Grandma Mary's Fruit Rolls



Grandma Mary and Soon-To-Be Fruitcake Fan

Fruitcake during the holidays has become something of a joke.  For some reason, people who receive them may put slices out for company, but it is the fudge and gingerbread men that get eaten off the serving plate.

To be blunt, many fruitcakes deserve this humiliation.  They can be dry or overly gooey, and somehow sweet and disgusting, simultaneously.
My mother's fruitcake was not like that, probably because she made them with so much love....and a great recipe.  On a platter next to homemade fudge, her fruitcake held its own.





Hula Girl-Cum-Fruticake Magnate, Gina

Our daughters Gina and Amy have been determined to re-create her fruitcakes, annually getting together a few weeks before Christmas to make three dozen or so.  Without having the exact recipe, there has been a certain amount of trial and error, but they always turn out a great fruitcake.



As promised, below you will find the amazing fruitcake recipe our family enjoyed again this Thanksgiving, as recorded by Gina, who wrote the following text for this blog in order to find the recipe more easily in future years.  But you can make it too!

This recipe echoes the “fruit rolls” that Grandma Mary made each year, a tradition carried on by Emma, Amy, and Gina.  Everything has been scaled as a double batch, but can be halved.

Amy, Fashionista-Cum-Fruitcakière

Phase 1 – Shop
* 2 lbs (or a bit less) candied cherries (half red/half green)
* 2 lbs (or a bit less) dried dates
* At least 12 cups pecans, chopped
* At least 8 cups walnuts, chopped
* 2 lbs graham crackers (crumbs if available)
* 8 sticks of butter (salted)
* 2 lbs marshmallows
* 2 small cans condensed milk
* Wax paper
* Tape
* Wrapping paper



Fruitcake Maker Emma With
Devoted Fruticake Eater BG3

Phase 2 - Chop
* Chop cherries
* Chop dates
* Chop pecans to make 12 cups
* Chop walnuts to make 8 cups
* Crush graham crackers (or buy crumbs) 
* Separate all of the above chopped/crushed ingredients the above to 4 batches. Consider adding dates piece by piece into crumbs to avoid clumping. 
* Mix and store 

Jay at First Gathering of Occupy Fruitcakes in Laguna

Phase 3 – Combine
* Set up ~64 wax paper rectangles  ~7 inches wide (reserve 32 nicest ones for re-wrapping)
* For each of the 4 batches
    o Melt 2 sticks of butter and then add 1/2 lbs of marshmallows, stir until melted
    o Add ½ can of condensed milk
    o Stir in 1 batch of fruits, nuts and crumbs 
    o Quickly transfer to wax paper, shaping to a log
    o Tape and refrigerate overnight 


The Original Fruticakes and Their Makers

Phase 4 – Slice and wrap
* Remove each roll, and slice thin
* Re-wrap in fresh wax paper
* Cover with wrapping paper

The Host of the 2014 Thanksgiving and Fruitcake Festival,
Laszlo, Near the City of 8 1/2 Million Fruitcakes

Gina Playing Hide and Seek in Old World
Years Before Writing Down This Recipe

Come to the Feast!

 

 

Let the Hunger Games Begin

On Thanksgiving day, at a couple of minutes before 1:00 PM, with great fanfare our granddaughter Emma rhythmically pounded her tom-tom drum as she chanted along with the beat.  "Come to the Feast!  Come to the Feast!"

 

Emma had been preparing for this performance for several days, constructing her drum at St. Paul's Christian Day School and then rehearsing with her pre-school class and also at home.  She also learned a sweet Thanksgiving prayer she recited immediately before our meal.

 

Weeks earlier, Emma and her mommy Gina had sent out invitations announcing the 1:00 PM dinner time, and the meal began on schedule.

 

 

To make the deadline, working mom Gina pre-ordered groceries for delivery on the morning before Thanksgiving, at which time with steady assistance from her sister Amy and occasional helping hands from others, including your humble correspondent, she began following her carefully prepared list of tasks. 

 

Even Emma got into the meal preparations by making, with hands on direction her Nagy Ria, pilgrim hat desserts out of marshmallows dipped in melted semi-sweet chocolate chips attached attached to chocolate cookies.

Mostly, Emma worked on fesive craft decorations with her grandmothers Ria and Julie.

