Growing up, there was a tradition in our family that on our birthdays, we didn’t have to have a regular dinner. We could choose instead to go to Berkeley Farms Restaurant, a fountain restaurant owned by a large dairy company in town, and get ice cream sundaes. Parents, too.
Owing to my parents’ Co-op board positions and their overall stance on sugar and processed foods, we were not allowed to have sweets in the house, except for the occasional batch of carob chip cookies which no one ate. Once in awhile, my parents would bring back a ½ gallon of ice milk, which would sit in the freezer until it got gummy and crystallized because it was so bad even the kids wouldn’t touch it. So, when our birthdays came around, we jumped at the chance to have the real stuff, and as much of it as we wanted. This meant we were guaranteed at least one dessert in March, April, May, June, July, and November.
I didn’t love ice cream because it gave me a stomach ache, but the thought of being able to shovel gobs of caramel and chocolate down my gullet with impunity was too enticing to give up. Besides, my parents were not big on birthday parties, so the trip to Berkeley Farms was likely the only birthday celebration we’d get to have.
When we lived in Point Reyes, the drive to Berkeley Farms took nearly 45 minutes. In 1972, after being run out of town, we moved to Corte Madera which made the trip more convenient. In fact, we noticed our parents used pretty much any excuse to “celebrate at Berkeley Farms,” even when we kids were not into it. In later years, we kids chalked it up to my mom’s addiction to ice cream.
“How would you like to have a birthday party?” my mom asked, shortly after we moved to the new house. “A real, honest-to-goodness birthday party!”
“Really?” I asked. When we lived in Point Reyes, I had only one friend, a girl named Kachina. She didn’t call me nigger, which was largely the basis for the friendship, but it wasn’t really enough for a party.
“Really. We’ll have cake and ice cream and we’ll play Pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and everything. We are going to pull out all the stops!”
What I didn’t know was Jean had been pulling out all the stops for the past year just to make me feel like a normal kid, despite living in a racist town. I had no idea she had to go to the school board twice to get them to reverse the diagnosis of me as “retarded” or to correct the failing marks my teacher gave me, despite my doing A work.
I was oblivious to the real reason she wouldn’t let me cross through most families’ back property, like all the other kids did. I could only go to Kachina’s house, which was through our property and onto hers.
I was never told the truth about why I could not go over to other kids’ houses to play was their parents had not wanted a nigger to cross their doorstep. When my teacher would somehow “forget” to give me a toothbrush on “dental hygiene day,” or run out of red paper or doilies for me to make a card on Valentine’s Day just when it was my turn to get some, magically those things would appear the next day at the house.
“Huh, what’s this?” Jean would say, when she got home from work the day after I had told her about some such other indignity at the school. Though I had been home for hours, I didn’t notice the brown package she “found” on the back porch.
“It’s got my name on it,” I’d say, excited to see something addressed to me. I never noticed the package had no postage on it, or that it was nothing more than a brown stationery store bag taped shut.
“Why don’t you open it?” she’d say. Inside would be a special toothbrush, or perhaps a cache of red construction paper and doilies, glitter and glue. There would be a note: “Dear Tsan: we understand Mrs. Roberts ran out of Valentine’s Day construction materials yesterday. Please find enclosed replacement materials for your use. Thank you for your consideration.” I never suspected. She never took credit. She could always find an excuse to make it all real and right for me.
I celebrated my 9th birthday in the new house, with new friends from my new school. My mom was never much for overt sentimentality, but this year she really did pull out all the stops, just like she used to do at her cocktail and dinner parties before she was married.
Jean didn’t embarrass me by putting out soggy peanut butter sandwiches on Co-op special formula bread (the special formula made the bread inedible). She refrained from serving the carob crunch cookies. There were actual Lay’s potato chips in the bowl with Lipton onion dip, just like she served at the grown-up parties.
She bought dry ice and made swirly punch with lime sherbet that smoked like witches brew. She made pigs in blankets will real hot dogs instead of those colorless nitrite-free things. She made the biggest lemon sheet cake I’d ever seen, filled strawberries and fresh cream and topped with mounds and mounds of 7-minute frosting. And she served it with real ice cream.
