My brother Jack and I apparently had free access to the kitchen. My mother must have been lenient. I believe, though, that we did clean up after ourselves. I don't even remember Mom making our lunches for school. With free access to the fridge, we would make sandwiches from whatever was there. Because Pop was a meat-and-potatoes kind of man, there usually was some leftover beef, chicken, or pork roast which we sliced deftly. But, we were versatile: sliced raw onion with mayo on pure white Silvercup bread (sponsor of the Lone Ranger) was always acceptable, as was butter on bread sprinkled with sugar; Mashed potato with a deft touch of gelid gravy made a fine sandwich, too. We were proficient at making breakfast with bacon, eggs (fried, scrambled or poached), omelettes, pancakes, or french toast. Occasionally, we made breakfast and served it to Mom and Dad in bed.
Ah, food, glorious food! I loved all food but Jack did not like onions, and that really was the only thing that stood in the way of our flexible cuisine. We used the sole cookbook in the house, the Fanny Farmer Cookbook, as our guide to make other goodies, especially chocolate fudge. Occasionally we tried divinity fudge or taffy but that took too long between creation and consumption.
A real treat for us was on the occasional night that Mom and Dad were going out somewhere. We got a whole dollar as our self-sitting allowance. We dined happily at the German-American restaurant on Jamaica Avenue where we were served a full dinner for 35 cents each (70 cents). A few doors away was the Garden Theater, with a double feature that set us back another 10 cents each, which left each of us five whole cents for candy. I got Big Bill bubble gum (a real mouthful), Necco wafers, and several other choice goodies for my nickle--a substantial supply of quality nourishment for three-plus-hours of film. We were very happy campers.
In high school, my buddy, Don Zoeller, had me to dinner at his house where I was introduced to the glories of sauerbraten, hasenpfeffer, and red cabbage. I enjoyed cooking these for my own family years later, but could never master the art of kartoffelgloess (potato dumplings) like Don's father did. (On our first date, Maureen and I had sauerbraten and waltzed to Johann Strauss. Now that was an evening to remember!)
Before WWII, we could only buy ice cream in cones, single or double-dipped. After the war, we were able to buy pint boxes of it to fit into the ice cube tray area of a fridge, which kept it only half-frozen. (Nobody had real freezers except commercial establishments.) It was a treat to be sent to the soda store to buy a whole quart of ice cream which was hand-packed into a cardboard box, then rushed home to be served out into dishes.
Mom was not a bad cook and even experimented occasionally. I remember how daring she felt using a single clove of garlic to wipe the inside of a salad bowl. On a few occasions, she made roulade of beef, a thin slab of beef rolled up with stuffing akin to a jelly roll. Our meals were pretty much meat, potatoes and a vegetable. Liver was fried to resemble shoe leather. We ate it of course; we ate everything.
On Fridays, we often had fish since we were forbidden to eat meat. 'Fish' meant breaded filet of sole from the fish store, which she fried very dry. More shoe leather but crumbly.
Dessert was always required, usually cake or pudding. We always had some form of coffee cake from the bakery in the house, since Dad liked it for his breakfast. Mom would make bread pudding from left-over stale coffee cake, never with bread. She baked cookies rarely--until chocolate chips were made available for making Toll House cookies, a new creation!
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