Quick print downtown tulsa1/8/2024 So inspired by my grandfather, I am working very hard on my books too. It’s amazing what talent and a lot of hard work can get you. By the time I was born he was semi-retired and owned a chain of stores in Battle Creek, Michigan. He worked in some of the finest hotels and restaurants in the northeastern United States. During the Great Depression he was always able to find work as a chef. To his chagrin, he ended up a cook in the US Army during the war. My grandfather emigrated to the US just prior to WWI. Her father had been a master chef in his younger years. She had an almost uncanny ability to discern every ingredient (including spices) in whatever she tasted. At a very young age I experienced ethnic, even exotic foods that many adults at the time had never tried. My grandfather put his own spin on it.īoth of my parents were excellent cooks and there was always a wide variety of different types of food available. Here’s a recipe for kibbeh which might help explain it a little better, although my family’s recipe was slightly different. It’s a middle eastern dish of fried, stuffed meatballs made of spices, ground meat, and bulgur wheat. If we were really hungry, there was always a pan of kibbeh in the fridge, which I particularly loved. In my house? A popsicle or a moon pie would be considered heresy! For a quick snack my mother offered apples or bananas or some other seasonal fruit we had on hand. In all the other homes there would be popsicles, Cheetos, moon pies-the usual junk food type snacks. So every few hours, one of our unfortunate mothers would discover several red-faced, grass-stained, mud-caked boys standing in her doorway and demanding, “Is there anything to eat?”Īlthough we tried to be fair and invade each house in turn, my house was always last on the list. When you use that much energy you just have to refuel. We were always exploring, bike riding, digging holes (another story), playing football, and hundreds of other things. When I was a boy, my neighborhood friends and I expended tremendous amounts of energy playing outside. “Do you have anything to eat?” he asks.Īnd that was the takeoff point for my trip down memory lane. Then the cook asks, “Well, Master Reggie, what brings you to the kitchen?”Įmbarrassed, Reggie blurts out the only thing he can think of to explain his sudden arrival. He sees the castle cook and three kitchen boys staring down at him. Red-faced and out of breath, Reggie looks up. At the bottom, he trips over his own feet and rolls head over heels across a room. In one scene of the story, a frightened boy named Reggie rushes headlong down some stairs. With just a simple sentence, I took a mental trip back in time that involved writing, food, and family history. This happened recently while working on my second children’s adventure novel in the Sir Kaye the Boy Knight series. These little side voyages are often inspired by simple things that bring a wealth of almost-forgotten memories to light. Sometimes writing triggers an unexpected trip down memory lane for me.
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