 
For the first time in four years, Julie and I were with all three of our children, our granddaughter Emma and Gina's husband Laszlo. 

My sister Darlene, her husband Brooks and their son BG3, plus their Pomeranian Teddy, all flew in from California too, making it the first big Thanksgiving with all of us together in twelve years or so.  Laszlo's brother Szilard also attended Thanksgiving dinner along with their mother Ria, who lives with them, but her husband Z had to take a holiday shift at work.

 

Gina and Amy have worked together on Thanksgiving meals since Amy moved east to attend UConn in 2009, and several holidays of practices resulted in an impressive feast indeed.

 
Gina, an epidemiologist by profession, followed a scientific method of pre-planned steps with carefully selected culinary experiments gleaned over the years, because unlike the rest of this blog, Thanksgiving Dinner is not Quick-Clean Cuisine. 

 

No indeed. 

 

This was a time-consuming, complicated-recipes, follow-the-list-or-get-hopelessly-lost, mess-up-as-many-pots-pans-and-bowls-as-necessary delicious meal for a dozen people who had been salivating for weeks. 

 

Step by step, the meal preparation unfolded, and Gina never once stopped smiling, obviously happy to be at the task.

Believing there's never enough stuffing for leftovers despite usually making a double recipe, Gina decided to make a quadruple batch of the turkey day favorite that required two enormous mixing bowls plus a large aluminum tray that would normally be used for cooking a turkey.  I'm proud to say that I did a lot of stirring on that dish, because stuffing again ruled as one of the stars of the meal. 

Where did she discover this crowd-pleasing recipe?  For the answer, we must look 2,869.3 miles to the west, to Bothell, Washington, in the greater Seattle area.  While attending graduate school at the University of Washington, Gina enjoyed several Thanksgiving dinners at the home of her Bothell-based Aunt Cheryl (Julie's sister).  With four large onions, 40 ounces of Spinach and lots of fresh herbs to mix with 24 ounces of cornbread, it was more like a vegetable dish than a starch, but the taste was all stuffing stuffed with delicious stuff, the kind of stuff of which stuffing magic is made.

I also helped peel, cut and mash potatoes under the direction of Gina, although I have to say that Amy actually did a lot of the heavy mashing before I wandered back into the kitchen from my other duties as native American chief.

 

If you're like me, you think stuffing and mashed potatoes are always the highlights of Thanksgiving dinner, but Gina would not stop there.

 

Oh no!  Not for one moment 

She also made a turkey.

Not exactly a daring choice on Thanksgiving, but Gina also brought that to another level.

She started by brining the turkey the night before in a special brining recipe she apparently got from "Christy M" and some even more anonymous person (possibly forced to enter witness protection because this is such a killer recipe).  Gina elevated the turkey on a rack inside the pan (as I said, she took it to another level, quite literally) so that it didn't soak in its own juice like most turkeys do.

 
Surprisingly, when Gina took the turkey out of the oven, drippings were less abundant than usual, causing concern that there may not be enough drippings to moisten the huge batch of suffing.  Somehow, she figured out a solution involving broth of some turkey part boiling on the stove top, and Ria even managed to harvest enough drippings to make some delicious gravy.

Between the brining and the rack, the turkey browned perfectly with all the juices sealed in.  It cooked so evenly and retained so much moisture that it was hard to tell the white meat from dark meat.  It was all delicious. 

 

While the turkey cooked, Emma managed to get Laszlo, Jay and the biggest kid of all (me) out of the house to do some sledding on fresh snow in the back yard, helping us all to build up our appetites, just in case the amazing aromas hadn't already worked their magic.

Oh, and by the way, we did have vegetable side dishes, too. Sweet peas with pearl onions as well as a salad of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers were tasty.  Ria also made her secret cranberry sauce, which includes cranberries, mandarin oranges and walnuts.

For dessert, we each had one of those delicious pilgrim hats, but I'd have to say the biggest hit of all was Gramma Mary's Fruit Cake, which Gina and Amy have been churning out as Christmas presents for several years.  I think among us we ate about a half dozen fruit cakes.  Yes, they're that good, and Gina has asked me to post the recipe here so she can always find it easily.  (That's a preview of coming attractions.)

