This reflection comes from a
series of facebook posts by my family.
And with all things, because I am one hell of a defensive human
being, I’m going to give a little context.
My fiancé and I rarely eat at home. We both work full time, and for a teacher that means 11+ hour days every weekday. I get home around 6-6:30, and he gets home around the same time. Generally, the best we can do is pop something frozen in the microwave a rock what I like to call fancy hotdogs. What are fancy hot dogs? The nicer sausages at safeway that have stuff in them. Like apples or mangoes or your hopes and dreams. The usual. As a woman, people began to give me a little grief that I couldn’t “Take care of my home.” Did my fiancé hear this? Not sure, he doesn’t talk much. However, I will always bow to societal pressure, so I started making dinner on Sunday nights because we had a little more time and it left me a tasty homemade leftover for Mondays and Tuesdays, twin terrible days at work.
In my previous life as a student, I was a food network addict. I, like many of my generations, became obsessed with cooking shows that would come on after school. I would do my homework while watching Rachael Ray throw handfuls of godknowswhat in a stew that I imagined would smell like the equivalent of what Beyonce looks like. Yes, I was a 30 minute meal fangirl. I was into the concept of being able to create a delicious looking dinner in the same time it took her to record the show. Did it end up being a 30 minute meal when I attempted it? Usually, no. There’s this pesky reading of directions and shouting “what the fuck does sauté really mean?” that gets in the way of a timely completion of a recipe.
I could make some tasty meals in my day, thanks to the tutelage of Ms. Ray. I rocked a schnitzel like the Austrian descendant I am. I could make meatballs that made my Scandanavian grandparents swoon. Basically, I excelled at making the food of my people. Other food was good too. I can make a mean turkey chili.
I will not, have not and definitely am not a gourmand. I like food, I like to eat, but in term so of having any sort of refined palate, I don’t.
The wedding was just around the corner. Orders had been made, money had been spent, including an order for my favorite food: popcorn. I am addicted to popcorn. My grandparents had an old airpopper that we would fire up for every overnight visit. A classic story about me is how I would rush through my bath and Grandma would barely get the oversized t-shirt over me that acted as my PJs and a comb through my hair so I could run into the kitchen. I would hop on my stool by the counter and look at my grandpa and tell him “I knew you needed my help, Gam-pa.” I was small and adorable, speech impediments happen.
My job was to guide the stray popcorn into the bowl using a paper towel. That paper towel was reused for the better part of 10 years for that exact job. That’s how Midwestern my grandparents were. Towards the end of the popping, the kernels would shoot out like piping hot corn bullets. This would cause my grandfather to jump and yelp. I was the goalie for these, catching them with my paper towel so they wouldn’t end up on the floor.
Needless to say, these are some of my most cherished memories. And to this day, I can’t help but smile while eating a bag of popcorn, or popcorn from the airpopper my sister got me for Christmas. It’s not quite as excited with no corn projectiles, but it gets the job done.
My cousin had popcorn at her wedding with flavors and toppings on them, and the idea of this intrigued me. I couldn’t make the wedding because it was on the same day as a field trip, but my mother gave me the full report of how tasty it was. As my fiancé, then boyfriend, and I were starting to talk marriage (we got engaged a month later) I filed this info away in my “wedding???” section of my brain.
Low and behold, my mother had done the exact same thing. When the ordering parade began in March for my June wedding, we found the website with thanks to information from my uncle and ordered popcorn to be served at the wedding during the reception. While these are not home popped and protected by an antique paper towel, the flavors to select from were extensive and mouthwatering.
I thought, as any normal human would, that the popcorn would be placed in bags on the tables somewhere on a patio outside the lodge we were going to use for the reception. And initially, that was the plan. However, plans are known to change, especially when creative people are involved. On one of his scavenges, my father found an old broken down popcorn machine. It was the kind where it is a glass box with red edging and the words “Fresh Popcorn” are printed along the side. Except this one didn’t have the words on it due to age. He clean it off, painted it up and removed all of the mechanisms from the inside. When I came over for dinner one night, he showed me the finished machine in the screened in patio in the back. I was floored. It was damn cool. And seemed to only getting cooler.
“This is so cool, Dad! Thank you!”
Dad smiled with his characteristic cheeky glint in his eye. “What do you think of a little guy turning a barrel?”
At this point, I returned his cheeky smile. I do love to be in cahoots. “Like at Disneyland?” For the uninitiated, there are different mini-puppet characters in all of the popcorn makers around the park. In Tomorrowland for example, one finds the Rocketeer churning away. Near the Matterhorn, it’s the Yeti’s job to keep that barrel a-turnin’.
Now I took a momentary pause to consider the repercussions of having a popcorn turner. And I decided it was awesome. “LET’S DO IT. Can we make it a tiki or a groomsmen or something?”
To this, my mother chimed in, “Oh no, not you too.” This conversation had just happened twice before, once with just Mom and Dad, and again with Mom, Dad and Em. Turns out, everyone but my mother really wanted a popcorn turner. So Dad made it happen.
He used a chunk of wood from the wood pile and an old motor he had as well as some erector set pieces he had recently scavenged and created a working little popcorn turner to go with his popcorn machine. The last step with the give the popcorn guy a theme or some kind of paint job, and Dad rocked that out too. For those of you who don’t know, which should be very few of you at this point, my fiancé is of Hawaiian descent. He has told me his family refer to themselves as “menehunes”, which are like Hawaiian trickster gods like leprechauns. I find this description terribly accurate.
The turner my dad made was a menehune with red and green details and large grin on its face. Kind of the perfect thing to connect the families. My love of popcorn, Dad’s love of making stuff and Disney and a little Hawaiian trickster.
