from her vault-like freezer. That disappointment took any last savor out of the treat. I think now that my grandmother’s aim was to absolve us of our weakness for frozen treats. I think it worked, too. To this day, I can’t even drink a frozen margarita.
But if my grandmother hadreally wanted to do kill a craving, she would have made the tree real somehow. She would have granted your wish so you could get over wishing in the first place.
The business of harvesting still haunts me. My grandmother, eternally smocked in a pink housecoat with an elephant screen-printed on one pocket, would never do anything so undignified as climb a tree.
My grandmother, with her thin legs, bruised by too many years of poor circulation, wrapped up in the highest, papery leaves, looking up into the melting fruit, trying to pluck for us (hopping crazily in place) far too early in the morning, before the sun had utterly denuded the branches. Would it have resembled that? An orange, syrupy tear flops down onto the fine creases of her cheek as she exceeds her reach.
Suddenly it is very real to me that my grandmother, this woman who shrunk as if, when she said with every birthday that she was just 29, is still somehow growing backwards, life over but still with much receding to accomplish. Yes, she had left me behind to be stern with myself. Fat chance.
That is so, so sad. Donuts were the best part about going, I thought. I looked forward to them. But, then, we didn’t get ours until after service.
That is so, so sad. Donuts were the best part about going, I thought. I looked forward to them. But, then, we didn’t get ours until after service.
When I was in 4th/5th grade, I went to my friend Don’s for lunch. Don was the kind of friend you threw gravel-filled coke cans at bee’s nests with. It was April Fool’s Day. His mother, a wonderful mumbly lady, served us grilled cheese sandwiches.
Because it was April Fool’s day, she snuck a piece of paper into Don’s sandwich. She must’ve cut it perfectly, in exactly a grilled cheese sandwich shape, because it was 100% concealed.
Then she went off to change Don’s younger brother’s diaper, thinking Don would bite into the sandwich, notice the paper, ha ha ha, April Fool’s.
Don scarffed the entire sandwich without noticing the paper.
When his mom came back she said, “The paper! You didn’t notice the paper!” He said, “You put paper? In my sandwich?”
He was incredulous, and felt a little betrayed (You’re my mother!), and swore he’d get her back, and we got to where we were laughing so hard we really almost did fall out of our chairs. It was like a television show. He chased his mom around, his wonderful mumbly mom.
Don (it’s not his real name) has been dead for a few years. He had a heart condition and used to do some hard drugs, and we think he might have returned to them, but we don’t know. He was 25?
If I smell grilled cheese sandwiches (never when I’m eating them, only when they’re being made) Don sometimes comes back to me. When he comes back like this he sometimes brings something I’ve forgotten about him: a gesture, a look, an odor, the time he came to school with his face swelled up from beestings and just kept laughing about it, his eyes like little folds in dough.
I don’t know how true the things he brings back are, but I’m happy when I have them.
When I was in 4th/5th grade, I went to my friend Don’s for lunch. Don was the kind of friend you threw gravel-filled coke cans at bee’s nests with. It was April Fool’s Day. His mother, a wonderful mumbly lady, served us grilled cheese sandwiches.
Because it was April Fool’s day, she snuck a piece of paper into Don’s sandwich. She must’ve cut it perfectly, in exactly a grilled cheese sandwich shape, because it was 100% concealed.
Then she went off to change Don’s younger brother’s diaper, thinking Don would bite into the sandwich, notice the paper, ha ha ha, April Fool’s.
Don scarffed the entire sandwich without noticing the paper.
When his mom came back she said, “The paper! You didn’t notice the paper!” He said, “You put paper? In my sandwich?”
He was incredulous, and felt a little betrayed (You’re my mother!), and swore he’d get her back, and we got to where we were laughing so hard we really almost did fall out of our chairs. It was like a television show. He chased his mom around, his wonderful mumbly mom.
Don (it’s not his real name) has been dead for a few years. He had a heart condition and used to do some hard drugs, and we think he might have returned to them, but we don’t know. He was 25?
If I smell grilled cheese sandwiches (never when I’m eating them, only when they’re being made) Don sometimes comes back to me. When he comes back like this he sometimes brings something I’ve forgotten about him: a gesture, a look, an odor, the time he came to school with his face swelled up from beestings and just kept laughing about it, his eyes like little folds in dough.
I don’t know how true the things he brings back are, but I’m happy when I have them.
Liver. And. Onions. The last time we were forced to eat it my mother and father got in a fight. She threw her wedding ring at him and he threw the pepper box on the floor where it exploded. A cloud of pepper floated up around the kitchen and down into our noses and our hair and the rest of the bloody food. My brother and I huddled at the table with our heads down trying to coax the dog to eat the liver which we knew would soon become the main point of conversation at the table as soon as the pepper settled. We were much more concerned about the the disgusting food than the fight which was business as usual.