 

Was it quick?  Not at all.  Was it easy to clean?  No, it made an enormous mess of the kitchen, sometimes using up bowls just to break down the enormous quantities into easier to manage sizes.  Once, there was even an incident where the turkey tried to make a run for it during the prep stage, spilling molasses brine on the floor. 

But most importantly, was it cuisine?  Definitely!  It was one of the best Thanksgiving dinners ever.

 Before all the dishes had been washed, the Christmas Season kicked off in New City.  Upon arrival in New City, Nana had pulled out some traditional games given a new spin with Disney's "Frozen" characters.  Darlene and Brooks arrived with a new knit outfit for Emma.  Emma's Uncle Szilard, who lives in New York, arrived at the Feast with a "Frozen" dinner plate for her.

Uncle Jay waited until Friday to give Emma the Nerf bow and arrow in a huge gift bag he'd brought with him when he arrived at 3 AM on Thanksgiving morning, but I believe Christmas crafts had already started Thanksgiving afternoon.

 

And while preparing the feast itself is time consuming and complicated, diverse leftovers can lead to many easy-to-assemble creative dishes while the festivities continue.

Quick Sangria? Si, si!

When Julie and I were first dating, we headed over to El Paso Cantina at the Long Beach Marina for dinner one Sunday. We arrived about 4:00 PM and ordered Sangria in the cantina lounge as a pre-dinner beverage.

Looking back, I can't remember what made us order Sangria rather than a ubiquitous Margarita or cerveza, but I'd guess there was one of those laminated tabletop signs with an attractive glass of red wine topped with floating fruit accompanied by an equally attractive price.

The waitress invited us to get some chips, salsa and other snacks from their free Happy Hour buffet, and the next thing we knew, we had eaten so many snacks while we sipped our Sangria that neither Julie nor I were hungry for dinner, so we skipped it.

We repeated this many more times, becoming quite adept at playing backgammon on the game tables in the cantina, but never managing to order dinner. It wasn't long before that business was forced to shutter its doors, unable to sustain such ravenous eaters who never ordered dinner, and it became difficult to find Sangria that good again anywhere else.

Occasionally, we would happen upon a Mexican restaurant that served a fruity wine that tasted great, but more often than not Sangria served by "professionals" was some weird concoction thrown together by a bartender who apparently had no clue what it was supposed to taste like, even at Spanish tapas restaurants that theoretically specialized in Sangria.

You will never need to suffer this trial and error process, because I will now tell you how to make a full proof Sangria at home.

Here is the simple recipe:

Put four cubes of glass in a wine glass.

Add equal parts of Sutter Home Sweet Red Wine, 100% fruit juice (some combination of berries or fruit punch flavored) and Crystal Lite Lemonade.  That's one third of however much you're making per liguid ingredient, for those of you without a calculator nearby, adapted for whatever size your wine glass happens to be (and remember not to fill your glass to the rim or dropping in a cherry will cause it to spill). 

To get fancy, you can add a Maraschino cherry, slice of orange and wedge of lime, or a piece of pineapple or any other tropical fruit you have laying around. It is, however, delicious simply mixing the three liquids. Perfecto!

And Quick?!?!?!!?  Si! Si!

Brown Bag Booty

While none of my recipes rival man's invention of fire for originality, popcorn is undoubtedly one of the most familiar snacks in the United States if not the world.  When the Spanish arrived in the New World, they found the Incas and Mayans popped corn for ceremonies, decoration and, of course, eating.  It only took the Spanish 400 years to add Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz to invent date night at the movies (those of you over 30 know the truth, but don't spoil it for the others).

We had one of the original electric popcorn machines when I was a child in the 1950s, but at the dawn of the Space Age, a chemist in Indiana named Frederick Medden made history by inventing a product that exemplifies American ingenuity: a disposable aluminum pan that we could slide back and forth above a gas stove fire to create a veritable futuristic silver dome filled with delicious, buttery popcorn: Jiffy Pop.

American Home Products purchased the rights to Jiffy Pop from Fred  And as befitting such an American success story, upon introducing the product nationally in 1959, AHP was immediately sued by Taylor-Reed, which had introduced a very similar product called E-Z Pop five years earlier.  It had been invented by Michigan's Benjamin Coleman, another household name in inventions along with Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin and the aforementioned Fred.

