Take Out
Take Out
We grew up in a world where take out seemed nonexistent. I often wonder how my mother could have survived preparing three meals a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, for eight of us. I think I would have collapsed from food planning exhaustion. Some days it’s just so hard to figure out what to prepare. The only form of take out was when a pizza order wasn’t picked at the Black Buoy. My Aunt Rose Black would deliver it to us and every blue moon that pizza made its way to our kitchen table.
With six kids in our family, we never went out to eat. As first prize in a Halloween costume party at school, I won dinner for two at Baron’s Cove Inn. I think that may have been the first time I ate in a restaurant. I was nearly eighteen.
Do you remember a time when iceberg was the only type of lettuce available and salad consisted of iceberg lettuce with mayonnaise as dressing? And now I couldn’t even begin to name the variety of lettuce greens and the innumerable salad accouterments. Salad has taken on a complete life of its own. To me, it is one of those things that always tastes better when someone else makes it.
My mom used to get four sandwiches out of one can of tuna! I’m not sure how she did it but they were the best tuna sandwiches anywhere. She used white bread, before we knew it wasn’t the healthiest of choices, and added plenty of chopped celery. If we made the journey to Riverhead for shopping, she would pack tuna sandwiches in a cooler and cans of ginger ale with paper cups and straws. We’d eat in the parking lot of one of the stores. I don’t think we even thought of eating out somewhere.
After the school bus dropped us off, we’d run down our long driveway to find some delicious treat in the kitchen- homemade cupcakes or cookies or something that helped smooth the wrinkles of the day. We might have one of those big cans of ‘Hawaiian Punch’ in the fridge that you had to pierce the top of with a church key. Sometimes after dinner we would have a can of fruit cocktail for dessert, I remember fighting over who would get one of the halves of cherry. A weekend night of watching the Ed Sullivan Show might bring on a special treat of ice cream sodas- orange soda with vanilla ice cream. As someone once mentioned, if life wasn’t perfect- we never noticed.
Birthday parties were cake and ice cream and a rousing round of musical chairs or pop the balloon. I remember that one new game that arrived on the birthday party circuit- where items were presented on a tray and then taken away and we had to see how many items we could remember. There were no trips or bouncy houses, ponies or magic shows.
All of life seemed simpler then-I think there were only one or two brands of yogurt, with just a few flavors-and now yogurt, every brand, flavor, base -takes up almost an entire aisle in the supermarket-coconut, almond, cashew, Kefir, Greek, blueberry, raspberry, lemon, pomegranate, low-cal, low-sugar, whole milk, low-fat-how does one even choose?
We have had many chances now to see that simpler is better in life-there has been an all-out call across the span of the universe to simplify-our homes and our hearts. There may not be an opportunity to return to those simpler times, but I think we may be able to create or recreate a life of simple values-a life where less is more-a life where joy is found not in what we have but who and what we love. May this Valentine’s Day be filled with the joy of the simple things you love.