We played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and everyone brought presents for me. The punch was a huge hit, and all the kids though I was so cool for serving it (the trick is to drop the dry ice in an empty soup can secured to the center bottom of the punch bowl with rocks). There were no goody bags, but everyone got to leave with a piece of cake.
The best gift of all was from my mom. She gave me Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls she had custom made. These dolls didn’t have white faces and shocks of red hair like the ones you get at Mr. Mopps. Instead, each was a different shade of brown, one representing my dad and the other representing my mom. They were nearly as big as I was and for the next 9 years, they took center stage on my bed. It was the best birthday ever.
7 minute frosting, also known as Swiss meringue buttercream, takes a whole lot longer than 7 minutes. It’s why most people don’t make it and instead satisfy themselves with the gritty butter-and-powdered sugar nonsense known as American buttercream. To make American buttercream, you dump a bunch of powdered sugar and butter together in a bowl and beat the crap out of it, adding vanilla or lemon, or coffee or maple or whatever to give it some flavor. The point is, it’s made with powdered sugar which means it will never be totally creamy smooth (there will always be some grit to it). Worse, within 20 minutes, it will have a crust on it. If you are vegan and do not like ganache (which means you are a communist), you will have to tolerate such garbage, because Swiss buttercream contains eggs. But if you have any culinary self-respect, make the real stuff. Besides, your children will remember the length of time you spent making their cake as directly proportional to the amount you love them.
This is my recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream, and it may very well be my mother’s recipe, too, although she was not much for measuring. It’s so old I cannot remember how I came to have it but I have used it without fail for years. For the record, the measurements can been fudged. The frosting it makes is positively the best, most fluffy and wonderful frosting you will ever eat. Seriously. No really.
The recipe uses fancy terms like “double-boiler” and “whisk attachment.” I have never actually owned a real double boiler. I prefer the homemade 6-cup Pyrex measuring cup with an open handle set into a large pot. It works perfectly, allows for visibility to your water, and doesn’t require you to go out and buy something you’re not going to use but once every 6 months. You do, however, need a hand whisk.
Regarding the whisk attachment, they come standard with a stand mixer. Get to know it. If, however, you’re not that fancy, you may use a plain old hand mixer. It will work just fine and it was used by countless cooks in the 60s who cared enough to make 7 minute frosting instead of that trailer trash crap.
What will absolutely not work with this recipe is a food processor. You will not be pleased with the results, you will call me a liar about this being the best frosting ever, and I will fire back that you did not truly listen to me. Now, if you are like my sister, you will do exactly what I tell you not to do. Good luck with that.
4 large egg whites
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
2 cups (1 lb) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tbl Vanilla
In top of double boiler, over simmering water, whisk together the eggs whites, sugar, salt, and cream of tartar until the mixture becomes too hot to comfortably touch (7 - 9 minutes). Remove the mixture from the heat and using a rubber spatula, transfer it to metal bowl of mixer fitted with whisk attachment (make sure the bowl is free of oil). If you do not have a stand mixer, you can use a hand mixer. Beat the mixture until the eggwhites hold a stiff peak and the bowl is no longer warm to the touch, about 8 to 9 minutes. Slowly add soft butter, one or two chunks at a time, beating after each addition, until all the butter is incorporated (do not worry if the mixture looks a little curdled before you whip all the butter in; it will come correct).
This makes enough frosting for 36 cupcakes or one standard layer cake. If you want, you can spruce it up with other flavorings once you’ve added the butter. If you like coffee, use instant espresso dissolved in a ¼ cup of water. A lemon frosting calls for the zest and juice of one lemon, plus 1 tsp lemon oil. Caramel can be simulated by substituting brown sugar for white sugar in the recipe, but authentic caramel frosting requires a different process.