Not to be outdone, American Home Products appealed and, in fashion that would make my patent-attorney nephew Brooks proud, the district court overruled the original finding that E-Z Pop and Jiffy Pop were similar products.

However, as I actually think back on it, I believe my family often bought E-Z Pop, which I think was a little cheaper and really was a very similar product.



There never has been a more fun way for a kid to make popcorn than that.  It had everything: built-in ingredients including corn and oil, buttery flavor that probably is still embedded in my arteries from the '60s, fun-looking visual confirmation of when it is done, and a chance to play with fire without actually destroying anything.

Nonetheless, even the cheapest brand wasn't cheaper than popping corn the old fashioned way.  However, as happens in the modern age, once we had a faster, quick-clean method of cooking, the old fashioned method no longer seemed worth the effort.  It's a risk I'm willing to take each time I share a recipe, and a burden I do not carry lightly. 

Well, maybe it didn't completely replace old fashioned pop corn machines, but at least that's what happened in my house.  It was E-Z (or Jiffy) Pop, or go to the movies.

My old friend Chris Crabtree, however, seemed to be downright primitive.  His family would put oil and popping corn in a covered pan and pop it over the stove.  It still tasted good, and I didn't have to clean the pan and lid, so who was I to judge?

In the 1970s, American Home Products hired magician Harry Blackstone Jr. as a spokesman for its magic disposable popcorn maker, Jiffy Pop, but a new fad was about to sweep the nation like disco: air poppers.  With these machines, we could drop a small scoop of corn into the top and presto: a minute later hot popcorn shot out the front into your giant bowl.  There was even a slot on top in which to put butter to melt, but most of us didn't use that, because it made a mess and, in an age before obesity became epidemic, we were all told that fat and particularly butter should be avoided. 

Coincidence that obesity became more prevalent after attempting to eliminate fat from our diets?  I don't think so.  Fat in our stomachs makes us feel full, thus suppressing the urge to grab another handful of granola while watching TV, but I digress.

Nothing could ever take the place of this relatively inexpensive kitchen appliance, the hot air popper, right?  Those of you who don't own a hot air popper may see a flaw in this logic.

Increasingly affordable microwave ovens had begun to become standard kitchen counter appliances, and in 1981, General Mills introduced the first microwave popcorn under its Pillsbury brand.  Pillsbury's popcorn had to be stored in the freezer to keep the ingredients fresh. 

James Watkins, an engineer on the Pillsbury popcorn project, left GM to start his own company, which produced a rip-off popcorn called Act I.  When Watkins figured out how to make the popcorn and oils shelf-stable, he patented the process and released Act II, the first microwave popcorn as most of us know them.  And all this time you thought generic-looking Act II ripped off that nerd Orville Redenbacher.

Flash forward to a few days ago, when I was researching cruises for a customer with the TV running in the background. 

For some unknown reason, Dr. Oz was talking to some guy about microwave popcorn.  I have no idea why the TV was tuned to whatever channel that was, much less to a show I never watch, but like some great popcorn pioneers before me, I had been tapped on the shoulder by fate.

Dr. Oz and his guest were rattling on about microwave popcorn being unhealthy due to the nonstick lining of the bag that gets into our digestive systems when we eat the popcorn.  Julie and I eat microwave popcorn enough to be on a first name basis with Mr. Redenbacher, making me wonder how much of that junk I had inside me. 

The guest proceeded to give the exact same instructions for making popped corn in a brown bag that I'm about to share in this next paragraph. 

Put a quarter cup of popcorn in a plain paper bag (like many kids used for school lunches).  Fold the top of the bag over about a half inch, then fold it over two more times in the same direction to loosely close the top of the bag.  Put a little piece of tape in the middle of the fold to keep it closed, but definitely nothing close to sealed.  Put the bag in the microwave sitting on its bottom (just as if it contained your lunch in fourth grade) and cook it for 80 seconds (more or less depending on your exact microwave), but be sure to turn it off before the popcorn stops popping and burns.

Does that sound like I'm about to blatantly infringe on this unknown guy's recipe?  Well, I doubt it was his recipe either, and besides, he didn't have a name for his whereas mine is called Brown Bag Booty*.  Like with Jiffy Pop, it is a catchy name, and if I go national, maybe I can get ZZ Top (or a band that looks like them) to do an alternative version of "Tube Snake Boogie" for my commercial jingle.

