Question of the Day

What phrase, word, or situation evokes an entire family tradition or memory for you, or represents something that is an "in-joke" in your family?

Long ago, when my mother was raising four children, working full time as a high school teacher, AND getting her Masters by driving 90 miles each way five nights a week, she devised a way to save her children from my father's lack of cooking skills.

She got a book called "365 Casseroles" and she proceeded to march through the year, preparing and freezing five casseroles from the book on the weekends, and leaving detailed thawing/cooking instructions for my dad.

This went well -- for the most part.

Then, she prepared a casserole called "Chicken on a Cloud". It was some kind of dumpling-y, chicken-y thing.

I honestly don't know what went wrong -- whether the recipe was bad, or the chicken was bad, or she did something wrong, or what.

I only know that my father cooked it as ordered, dished it out onto our plates, and took a bite from his own plate. He looked up at us.

We all had the same expression as he had, our mouths full of "Chicken on a Cloud".

He stood up at the head of the table, silently took our plates one by one, and scraped them back into the casserole dish.

Then, he said to my older sister, in a terse, final tone:

"Marcia, get the weiners."