My fiancé and I rarely eat at home. We both work full time, and for a teacher that means 11+ hour days every weekday. I get home around 6-6:30, and he gets home around the same time. Generally, the best we can do is pop something frozen in the microwave a rock what I like to call fancy hotdogs. What are fancy hot dogs? The nicer sausages at safeway that have stuff in them. Like apples or mangoes or your hopes and dreams. The usual. As a woman, people began to give me a little grief that I couldn’t “Take care of my home.” Did my fiancé hear this? Not sure, he doesn’t talk much. However, I will always bow to societal pressure, so I started making dinner on Sunday nights because we had a little more time and it left me a tasty homemade leftover for Mondays and Tuesdays, twin terrible days at work.
In my previous life as a student, I was a food network addict. I, like many of my generations, became obsessed with cooking shows that would come on after school. I would do my homework while watching Rachael Ray throw handfuls of godknowswhat in a stew that I imagined would smell like the equivalent of what Beyonce looks like. Yes, I was a 30 minute meal fangirl. I was into the concept of being able to create a delicious looking dinner in the same time it took her to record the show. Did it end up being a 30 minute meal when I attempted it? Usually, no. There’s this pesky reading of directions and shouting “what the fuck does sauté really mean?” that gets in the way of a timely completion of a recipe.
I could make some tasty meals in my day, thanks to the tutelage of Ms. Ray. I rocked a schnitzel like the Austrian descendant I am. I could make meatballs that made my Scandanavian grandparents swoon. Basically, I excelled at making the food of my people. Other food was good too. I can make a mean turkey chili.
I will not, have not and definitely am not a gourmand. I like food, I like to eat, but in term so of having any sort of refined palate, I don’t.
The wedding was just around the corner. Orders had been made, money had been spent, including an order for my favorite food: popcorn. I am addicted to popcorn. My grandparents had an old airpopper that we would fire up for every overnight visit. A classic story about me is how I would rush through my bath and Grandma would barely get the oversized t-shirt over me that acted as my PJs and a comb through my hair so I could run into the kitchen. I would hop on my stool by the counter and look at my grandpa and tell him “I knew you needed my help, Gam-pa.” I was small and adorable, speech impediments happen.
My job was to guide the stray popcorn into the bowl using a paper towel. That paper towel was reused for the better part of 10 years for that exact job. That’s how Midwestern my grandparents were. Towards the end of the popping, the kernels would shoot out like piping hot corn bullets. This would cause my grandfather to jump and yelp. I was the goalie for these, catching them with my paper towel so they wouldn’t end up on the floor.
Needless to say, these are some of my most cherished memories. And to this day, I can’t help but smile while eating a bag of popcorn, or popcorn from the airpopper my sister got me for Christmas. It’s not quite as excited with no corn projectiles, but it gets the job done.
My cousin had popcorn at her wedding with flavors and toppings on them, and the idea of this intrigued me. I couldn’t make the wedding because it was on the same day as a field trip, but my mother gave me the full report of how tasty it was. As my fiancé, then boyfriend, and I were starting to talk marriage (we got engaged a month later) I filed this info away in my “wedding???” section of my brain.
Low and behold, my mother had done the exact same thing. When the ordering parade began in March for my June wedding, we found the website with thanks to information from my uncle and ordered popcorn to be served at the wedding during the reception. While these are not home popped and protected by an antique paper towel, the flavors to select from were extensive and mouthwatering.
I thought, as any normal human would, that the popcorn would be placed in bags on the tables somewhere on a patio outside the lodge we were going to use for the reception. And initially, that was the plan. However, plans are known to change, especially when creative people are involved. On one of his scavenges, my father found an old broken down popcorn machine. It was the kind where it is a glass box with red edging and the words “Fresh Popcorn” are printed along the side. Except this one didn’t have the words on it due to age. He clean it off, painted it up and removed all of the mechanisms from the inside. When I came over for dinner one night, he showed me the finished machine in the screened in patio in the back. I was floored. It was damn cool. And seemed to only getting cooler.
“This is so cool, Dad! Thank you!”
Dad smiled with his characteristic cheeky glint in his eye. “What do you think of a little guy turning a barrel?”
At this point, I returned his cheeky smile. I do love to be in cahoots. “Like at Disneyland?” For the uninitiated, there are different mini-puppet characters in all of the popcorn makers around the park. In Tomorrowland for example, one finds the Rocketeer churning away. Near the Matterhorn, it’s the Yeti’s job to keep that barrel a-turnin’.
Now I took a momentary pause to consider the repercussions of having a popcorn turner. And I decided it was awesome. “LET’S DO IT. Can we make it a tiki or a groomsmen or something?”
To this, my mother chimed in, “Oh no, not you too.” This conversation had just happened twice before, once with just Mom and Dad, and again with Mom, Dad and Em. Turns out, everyone but my mother really wanted a popcorn turner. So Dad made it happen.
He used a chunk of wood from the wood pile and an old motor he had as well as some erector set pieces he had recently scavenged and created a working little popcorn turner to go with his popcorn machine. The last step with the give the popcorn guy a theme or some kind of paint job, and Dad rocked that out too. For those of you who don’t know, which should be very few of you at this point, my fiancé is of Hawaiian descent. He has told me his family refer to themselves as “menehunes”, which are like Hawaiian trickster gods like leprechauns. I find this description terribly accurate.
The turner my dad made was a menehune with red and green details and large grin on its face. Kind of the perfect thing to connect the families. My love of popcorn, Dad’s love of making stuff and Disney and a little Hawaiian trickster.
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