The tradition of the Sunday feast accomplishes more than just feeding us. It nurtures us.
---Chef John Besh
I slid out of bed at 5:30 Saturday morning and padded downstairs. The furnace was chugging on this newly official spring day; my phone displayed a frost warning.
I made coffee; while it churgled, I posted my blog on Facebook, and I played the obligatory morning word games. Then, duties done, I lit a fire. I poured a steaming cup of really good decaf, took my purely-entertainment book to the reading chair, nudged the knit throw from the chair back and arranged it over my feet, and I settled in, reading, drowsing, every once in a while hosting a valid thought that bubbled up from the muck.
The thought I liked the best was this one: I think I'll have a cooking weekend.
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And so, after the boyos got up, after we threw omelets together and fried up some maple-flavored sausage that came in last month's Butcher's Choice delivery, after the dishes were cleared away, and after a lick and a promise clean-up happened, I took stock.
Because we had just the right amount of not-yet-stale chips in the bottoms of two bags, I decided to make potato chip cookies. So, while the boyos made shopping lists and gathered plastic bags to drop off at Kroger, while they shrugged into their fleeces and gathered up phones and wallets, I got ingredients ready. I crushed the chips and chopped up butter to nukify, mixed 'real' flour with gluten-free (if not totally free, the cookies would at least be gluten reduced), and I poured M&M's and chocolate chips into the Corning glass measuring cup.
Two fat free range eggs. Rich dark brown sugar.
The KitchenAid mixer did its work, and I dropped good-sized spoonsful of dough onto trays. The dough was prickly with the chip shards and lumpy with the chocolate, and the cookies flattened down, in the oven, into brown-edged goodness.
I spread the hot cookies out on the big metal pizza pan, and when they came home, the boyos tried them for me.
They are good about things like that.
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And that afternoon, because we had some boneless pork chops cooked and in the freezer, and because Mark had brought home a stack of packages of our favorite hot Italian sausage the last time he visited in western New York, and because I had mixed up a batch of Dom's Mom's Meatballs just a day or two before, I put a pot of red sauce on to simmer. The Mixmaster made the cookie dough; the stovetop concocted the red sauce. I threw some laundry in, skimmed the furze-y bubbles from the top of the sauce, and then I took my book to the chair and let the appliances do their job.
Hey, you busy?
Yeah, sorry. Making sauce and doing laundry. Love to help, but I can't right now…
It was cold enough to light the fire. I slipped into the story, flipping pages; I went downstairs and changed laundry from washer to dryer; and I stirred sauce. And then I read until I dozed, until it was time to start the pasta water.
Dinner was tasty.
But something about my cooking weekend itch hadn't been scratched.
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Sunday dawned cold and wet and rainy. James dragged downstairs, grinding away at dregs of sleep.
"What's on today's agenda?" he asked, stretching his arms to touch the ceiling, and then I knew.
"Today," I said, "we're having an old-fashioned Sunday dinner."
We had a plump chicken defrosting in the refrigerator, and I thought of traditional things to go with it: mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet corn, stuffing…all served, I thought, at right around 2 p.m.
It is not, please know, that we scrimp and scrounge for food on other Sundays. We eat nicely, but usually at the weekday dinner time. Those are good Sunday night suppers, but somehow, no matter how fancy or exotic, they are regular meals. Today would be a little more special.
And a special meal calls for a special dessert, so we defrosted whipped topping, made a crust from, at James' suggestion, golden Oreos rather than the traditional chocolate ones, and whipped up some chocolate pudding to go in it.
And the fat little hen went into the oven, early-ish on, and the boyos found reasons to go out and about, and when they came back in, they were assailed by the scent.
Mark said it reminded him of the priest's house from his childhood; Mark would serve at the noon Mass, and all through, starving from his pre-Communion fast, he could smell the chicken the housekeeper was roasting, in the rectory adjoining the church, for the good Father.
Every Sunday, Mark remembered, the exact same meal: roast chicken and mashed potatoes. And his poor empty belly groaning all the while he solemnly brought the cruets of water and wine, mumbled the Latin responses to Father's calls, folded the special lacey linens. Thinking, mmmmmm….roast chicken when he should, maybe, have been dwelling on the wonder that is God.
But growing boys—they get hungry.
Anyway, said Mark now; it smells good.
And the chicken roasted in the oven, and the pie chilled in the fridge.
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At about one o'clock, James and I took a Kroger run with one objective: flowers for the Sunday dinner table. We browsed intently through the floral section, nothing jumping up and saying, "Of course you want ME!" until Jim spied a robust clutch of sunflowers mixed with a tinier flower, something magenta and studded with tiny leaves.
"This?" he said.
I nodded, vigorously. Just right.
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And at home, we cleared the strewn sections of the Sunday Times from the old oak table, moved the salt and pepper shakers and the ads and Jim's leather zip-package of multi-colored-pens—all the frew frou that collects on dining tables—and Jim wiped it down while I got a sturdy glass vase from the highest pantry shelf. I used my heavy cooking shears to chop down the thick stems of the flowers, and I juggled them, golden and brown and magenta, into the water of the vase. They took a breath, looked at each other, decided all was well, and settled in.