Besides, I have a few words of wisdom that will keep you from making mistakes I made.  First, try to find some decent bags.  The ones I got at Target were cheap ($1.87 for 100), but they are so flimsy that my first batch of popcorn shot out the bottom.  I'll be buying new ones...about 90 bags from now.

I think I probably had a little more than a quarter cup in the bag, adding to the strain on the bottom of the flimsy bag, which leads me to my second breakthrough idea that should qualify for a utility patent: use a little less than a quarter cup of popping corn, and try to be consistent with your measurements.  My measuring cup is actually double sized, and it is hard to see how much a quarter cup is when inside a 2 cup container.  I now measure popcorn using an ice cream scoop, coming to the conclusion that the right amount of popping corn was 1 1/2 ice cream scoops, although I don't think all ice cream scoops are the same size.  You don't need to buy one.  Just find something you can use for a consistent measurement of a little under a quarter of a cup.

Third, don't over pop the corn. We've all read the instruction on microwave popcorn about cooking until it is almost done popping, and just as with microwave popcorn, trying to get every single kernel to pop will result in throwing away the whole burned bag.  In the case of the flimsy bags I bought, it could be a real disaster.

The biggest problem with popcorn not cooked in oil is that it is too dry to hold salt, but I have the solution.  I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray or a reasonable equivalent works pretty well to prepare the popcorn for salt and, if you're feeling wild, maybe pepper or cinnamon.

There you have it.  You can make a healthy snack in no time with zero cleanup, although I personally like eating it in a bowl, which is easily rinsed and dried after use.

*Not affiliated with Pirate's Booty, Pirates of the Caribbean or Royal Caribbean, but you can pretend it is if you want.

Chinese Chicken Salad

Who doesn't enjoy a delicious Chinese Chicken Salad as an alternative to a heavy meal now and then?

Most people happily pay $12 or more to enjoy this delicious dish at a business lunch in a nice restaurant instead of a hamburger or sandwich that would be a more messy option.  It's much easier to maintain that refined power look in a business suit when plunging a fork into a salad than leaning over a plate to allow the barbecue sauce to drip between your fingers. It also makes that farewell handshake a bit less awkward.

Preparing a home version fits nicely into Quick-Clean Cuisine.

Because it is a salad, you understand that the primary ingredient is lettuce.  Romaine, green leaf or iceberg will all work.  We tend to keep Romaine in our refrigerator, because that is my wife's favorite, but if you have leftover Shreds from tacos or some fancy organic spring mix you bought to impress your boyfriend's mother, that will work too. 

Wash as much lettuce as you need for either an individual serving or a family style bowl.  Making extra to store in Tupperware will make it easy to repeat this dish or make a side salad for a few days.  Add some shredded cabbage if you like, but basically you just need a bunch of green roughage.  If you have some carrots, broccoli, mushrooms or other favorite veggies in the fridge, feel free to chop some of those into small pieces and add them.  Cubed tomatoes add some nice color and flavor.  Toss it all together, and then add the secret ingredient.

I first noticed the flavor similarity of Lawry's Sesame Ginger Marinade to restaurant Chinese Chicken Salad dressing when substituting for Teriyaki Marinade in making stir fry.  I thought to myself, why not use it as a salad dressing?

It turns out that Smart & Final carries First Street Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing and Marinade, but trust me when I say that marinade works fine as salad dressing.  Just don't drench the salad.  A little goes a long way.

At this point, you really have most of the flavor and texture of the salad.  If you want to be thorough, chop up some boneless, skinless chicken breast and stir fry it in the marinade, but that really isn't necessary, as the marinade/dressing adds plenty of flavor to the chicken when you put the chicken on top of the salad.  By the way, I recommend adding the chicken to the top of each individual bowl rather than stirring it in, as it works easier for portion control, and you can add more chicken as desired as you eat to keep the flavors balanced.

If you happen to have some leftover El Pollo Loco or baked chicken, you can chop that into chunks as your chicken, to save cooking any chicken at all. You can also boil chicken breast and chop it into small pieces. 

