Table for Two

Throughout my adult life , I have been curious about other people’s dinner routine when they were growing up. To this day, I have yet to encounter anyone who has told me that their mother also prepared two dinners every night. I grew up as number seven of eight children and my mother would prepare dinner for the children, then a separate dinner for she and my father.

Our dinner would be served around six or six thirty, before my father would arrive home from work. This was no frozen dinner, instant potato sort of affair. It was a full on spread straight from the pages of a Julia Child cookbook. Rare roast beef with au jus, mashed potatoes with roasted garlic, long before they became a trendy restaurant item in the nineties, haricots verts, drowning in butter and topped with toasted slivered almonds, carrots dripping with a maple ginger glaze. My mother was a Julia Child devotee. I remember her in the kitchen, with the TV from the family room, on a rolling cart, pulled into view where she would watch Julia Child and follow the recipe. I don’t know if there was a heads up in the weekly TV guide, letting her viewers know what she would be cooking that day, or if my mother just happened to have the necessary ingredients for whatever Julia was making.

My mother would start preparations in the late afternoon, tuning in to Julia and setting up ingredients. “Mise en place”, she would tell us. Her “Mise en place” usually included a nice cold highball of gin and tonic for sipping while she cooked. When my father arrived home, he would drape his suit jacket over a chair, loosen his tie, and sit in his favorite armchair. My mother would come from the kitchen, with two drinks in hand, offering one to my father, they would clink glasses, he would kiss her cheek, then take his first sip. Every time, without fail, he would let out a sigh, and in his best Jackie Gleason voice, proclaim “How Sweeeet it is !” Mother would agree, and take a sip herself, like this was her first taste of the day. Depending on the complexity of that night’s menu, It might have been her fourth drink.

While this routine was occurring , we were all eating dinner in the kitchen, having been warned to “Keep it Down”, so my parents could watch the nightly news, and catch up on the days events. Once we had finished dinner, we cleared the table, and loaded the dishwasher. There was some sort of rotation as to who did what, and I remember our mother instructing us to load the steak knives down, so baby Josi wouldn’t accidentally cut herself when it was time to empty the dishes. My sister was barely walking, but she was at the right height to unload the bottom rack, so we were also instructed to load the dishwasher with items in the bottom that would be put away in the lower cabinets, thereby increasing her efficiency. What was the point of having eight kids, if they weren’t all able to do their part ?

After a couple of drinks, and god knows how many cigarettes, Mother would get up to put the final touches on their dinner. Sometimes she would serve the same meal, but add a creamy horseradish sauce, or add a crisp caesar salad, sometimes it was an entirely different menu altogether, depending on her desire for goose liver pate, braised short ribs, or chicken paillard. Their dinner was served in the dining room, on fine china. The lights were dimmed and candles were lit. My mother served in courses, and next to their dinner plates were little brass ashtrays which were used between courses and after dinner.

We were not allowed to enter the dining room during this time. Two half doors swung open to the dining room and were closed once they sat down to eat. “Unless you have lost a limb , and your brothers and sisters can not control the bleeding , you are not to enter the dining room.” my mother would say. We might sneak into the living room and hide behind the half wall to hear what they were talking about, if we thought one of us was in trouble for something they did, but usually we just treasured our time in front of the television, choosing to watch Carol Burnett or The Sonny & Cher show.

When I tell this to people, most are usually charmed by the idea. A peaceful repose for a couple, setting time aside for just the two of them . Most say they could not imagine actually doing it, but it sounds romantic and sweet. I just wonder how in the hell my mother had all of the ingredients each night to keep up with Julia Child.