The frosting recipe, made without the butter (that is, you stop once the eggs have been whipped to a frenzy and are cool to the touch), is a cross between meringue and marshmallow fluff (without the nasty corn syrup), and it is positively sublime. Forget that grainy meringue that comes with your favorite lemon meringue pie recipe. Instead, us this meringue, piped through a pastry bag fitted with the star tip, and brown the tops with a propane torch. Everyone should have a propane torch. You can buy them at the hardware store.
After my birthday, Jean started having parties of her own again much to my delight. Now that I was older, I was allowed to help her more in the kitchen. By 1972 she had moved on from rumaki and little wienies in red sauce, and was reading articles from places like New York where they were writing about all sorts of international foods. My mom bought a jar of grape leaves from a small import store in San Francisco called Cost Plus (named because everything was sold at the company’s cost, plus 10%, no matter what it was). We made grape leaves and guests were wowed.
Jean tried miniature macaroni and cheeses baked in individual muffin tins, with unknown cheeses like camembert and asiago, and people couldn’t stop eating them. She covered a giant wheel of brie with brown sugar and slivered almonds, set it in a hollowed-out bread boul and broiled it. Guests couldn’t get enough. She bought an encyclopedia of cookery and slowly worked her way through the recipes, some with more success than others.
Once, my brother surprised her in the kitchen while she was making brunch for 10. The main dish was a baked omelette. While she was getting together the eggs, my job was to make the cheese sauce, which would be served in the cool fondue pot she got at the Goodwill (my mom’s instructions were “take a hunk of that Velveeta, half a stick of butter, some tarragon and put it all in the fondue pot. Light the Sterno and stir it til I say it’s done.”).
“Holy shit, Jean, what the hell are you doing?” my brother asked, watching her dump an entire can of Budweiser into the eggs. “That shit is gross.”
“Beer?! Ew. I’m not eating that,” I said, and ran outside where the guests were snacking on a morning spread of banana bread and fresh fruit.
“There’s beer in the eggs!” I yelled to the happy guests, my face contorted to show my disgust. The eggs came to the table in a perfectly baked circle, and except for the piece my mom ate to show everyone they really were good, left in exactly the same way. I was grounded for a week (the eggs actually were disgusting. Don’t try this).
If the party was a dinner party, my step-father would be part of it (and my mom had to figure out how to insert mashed potatoes into the menu). If the parties were cocktail or game parties, where people had to mingle and be civil to one another, Jerry required her to make dinner for him and then would hole himself up in his office with a gallon jug of wine and tell everyone he had to do some revolutionary writing, so he couldn’t be bothered with their trivial and droll conversation. When he was there, the parties usually ended with him calling one of the guests an asshole.
We were still not allowed at the adult parties, but we knew when something had gone wrong. First, we were often awakened by the late night screaming fight between my parents. Both of them had tempers, my mother’s fueled by embarrassment, my step-father’s fueled by alcohol.
Their arguments always went something like this.
“You fucking asshole! How could you be so rude? What is the matter with you?”
“I can’t help it if your girlfriend is a capitalist cunt and stupid to boot. She deserved everything she got and you don’t need assholes like that as a friend.”
“Get the FUCK out of my bedroom. Get. The Fuck. Out.” BOOM! A shoe (or other bedroom object) would hit the wall.
The following day, without talking much about the disaster, my mother would put a piece of blank card stock and some paints or pens in front of me and ask me to draw something nice. This would them be used for a note of thanks (and apology) to the guest on whom Jerry unleashed his anger. I got very good and drawing flowers and my siblings got very good and requesting sleep-overs at other people’s homes. My sister never came home.
Jean’s folly was always her temper. She controlled it – with some exceptions – when guests were around, but we all walked on eggshells around the house and did our best not to set her off, which wasn’t difficult to do. A mis-made bed, a poorly cleaned refrigerator, anything could be a trigger. We all agreed it was far better to get whacked in the face – Jean’s punishment of choice – that to be screamed at. Her voice could curdle milk, and the vitriol with which she rained down her terror reduced you to a quivering mass.
When the boys got too big to smack across the face, she took to screaming and breaking things.