My lovely wife and I have found we prefer Tyson's Crispy Chicken, baked to crunchy deliciousness and chopped into bite-sized chunks.  That extra crunch and pseudo-KFC flavor works perfectly in a salad, whether Chinese or occidental. Needless to say, lining a baking dish with parchment paper will make chicken preparation Q-CC compliant.

So, there you have it.  You don't have to spend a lot of time and money to enjoy a delicious, healthy salad, and unless you throw salad ingredients around the kitchen needlessly, wadding up the parchment paper used to line your baking dish and rinsing off the cutting board makes for quick cleanup.

I Want My Maypo

Admittedly, the recipes I offer aren't always particularly groundbreaking, but I can't help noticing consumers happily pay a multiple of the cost of the ingredients to have similar meals in restaurants, whether brought to the table on a real glass plate in a sit down diner or served over the counter in cardboard at a fast food joint.

Many people now eat out once or twice a day, but when I was a little boy, going to a restaurant was a family treat on Sundays.

Our family usually went to either Arnold's Farmhouse or La Fonda.

Driving to Arnold's Farmhouse, located in the country a couple of miles north of Knott's Berry Farm, from Westminster brought us through acres upon acres of green fields on Valley View Road, with lots of strawberry stands in season.  We enjoyed fresh-from-the-farm food cooked with homestyle recipes.

The meals were served buffet style.  My usual order was southern fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn, with chocolate éclair selected from the rolling dessert tray after I cleaned my plate.  The cooking wasn't quite as good as Mom's, but it was close, and to some extent, these Sunday meals were to give Mom a break from cooking and the big cleanups.  It was a well-deserved treat for her, but Darlene, Dad and I also enjoyed the event. 

We ate at Mrs. Knott's Chicken Restaurant once, but we found it disappointing by comparison.  Nonetheless, after only 50 years of not eating there, when my friend Pete asked yesterday if I wanted to go for lunch at Knott's, I quickly responded affirmatively, and the Famous Chicken Dinner was hot, delicious and filling, served by waitresses who might have worked there on my last visit.  I don't think they've remodeled in 50 years either, so that keeps in line with the site's authenticity. 

 

At the risk of digressing too far, which as you know is something I avoid at all possible costs, always staying exactly on point, focused like a laser beam on furnishing you the finest recipes in a concise form with exact instructions for blending elements together perfectly....wait....what was I talking about?  Oh yeah.  I will add that after lunch, Pete and  I ventured through a tunnel to visit Knott's full-sized model of Philadelphia's famed Independence Hall and enjoyed, as the only patrons, the presentation about the birth of our country, always presented free by the patriotic farmer, Walter Knott, the husband of his wife, Mrs. Knott, who got to put her own name on her restaurant.

The restaurant we frequented when we didn't go to Arnold's was La Fonda, which I believe was on Highway 39 before it became Beach Boulevard. La Fonda was the first Mexican restaurant I remember, although I didn't pay much attention to restaurants along the road when out and about. The bullfighting posters on the wall of La Fonda stick in my memory more than anything else about the place. At La Fonda, I always ordered side dishes of beans and rice along with fresh tortillas that were furnished free like tortilla chips.  I didn't order an entrée, while my sister would choose the best combo on the menu and then leave half of it on her plate, spreading the leftovers around so no one would notice she hadn't finished, but I didn't want any of that fancy stuff she ate.  Just beans and rice.  An early vegetarian tendency, I guess.  Maybe I had empathy for the bulls in the posters.

The concept of eating Mexican food was quite foreign to my relatives in Alabama at the time, but it was part of the Western culture of Orange County.  I still remember vacationing at Granddaddy's farm in Alabama when cousin Reba, in response to Darlene asking if there was a Taco Bell around, asking with a strong southern twang, "Taco.  What's a taco?"  And by then, it must have been about 1969 or so.  We've come a long way since then.

As foreshadowed, we did have one of the original Taco Bells on Westminster Boulevard, but we rarely ate there.  I can only remember having Taco Bell food at annual "fairs" at Boos School.  These fairs were really just a few poorly constructed booths decorated with crepe paper ribbons, but they were always quite an event for me when I was under the age of 9.  I liked the fishing booth, where kids would dangle a string with a clothes pen at the end from a bamboo pole over a sheet, and some mom would clip a prize on the end.  I think the prizes must have been worth a nickel and the game cost a dime, but it was great fun.  At those fairs, Taco Bell sometimes participated with a booth, and I'd get refried beans that I'd eat with Fritos.  Years later, when Julie and I took our kids to the pumpkin patch at Bell Gardens to find the centerpiece of our Halloween porch decorating, we learned that farmer Bell was the same guy who started Taco Bell, which obviously is where the chain name originated. 

