Running With a Fork In My Mouth

when I was a kid, I looked into a simmering pot where my mother was making dumplings.

I asked her what they were, and she told me cow brains.

I'll say no more.

Your mother had a strange sense of humour, Chai... which explains a lot, don'tcha think?

I'm not sure what you mean.


I do know she was one lousy cook.

she would go on these jags with something.

one time she learned there was a product called cooking sherry.

she put that **** into everything she made for about a month.

another time it was lima beans.

she would put lima beans into every goddamn thing she made.

ewwww, lima beans.

My dad once threw all our leftover food into a pot (potatoes, spaghetti, oatmeal, whatever was in the fridge went into it) and called it MishMash. We, of course, wouldn't eat it, so he threw a handful of coins into it so we would. Well, we ate it and picked out all the coins, but when he collected the money afterwards, we realized we'd been duped and never fell for that again.

Parents can be cruel. And unusual. He shoulda served time for that one.

potatoes, spaghetti and oatmeal.

jesus, your father has my mom all beat to hell.

hmmm....my mother made something called mish-mash too.

not to brag, but her's was a little more sophisticated, if equally untasty.


She came to the conclusion that making perogies was too much bother, so she invented mish-mash.

She'd take a box of ziti and boil it, then throw it, some cabbage, and cottage cheese in a cassarole dish and bake at 350 until it was as hard and dry as plywood.

I notice your father called it MishMash, so I suppose there is room for both of those dishes in this world.

What did your parents do if you didn't eat it?

Mine used to make me sit at the table till it got dark and if I still hadn't eaten it (which I didn't), she put it on a plate, threw a piece of wax paper on top and into the fridge it went. I got that every day until it dried up.

More cruel and unusual punishment. No wonder I'm such an attention whore.

Wow, your mother was Joan Crawford?

Pretty much. Amazingly, we get along now... although when I look after her in her dotage I'm going to feed her some awful ****.

I had to sit at the table until I drank my milk. That could be a long time. I hated milk until I was in my twenties, except on cereal.

On poor cooks, take my mother in law. Please. Lime jello with mustard in it?

Ick... why would she put mustard in it? That's just weird. Did she make you eat it?

Pretty much everything she made was like that, so you just ate it.

The only food I had to sit and the table and stare at was green beans. I'll tell you, if a plate of them the way way she cooked them was put in front of me today, I'd sit there until next year. It was a big mess of green snot if you ask me.

According to my father, I'd get scurvy if I did eat them, so I guess he was just looking out for my health, and not being the controlling prick I always thought he was.

The only food I can remember hating so much that I really couldn't eat it was ham. I don't know why, but on that she relented and would make me a greasy hamburger patty instead.
Funny, now that I think back, it wasn't like I got a regular hamburger on a bun, with catsup and pickles. It was just this soggy patty along with whatever else we were having. I guess a hamburger sandwich type thing would have indicated something akin to fun.

what kind of mustard?

You are making me laugh now, Chai. My older sister took over the cooking duties at age 11 (one year older than me) because she took pity on me. Everyone else ate whatever was served whether they liked it or not. They were starving and not the least bit rebellious. Anyway, her food was much, much better, even at 11. She made great mac and cheese and fabulous pizza. Thank God for older sisters.

I always wondered why people would make that horrible vegetable salad in gelatin. One of the mysteries of life.

my sister used to make cream cheese and bacon sandwiches on toast.

I'd always want half of hers, I'd beg and plead and hang onto her leg when she tried to get away. I thought that was pretty fun too, being drug around the floor while hanging onto her thigh.

She tried making 2, so I could have my own. I didn't want that, I wanted half of hers. It tasted better.
I always thought she was good naturedly screaming at me to get off her leg, like she was totally in on the joke of how much fun it was.

I was honestly shocked years later when I went down memory lane with her about that, and I learned she honestly did hate me doing that.

I still only half believe her, as that is one of my fondest childhood memories.

I'm just picturing that now - very funny. Especially you thinking it was a huge joke and her finding it extremely irritating!

My older sister was 5'8" at 12 and I was 4'10", probably. We had a fight once (she was being bossy and I was being rebellious) and I started swinging at her (something absolutely forbidden in our house) and all she did was hold her arm straight out and push her hand against my forehead and I was swinging in the air. Now that was funny. I only know that because SHE was laughing her head off.

my mom made pots of black eyed peas as well as pinto beans and served them with hot corn tortillas, my mom liked me.

Uh huh... is that a nyah, nyah, nyah kind of response, dys?

when my father would feed us we each got a jar of raw oysters and a bottle of hot sauce served with a glass of buttermilk. (he had a martini)

And here was me thinking this thread was about you getting injured "running with a fork in your mouth".

Boy, do I feel like an idiot.