“God DAMMIT, Lee,” she’d say, and grab a wine bottle and smash it. “See what you made me do? Clean that up now!” At some point, the demand stopped working altogether. Lee just walked away, leaving the smashed glass in the place where it landed. Lynne never came home, and Scott burrowed himself in his room, coming down only to do chores and eat dinner. I continued to cower in her presence.
Years later, she would apologize for her temper and for raising her hands to us. The apology was heartfelt, and she never used the excuse we did for her behavior that it was a different time; a time when it was OK to hit your kids and scream at them. She was genuinely sorry, and asked my forgiveness. I had forgiven her years ago. In fact, comparing notes with other friends my age, I came to realize our parents had all done a number on us. Besides, Jean did more good than harm. Given her role models for child-rearing (a mentally ill abusive aunt and a flighty mother who cared more for her own preservation than her children’s), and her juggling of 3 husbands each of whom had mild to significant issues with alcohol and women, it could have been significantly worse.
Jean’s marriage to her third and final husband, John, does a lot to mellow her temper. John travels in the academic circle. He is not a hustler, like her first husband. He is not a faux-intellectual, like her second. He is the real deal.
While they are married, Jean and John dine with chancellors, and college presidents, and authors, people who are recognized nationally and internationally for their contributions to the world. One simply does not “lose it” around such people. Wanting to cultivate the air of respectability around John’s colleagues and friends, Jean sets aside her ghetto persona, and learns much more devious ways to humiliate people than smacking them across the face of calling them stupid. For years the standard temper tantrum is deep-sixed. Then John dies.
It is April 2008. John has been dead for nearly two months and we are pulling together the memorial service. John’s children will attend, but they do not respond to her requests to help plan the event or say something at the memorial, so Jean is responsible for pulling the event together herself. Normally, Jean would tuck into planning an event as big at this with the fervor of a snake handler, but she cannot seem to pull it together.
“Can you do the catering?” she asks me, one morning, about a week out. We scramble to get a caterer.
“Can you get the programs together?” she asks a few days before the memorial. We get a friend to put together a simple program.
“Can you work with the minister to orchestrate the day?” We go together to confirm the details of the service. Fortunately, the minister is far more prepared that we and has already done the necessary leg work to make things OK.
“Can you find a way to play the Carmina Burana?”
If a memorial can be termed a success, this was one. Over 100 people show to pay their respects. The minister does a masterful job in highlighting who John was, and she even finds a way to smooth things quickly when one of John’s sons – having no memory of being invited to say something – becomes incensed that he was not included in the list of speakers. The caterer sets the exactly right tone with the food – elegant but not festive. The music is John’s favorite. And Jean is recognized for her place in his life.
Jean’s mood does not get better. She is completely destroyed over the death of her husband and cannot seem to get into a frame of mind to move on. I am attending lectures on Alzheimer’s at the local senior centers and I know depression is one of the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s. It is also one of the only symptoms of Alzheimer’s that can actually be helped by medication. Although I know she will not recognize her disease, I suggest that she might be helped by some anti-depressants.
“Just until you get further away from John’s death, mom. Not forever,” I offer.
“No. I don’t need anti-depressants,” she says flatly, while we sit in her dining room. I have poured her a glass of wine. She is not a big drinker, but it has been a long week. John’s kids have left, the memorial is over, and she is left with nothing to do. The table is covered with pictures of John, trip journals from excursions they’ve taken, sympathy cards, and photo albums. She leafs through them endlessly and recounts stories. I wonder if my love for my own husband is as strong.
“It’s normal to be depressed when someone dies, Mom. You can’t just sit around the house and mope. You gave up the last three years of your life to him. It’s time to get out and see the world.”
Something I say triggers her. BAM! The wine glass goes flying across the dining room, hitting the wall and shattering. Carmenere is quickly soaking into the light gray carpeting.
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!”
Here is how to remove red wine from white carpeting.
Dump an entire box of salt on the stain. Leave the salt – without touching it – until all the wine has soaked into it and the salt is completely dry. This make take 3-5 days. Vacuum the salt.
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