Food

Four Parables ~ Vaudeville ~ Klezmer Rondo; Paul Schoenfield, composer; The New World Symphony; John Nelson, conducting; Jeffrey Kahane, piano

I would suppose that the first food that I learned to prepare by myself was cereal; Cap’n Crunch, Froot Loops, Quisp and Apple Jacks. And probably toast. I don’t remember the lessons. But I do remember when Mom taught me how to steam a hot dog. That’s all I ate for the next full week in an effort to perfect my technique. Scrambled eggs came soon after. Popcorn came on the heels of scrambled eggs and then rice.

Around the time that I turned nine years old, Mom saw a contraption at the local Coast to Coast store called a PrestoBurger. Put the ground beef on the hot part of the gadget, press the lid down on the beef and you had a perfectly round hamburger in about two minutes. Shortly after that, she bought the Presto FryBaby. We really lived high on the hog from then on. I mean, honest-to-God crinkle-cut french fries … just like at the restaurants.

Soon I learned how to make macaroni and cheese, molasses cookies, Shake-N-Bake, grilled cheese sandwiches and oyster stew. Of course, I didn’t need the talent to make any of these things while I was in college. But, when I went to CCM, I had to summon all of the cooking and baking competence that I had achieved up to that time. While I can’t boast of a wide variety of food that I kept in the kitchen of my apartment, I can tell of how I ate out only four times during the first three months of my post-collegiate matriculation.

The summer of 1995 found me between jobs. Dad had always told us kids, “If you need to come home for a while after college, your rooms will always be here. There’s plenty for you to do around here until you figure out what comes next.” So, I stacked bales, cultivated corn and hauled grain wagons for Dad during July and August.

I remember the first day … about an hour before noon. Dad said, “Son, why don’t you go inside and fix us something for lunch.” I complied. Whatever it was that I prepared, apparently, hit the spot because the same thing happened the next day. “Son, why don’t you go inside and fix us something to eat.” I tried different things; pancakes, french toast, pork chops, beef stew. A couple of times I rustled up some home-made soup.

Now, on a scale of one hundred miles, with a carnivore on one end and a vegetarian on the other, my plot on the scale is about ninety-nine miles away from the vegetarian. But, can you believe that during that summer, I found that one-mile degree difference between my father and me? One day I made home-made cream of vegetable soup for lunch. He tasted it and said, “Say, this is pretty good. Maybe next time you can find some meat to add to it.” Full-blooded carnivore. I suppose it’s asking a lot for a man with a herd of cattle to sustain a plate of food that didn’t give up an awful lot to make an appearance at his table.

While I was fixing lunch one day, I heard on public radio an incredible piece called “Four Parables” for piano and orchestra. Someone had suggested to the composer that he compose a piece based on stories from his life. The suggestion resulted in these “Parables”. The story associated with the last movement of this wonderfully creative work involved his neighbor’s children and the death of the family dog. He found the children crying near the curb one day upon his arrival at home. To console them, he cheered them up with the story of doggy heaven, where the streets are lined with bones and there’s a fire hydrant on every corner. And, so, the last movement of “Four Parables” is what he imagines a jazz bar would be like in “Doggy Heaven”. It’s kind of like if Igor Stravinsky wrote “Rhapsody In Blue”. Mark my words: I am going to learn this piece and play it with an orchestra some day. Just you wait.

On the issue of vegetables, let me relate what I heard a friend say: With regards to pizza, I prefer not to include vegetables. If it didn’t die a horrible, horrible death, I don’t want it on mypizza.

Credits: To the Quaker Oats Company, maker of Cap’n Crunch, “an important part of this nutritious breakfast”.

This is the thirty-third of my final forty-five CD’s.