I have to say right off the bat that I am not at all a computer geek. I have hunted and pecked my way through the Blogger interface to create what you’re reading here at Poor Man’s Feast. I know enough basic code to understand that if I mistype one small character, I could wind up with something profoundly indecent. And I’ve just figured out that if you become addicted to Facebook, your life could very well wind up passing before your eyes. The way mine is.
Some months back, when I decided one night to investigate exactly what this Facebook thing was, I found myself in contact with a woman in Hawaii with whom I’d grown up, and who I hadn’t thought about in something like 38 years (we’re both 46). Our chatting, which was lovely, identified certain commonalities; one thing led to another, and I discovered that I’d grown up with a lot of the people on her Facebook page. I “friended” them after being out of contact for almost 40 years, and it snowballed from there. Facebook, it seems, is the very definition of viral. In a good way. Mostly.
The other night, I came home from work, turned on my computer to look up a recipe, and discovered that my Hawaii friend had unearthed a few class photos of us, and put them up on her Facebook page for everyone to see, including Marcella Hazan and Cat Cora, both of whom are Facebook “friends” of mine and who might be wondering who the little dweeb in the yellow outfit and the Rose Marie bow is. Facebook is great, but it’s a very slippery slope.
But there I am– a first grader, in 1970. My ill-tempered teacher wears a poncho and hoop earrings, and I have a strong memory of taking the bow-tied boy in the back row to the nurse every single day because the sight of Miss Rieff made him acutely ill. 1971. Second grade. My teacher, who used to throw erasers, is dressed like a large tomato in a bright orange pantsuit, and somewhere in the second row is a young girl who had just arrived from India the week before, who could barely speak a word of English, and who still had enough chutzpah to stand in front of the class and sing Que Sera Sera at the top of her lungs, even though she didn’t know what the words meant. This is the stuff that lays buried beneath the recesses of the subconscious; it’s the hyper-specific dross that billows up at feverish, dream-like moments, when you least expect it. It’s like knowing exactly what my mother’s Dansk chocolate brown fondue set looks like, even though I haven’t actually seen it since Nixon was in office. Or remembering that my grandmother used too much paprika in her goulash, even though I haven’t had it since I was twelve.
Suddenly, after making a concerted effort to not think about my childhood in Forest Hills through the 1970s, it is staring me in the face. And the people who were there with me–the friends I pelted with snowballs, the small boy with the discomforting tendency towards the inappropriately sexual, the bully who fried tiny insects under the lens of a magnifying glass, the hoodlums who my father instructed me to avoid, the girls who grew up fast and then disappeared under cloud of rumor, the smart kids–are all back in my life. And the thing is, while our contact is limited to the computer (for the moment), they all seem to be okay and even very nice. And they all love food. A lot.
We jog each other’s memories: who had made the best pizza on Austin Street? Who remembers the way Charlie at the luncheonette on the corner used to slice grilled cheese? (In thirds, diagonally.) Does anyone but me remember the Associated grocery store at the end of our street, the owner’s pale, wan wife, and the tatooed number on her arm peaking out beneath the sleeve of her sweater as she rang up our eggs and milk? My friends remember my Schnauzer, who got locked out in the hallway during a blackout while wearing my mother’s bra. They remember my grandmother’s Friday night roast chicken. The Danish modern Lazy Susan that sat on our dining room table. The fondue set. My father’s surprise 50th birthday party on a bitterly cold Christmas Eve in 1973 during an ice storm; that ice storm.
I asked my mother what she remembers most from this time that has boomeranged back into my life. Was it the people? The parties? The war? The chianti in a basket? Our Norwegian neighbor coming back from Oslo and introducing us to lefse and canned lutefisk and the taste sensation of putting sugar in your spaghetti and tomato sauce?
“I remember the brie,” she says, “and how fancy it was.”
My Mother’s Baked Brie
My mother’s parties in the 1970s were raucous, loud, fun affairs involving Trini Lopez, chianti in a basket, and, very often, this two-ingredient dish. “It makes a nice presentation,” she says, and in fact, she’s right.
1 sheet of puff pastry
1 8″ round of brie
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. On a stick-free baking sheet, unroll puff pastry and set the cheese on top of it. Fold the pastry over the top, and remove excess dough.
2. Bake for 20 minutes, until golden. Let cool before serving with fresh fruit.