On the rare occasions when we did have fast food, it was A & W Root Beer, also on Westminster Boulevard, and we would bring home a cone-shaped, milk-carton-material carryout container full of Root Beer to drink later.  After the root beer was gone, the fun began.  We'd take the bottom off to convert the jug into a megaphone, which had no particular value after yelling through it once or twice and ended up crushed in the back of the closet within a week, only to be found the next time we cleaned the closet to great gaiety (that's right, I'm reclaiming that word for use by heterosexuals, not that there's anything wrong with that).

As a general rule, however, Mom was too wise for the lure of fast food that she could cook at home cheaper and better.  When Der Wienerschnitzel arrived offering 6 chili dogs for a 99 cents, we were a bit more tempted, but really that was prompted by me after I had my driver's license years later.

That same reticence by Mom to spend more for less applied to quick-prepare foods generally, although keep in mind that this was before microwaves, when a TV dinner packed in foil that took 45 minutes to cook was considered quick.  My mom saw through all the gimmicks, including Maypo.  As a little cowboy, I loved the commercials, and I told Mom I wanted to go, just as my son Jay, tempted by Happy Meals toys, wanted us to go to McDonalds decades later.  My mom said, "It's just oatmeal."
 

She was indifferent to the claim of "maple-flavored goodness," and in fact, she used to make homemade hot syrup that was much better than bottled maple syrup when we had pancakes.  Still, I might play with my spoon when  eating any cereal, like in the Maypo commercial, chanting the mantra "maple-flavored goodness" even if it had nothing to do with what I was eating.  I probably said it while eating mashed potatoes at Arnold's or beans and rice at La Fonda.

Years later, however, as a grown man, I'm over such foolishness.  I am not tempted to buy Maypo any more than my mother was.  I have developed a taste for it, though, prompting this Quick-Clean Cuisine recipe!

Make instant oatmeal the way you normally do.  Pour some 1-minute oatmeal in your favorite microwave safe cereal bowl (don't use one of that plastic one with a built-in straw for sipping the milk out), add enough water to cover the oats and then microwave it for a minute or so. 

Sprinkle in cinnamon to taste.  I use quite a bit, because I hear it is supposed to be healthy for you, but it isn't essential.

Now for the money part.  Instead of using Splenda to sweeten your oatmeal, pour in maple syrup.  Actually, I use sugar free imitation maple syrup, but you get the point.  I put a swirl around the top and then mix it in with my spoon at the same time I'm mixing the oatmeal to blend the hot water and oats.

When you've finished, take that spoon, dip it in to get a decent glop of oatmeal, making sure it is thick enough not to fall on the floor, and then pretend to fly your spoon full of oatmeal around making airplane sounds until you land it in the hangar...I mean, your mouth.

Clean-up should be obvious, unless you tricked yourself by closing your mouth when the airplane headed into the hanger. 

For the price of one bowl of oatmeal at Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Denny's, McDonalds or the Ritz Carlton, you can buy enough oatmeal and syrup for a week or two.

When your friends ask if you'd like to go out for a Sunday Brunch, you can fold your arms and insist, "I want my Maypo."

Egg Salad Sandwich

The noble egg has been given as unjustifiably bad rap over the past few decades.

Medical experts, including the Mayo Clinic, have pointed to the fact that eggs are high in cholesterol and concluded that they must cause high cholesterol in the blood stream. As best I can recall, this egg-hating started about the time the Egg McMuffin gained popularity in the 1970s.



Anything associated McDonalds, of course, immediately finds disdain among vocal anti-capitalists who somehow manage to disguise themselves as concerned citizens seeking the public well-being under different banners from Save the Stink Bug to Occupy Chick-fil-A.  Perhaps if McDonalds had not entered the breakfast market, people would have left the egg alone rather than putting it in the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List next to revolutionary Bill Ayers.

