TO GAG A MAGGOT

 

The night Rob and I first met we somehow managed to discuss our food likes and dislikes.  I did not know how big a roll food plays in Robs life.  He is all about food.  He has amazing taste buds and can accurately pick out food ingredients just by tasting. 

We discovered that very first night that we had little, if any, food likes in common.  Both he and I knew the moment we met we would marry so what was a little difference in taste buds?  I actually didn’t even know how to cook the things he liked to eat.  I grew up cooking Italian dishes and I am very good at it.  I had a huge ability to make casseroles and fresh out of the garden dishes.  I love various salads, pastas and breads.  Rob loved anything fried or with bacon grease in it.  The only vegetable he would eat was green beans and that had to have enough bacon grease in it to disguise the bean flavor. 

When I married I had never fried a single thing in my life.  I was one that ate baked, boiled, broiled or grilled; I had NO CLUE how to fry!  Here I had married a man who refused to eat anything that wasn’t doused in grease, how in the world was I going to feed him?  We managed to eat out or with my parents the first week of our marriage.  We grocery shopped and prepared for the next week.  After discussing my limited exposure to frying my husband decided that he still wanted fried food and he wanted me to cook it.  He decided to “give me instructions” on how to fry.  He wanted me to get it done before he came home from work so he was not there when I made my first effort. 

When Rob came home I had the table set beautifully with candlesticks, mashed potatoes, gravy (which I had never made before either), green beans and breaded and fried round steak.  We set down to the table with confidence.  I had made a wonderful presentation for our first home cooked meal.   Robin began to fill his plate with everything and complemented how wonderful it looked, well, until he got to the gravy.  We noticed right away that the gravy had sort of congealed.  It had the consistancy of jelly.  It was so vulgar, I nearly gagged.    Rob decided that was ok he would help me make gravy at some point soon.  Then we cut into our meat, the meat, though seemingly perfectly cooked on the outside, the inside was raw; again I nearly gagged.  The potatoes were next naturally they were not good, they were nice and “earthy”  in other words they tasted like dirt.  At this point I was ready to cry, my first meal would gag a maggot!  Rob calmly looked at me and suggested pizza.  So, we cleaned up what was to have been our first meal and went out to eat pizza. 

It is nearly thirty nine years later and I still cannot make gravy and the only thing I can fry is popcorn chicken.  I can cook the popcorn chicken because the pieces are so small that when the outside is done I know the inside will be too.  At this point in life (2017) Rob does the frying, but then we do not fry too often as he finally realized it is not a healthy style of eating.

The Antique Mall

Naturally while living in Yuma, Arizona I had the desire to shop at the local mall, after all I am a girl and I do love to shop.  As a general rule I preferred a mall as you have many shops to choose from at one location.  After seeking out the mall address and directions I was looking forward to my trip to the stores.   I had my mental list (shorts for sure) and a pocket full of money.  I drove according to the directions given me.  When I got to the mall I was pleasantly surprised as it seemed to have more stores than I anticipated although they did appear to be older.  I wasn't concerned, I was certain that even if the building was old the merchandise would be up to date

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I entered my first store and was amazed to find wooden plank floors.  I mean, beautiful, old wooden floors.  The kind that make that loud hollow sound when you walk on them.  They were beautiful!  They were old!  I was so mesmerized by the sound my shoes made on the floors and by the look of these wonderful floors that I actually forgot to shop.  I walked around the entire mall looking at the floors.  They went throughout the entire mall.  The wood was a rich honey color and were well oiled.  I don't even know if they oil wood floors any more but they did back then.  I spent nearly half of a day just walking around gazing at these beautiful floors

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You must remember that I was an architecture major in college so things like this were so interesting to me.  I know those floors were old, I don't know if they were brought from another place and used there or if they were original to that particular mall.  The floors were not on a slab because the sound of wooden floors is completely different on a slab floor than a crawl space floor.  A slab floor will have a dull sound added to the thump of the heal hitting the wood, a crawl space will add a hollow, deep sound added to the thump of the heal hitting the wood, this floor had the hollow, deep sound.  I checked to see if this mall still exists, but did not find it under "malls", it could however still exist as another type of service building. 

 

The title of this blog is "The Antique Mall".  I chose that because while the mall did not sell a single antique, the mall itself was a complete Antique.   

Fragrant Yuma

 

Living in Yuma, Arizona was a unique experience.  Although Yuma is considered by most as desert country, living there was not at all like living in the desert.  Yuma had many orange groves.  Who knew?  I certainly had never considered Arizona as having orange groves, but it does!  Yuma air, besides being hot as hades, had the sweetest smell of orange blossoms when the trees began to bloom.   Every breathe you took was a sweet experience.  I spent as much time outside as possible when the orange trees were in bloom.  Although Yuma seemed to be at the gates of hell with its heat I left my windows down when driving so that I could enjoy the beautiful, rich smell of orange blossoms.  The richness waifs through my mind as I type and my nose raises just a little in the hopes of smelling that sweet richness.   Mmmmmm, what a wonderful memory for the senses.

Another surprising fact that I had never thought of was Yuma had cabbage fields, MANY cabbage fields.  At the time we lived there I was not a fan of cabbage but loved to see the luscious green rows of cabbage stretching out in very long lines.  As I passed the cabbage fields I would often see migrant workers hacking at the bottoms of the heads and throwing them into the back of field wagons.  That had to be back breaking work as they stayed bent over all day hacking and throwing, what a workout.