Liver. And. Onions. The last time we were forced to eat it my mother and father got in a fight. She threw her wedding ring at him and he threw the pepper box on the floor where it exploded. A cloud of pepper floated up around the kitchen and down into our noses and our hair and the rest of the bloody food. My brother and I huddled at the table with our heads down trying to coax the dog to eat the liver which we knew would soon become the main point of conversation at the table as soon as the pepper settled. We were much more concerned about the the disgusting food than the fight which was business as usual.
Watermelon. It always places me exactly back to a summer evening in the early 80’s. Everyone had watermelon early that evening and then my parents and their neighbors and pretty much everyone else within three blocks gathered at my house to watch a televised 3-D version of the horror film Creature From the Black Lagoon. We had the old school 3-D glasses that had been circulated around the town all week and there was an electricity in the air and the sticky blood of watermelon on our fingertips. Good memory.
Watermelon. It always places me exactly back to a summer evening in the early 80’s. Everyone had watermelon early that evening and then my parents and their neighbors and pretty much everyone else within three blocks gathered at my house to watch a televised 3-D version of the horror film Creature From the Black Lagoon. We had the old school 3-D glasses that had been circulated around the town all week and there was an electricity in the air and the sticky blood of watermelon on our fingertips. Good memory.
THE YEAR OF THE MOREL
Every spring we’d go mushrooming for morels,
big wrinkly things
like cone-head brains on stems.
Usually they were about 4 or 5 inches tall
and a couple inches wide,
but one time my dad came home
from a solitary expedition
and he had a morel mushroom
over a foot tall.
We took a picture of it next
to his drafting ruler.
That was 35 years ago.
I asked him about it on the phone
yesterday.
“Where’s that picture gone to?”
“Lost,” he said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said.
“Me neither,” he said.
He still lives in Illinois and still goes
mushrooming every spring,
but says each year
they get smaller and smaller.
I wonder if anyone
will believe me: that mushroom
was over a foot tall,
and at least 6 inches wide.
It was a monster.
This was the last year
we were all still together.
My mom cut it up and rolled it in crumbs
and fried it,
and we ate it, like that,
as a family.
THE YEAR OF THE MOREL
Every spring we’d go mushrooming for morels,
big wrinkly things
like cone-head brains on stems.
Usually they were about 4 or 5 inches tall
and a couple inches wide,
but one time my dad came home
from a solitary expedition
and he had a morel mushroom
over a foot tall.
We took a picture of it next
to his drafting ruler.
That was 35 years ago.
I asked him about it on the phone
yesterday.
“Where’s that picture gone to?”
“Lost,” he said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said.
“Me neither,” he said.
He still lives in Illinois and still goes
mushrooming every spring,
but says each year
they get smaller and smaller.
I wonder if anyone
will believe me: that mushroom
was over a foot tall,
and at least 6 inches wide.
It was a monster.
This was the last year
we were all still together.
My mom cut it up and rolled it in crumbs
and fried it,
and we ate it, like that,
as a family.
As a kid, my mother wouldn’t allow me soda unless we went out to the movies so i coveted it whenever i had an oppurtunity. One morning i found in the refrigerator what i thought was a glass of Coke (in a Coca-Cola glass no less). I drank, only to find out that it was leftover coffee my dad had saved. I was disgusted and have always hated coffee since. Whenever i receive a starbucks card i spend it solely on hot chocolates.
As a kid, my mother wouldn’t allow me soda unless we went out to the movies so i coveted it whenever i had an oppurtunity. One morning i found in the refrigerator what i thought was a glass of Coke (in a Coca-Cola glass no less). I drank, only to find out that it was leftover coffee my dad had saved. I was disgusted and have always hated coffee since. Whenever i receive a starbucks card i spend it solely on hot chocolates.
Orange roughy. My parents crammed that shit into my mouth as if they had some kind of bet between the two of them.
Orange roughy. My parents crammed that shit into my mouth as if they had some kind of bet between the two of them.
we will never let him live that shit down.
we will never let him live that shit down.
I know this isn’t a food, but it was the first story that came to mind.
I know this isn’t a food, but it was the first story that came to mind.
brad green has selected Stephen Pemberton as the contest winner… Stephen please email your address for Molly’s book! thanks to all
brad green has selected Stephen Pemberton as the contest winner… Stephen please email your address for Molly’s book! thanks to all
[…] Stephen Pemberton as the winner of Molly Gaudry’s We Take Me Apart, for his entry to the relate-food-to-childhood-n-stuff contest: Orange roughy. My parents crammed that shit into my mouth as if they had some kind of bet between […]