While the Egg McMuffin did not blow up any government buildings like Ayers, it did, like its brother Big Mac, come in a Styrofoam container, which by the mid-seventies was considered tantamount to treason from an environmental point of view.  Yes, it probably was good that McDonalds bowed to pressure to wrap them in paper instead of Styrofoam packaging that wasn't bio-degradable.

When I took Ecology classes in the 1970s, I don't think the teacher was a violent Weatherman like Ayers or a non-violent communist, since most Americans still had a modicum of economic awareness, but he definitely marched in lock step with the call to stop McDonalds using Styrofoam containers or confront a new Ice Age by the mid-1980s that would lead to crops throughout the world freezing and most people starving. 

We all pulled together, started recycling everything we could and convinced McDonalds to serve their sandwiches in containers that required them to be consumed a little faster (the sandwiches, not the containers).  Yes, it disappointed some guy working on a car who sent his buddy to grab him a sandwich when his Big Mac wasn't hot by the time his friend returned and put it in the mechanic's greasy hands to eat, but it was a small price to pay to save the world.

We did such a great job that the earth didn't freeze over in the 80's and 90's.  In fact, we did such a great job that the world warmed up, extending growing seasons to feed the world and creating a whole world of investment opportunities in green industries for Nobel Prize Winner Al Gore.

Getting back on topic, the egg yolk contains most of the cholesterol, so even those who refused to give up their omelets often changed the order to Egg Beaters or egg whites only, but the yolk was on them.

It turns out egg yolks are high in lecithin, which naturally reduces not only cholesterol but also triglycerides in the blood stream.  My buddy Bill Bundy told me about lecithin recently, when I told him my blood tests in October showed high levels of those natural enemies of lecithin.  He recommended buying lecithin granules at the health food store and eating a tablespoon twice a day.  I started that regimen, and within two months, my levels of the deadly duo were at acceptable ranges.

Okay, perhaps it is starting to dawn on you that eggs may not be that bad for you, and many dieticians now say the humble egg is the silver bullet for weight control, as egg breakfasts stave off hunger later in the morning that would otherwise lead to snacking. So what's a different way to enjoy eggs?

Confronted with some hard boiled eggs in the refrigerator (we had hard-boiled them to make left over eggs suitable for driving home from a vacation in Montana), I remembered my Mom making delicious egg salad sandwiches when I was a boy.  I don't know exactly how she made them, but I know it involved sweet pickle juice and hard boiled eggs, so I improvised.

I don't buy sweet pickles generally, so I used sweet pickle relish, and it turned out great.  I also remember her egg salad being very creamy, so I added some mayonnaise, too.  It turned out delicious.

The recipe is easy. 

Put two slices of bread in the toaster. 

For two hard boiled eggs, add about one teaspoon of mayonnaise and one tablespoon of sweet pickle relish, plus some pepper if you like.

In a bowl, smash the eggs up with a fork and mix it all together into a somewhat creamy consistency.  I find the egg whites don't get pulverized; they're in small chunks, but I suppose if you dedicate yourself to the effort long enough, you can make it smoother. 

In any case, don't break out a food processor or any other mess-maker.  This is, after all, Quick-Clean Cuisine.  Make it too hard and messy to cook, and you're less likely to eat healthy, inexpensive food at home.

By the time the toast pops up, you should be ready to put the salad on the toast.  I like to eat egg salad on open faced sandwiches, but if you want to pack it in your lunch, you can put a slice of bread on each side of the egg salad, or what we expert chefs like to call "a regular sandwich" as opposed to "Grandma Style."

Clean up is a breeze.  Just wash the bowl, fork and plate.  By the way, you can make up extra, maybe a half dozen eggs or more, to save some for later or share it with your best friends.

By the way, hard boiling eggs is very easy.  Just put some eggs in a pan of water (the eggs should be covered by an inch or two of water) and bring the water to a boil.  If you're like me, you aren't exactly sure when they start boiling thoroughly, but once you notice the water bubbling, boil them for a minute, cover the pan, remove from heat and let them sit for 10 to 15 minutes. 

You'll want to chill the eggs in the refrigerator before making the salad, so you need to boil the eggs before you get hungry, unless you are as lucky as I was and find the hard boiled eggs in the refrigerator.