Friday, February 16, 2018

Flashback

Once upon a time not too long ago (my Kids aren't that old, but before Pete and Larry were born), two pre- and early teenage boys whose parents both worked lived across the street.  One day, there was a knock on the door and there was Mike.  "May I borrow a cup of sugar, please?"  "Of course."  A short while later, knock knock knock.  It was his younger brother.  "Could I please borrow two cups of flour?"  "Sure."  When there was another knock and a request for a couple of eggs, I had to ask, "What are you guys up to?"  It turned out they wanted to bake a cake and didn't have any of the ingredients.  (Okay, it was long, long ago because this was before boxed cake mixes; sorry, Kids.)

I had a flashback on this scene yesterday.  In Pete's goody bag, he'd brought a large bunch of asparagus.  There are so many things one can do with asparagus, but I fixated on a dish from my childhood, creamed asparagus on toast.  All vegetables were seasonal then and we anticipated when the next crops would come in.  Creamed asparagus was a staple in spring, especially on meatless Fridays.  Ohmigosh, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted it.  Just one problem:  I had no milk and I had no bread and it's darned hard to make cream sauce and toast without them.  Drat!  Nothing for it but a trip to town.  It's a good indication of my craving because I got in the truck and made the trek for a cup of milk and two slices of bread.

Back in the day (and I have no reason why), the theory seemed to be that green vegetables should be cooked until grey and mushy, in fact all vegetables were overcooked.  Last night, I lightly steamed the asparagus before putting it into the bechamel and, truly, it was better than my mother's recipe.  I darned near foundered!  Ahh, satisfaction.

1 comment:

Kathryn Williams said...

LOL...I LOVED that blog. We never had creamed asparagus on toast but we did have creamed tuna on toast. I don't know if it was because the larder was getting empty or if it was because my mom was sick of planning meals or if it was because it really did taste good! Glad you could enjoy!