I found the new gold and white tablecloth in the dresser in the dining room, and Jim helped me settle it over the table. The vase with its precious bounty went on one end, and the shakers nestled in the flowers' shade. Jim got the good china out and set the table, and he carefully folded sort-of multi-colored Buffalo plaid napkins, which I had, for some unknown reason, actually ironed the night before, next to each plate.
And I checked the chicken's temp, which was right about where we wanted it to be, and so I organized all the sides. The potatoes went from the freezer and into the microwave. The stuffing came from a box. I opened a jar and poured the gravy into the smallest saucepan and drizzled pan drippings into it.
Mark, who had enjoyed one off those wonderful Sunday naps, mooched into the kitchen and got the knife sharpener from the drawer. While the sides simmered, steamed, and melded, he drew the blade of his favorite knife between its whetstones with a wonderful shhhhh-licking sound.
And in that minute before the whirlwind of getting everything ready to serve, Jim carefully iced the glossy brown surface of the pudding pie with whipped topping. I got my potato peeler out and took the forlorn behind of a solid Easter bunny out of its Tupperware, and I grated chocolate curls onto the fluffy white topping. We slid that pie back onto the refrigerator shelf.
And then everything was ready..the potatoes, as fluffy as the whipped topping, primed to go into their formal oval dish, the gravy in its boat, the beans in a bowl with a fancy spoon. I fluffed stuffing into my mother's Depression glass bowl with a fork, and Mark flashed that sharpened knife, carving the chicken. He zipped off crackling skin, and Jim dodged the knife's snickersnack to pluck a piece from the chopping board.
"Hey!" said Mark, and they parried and feinted, and Mark cut himself a piece of skin, munching it with loud delight as Jim groaned.
And then dinner was served, and we said a grace over it and unfolded our napkins and set them on our laps and, much more politely than is our usual wont, we passed dishes, and we heaped our plates.
And while we ate, we talked of books and work, of convertible cars and upcoming movies. We shared funny stories we'd heard, and Jim told us a joke he'd just seen on FaceBook. We laughed, and we lingered.
We said we shouldn't, and then we had seconds. Mark ate a crispy little chicken wing and Jim kindly took the last dollop of potatoes, and finally, we all groaned and pushed back in our chairs. Stuffed, we all agreed. But we agreed, too, that it was SO good.
And later, after some dishes were stacked in the dishwasher and others, too fancy, were washed by hand, we took a walk and then came home to eat wedges of pudding pie.
"You know," suggested Jim, "we should do this more often. "Not every Sunday, I mean, but maybe…every three weeks?"
Mark and I nodded.
A good idea, we agreed.
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What makes a dinner Sunday special? What sets it apart from 'regular dinners' and makes it into Sunday dinner? Many of the 'regular' dinners we eat on Sunday nights are more labor-intensive, more 'made from scratch,' and yet they don't have the gravitas of that meal with the plump little hen and the short-cut sides.
Is it the tablecloth? Is it the flowers?
Is it that we all agreed to eat in the middle of the afternoon?
We'll see if we can figure it out, if we can recapture the magic in three weeks or so.
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Sometimes we lose things without knowing why.
Sunday dinners? I might say, a little sadly. Oh, I don't do that these days.
I say it as if I was part of an electorate, as if we took a vote and decided that no,—no, sorry; we just can't manage to get Sunday dinners on our tables in these benighted times. As if we all agreed: we're not doing THAT any more.
I say it as if some solemn body officially changed the rule, and I must, in all conscience, abide.
And yet: how simple, and how special.
What else have I given up, let slip from the reins, with a mild, unthinking pang? There's just not enough time, I might have sighed.
But really, yes, there is.
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Tonight---Friday night---we pulled leftovers from the freezer. Mark fine-chopped the chicken and we heated it in the gravy and pan drippings; we nuked more potatoes and moistened the leftover stuffing. I steamed Italian green beans, and we polished off the remains of that very special dinner—this time, serving ourselves from pots on the stove and dishes on the counter.
Mark said it reminded him of the best of school lunches. Comfort food, Jim said.
All that remains of Sunday dinner now are the chicken bones, waiting to be roasted and burbled into broth.
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We do dishes, and thunder pounds and bolts crackle, close and frightening, but I dismiss that drama. I am thinking of other dinners we might make for those every three-week-or-so special events. Maybe a pork roast with risotto; maybe a luscious pan of baked lasagna. I think of bread loaves with crusts that crackle and green salads with dried cherries, feta cheese, and toasted pecans.
Which tablecloth? I ponder. And will I have flowers ready to cut out in the yard?
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I am thankful for a cooking weekend that led us back to Sunday dinners, that reminded us that special can be local, and that sometimes, the magic I need is just here, just waiting close to hand.
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