An admission, 1970s cooking and Totie Fields.

It is ok try and re-try.

The focus of this Substack is to journal my experiences and thoughts as I age into the last part of my life. Recently, I was talking with a friend about skill sets we develop over the course of our lives, things like money saving strategies, the best way to wash your clothes, that sort of thing. We learn and we hone. One area I have struggled with is cooking. My skill set in the kitchen is sorely lacking. True, I have been known to make a decent turkey on Thanksgiving, and yes, I know to remove the innards before cooking it, but for the most part, my past attempts to prepare something truly unique and flavorful have fallen flatter than a pancake not griddled by me.

Meal preparation is something that almost everyone does, with varying degrees of ability. Parents cook for children, spouses cook for each other, friends cook for friends. It is referred to as a love language for a reason. So, why don’t I get the love? Why can’t I grace my own kitchen and produce some mouth-watering meals? The best tasting food that springs forth from my kitchen usually comes from one of several local take-out spots. I know that cooking takes practice. If I spent more time in the kitchen, I could improve my cooking game. But, if I am being honest, I have never really liked cooking. As a mom of five, that is not easy to admit. We are supposed to want to cook for our families. Truthfully, I never really did.

There is a myriad of cooking websites, Tiktok, Instagram and Youtube accounts dedicated to recipes, baking and kitchen tricks and tips. Anyone can have their own cooking show through one of these platforms. And hey, good for them for pursuing the different avenues through which they can share and express their love of cooking. A common theme that runs through all of these cooking platforms is the need for the ‘chef’ to explain why they love to cook, how they learned to cook and at some point, after much scrolling or many minutes watching, you will finally get to the recipe. If you watch cooking shows or follow food bloggers long enough, you learn the journey of watching these ‘chefs’ will showcase their gratitude to the person who inspired them in the kitchen and 8 out of 10 times, it is their mother.

My mother was the smartest woman I knew, and she had many gifts which she passed on to me. I would like to express a deep gratitude for all that she taught me, but talent in the kitchen was not one of them.  Her cooking was terrible, and I say that with much love. I have no charming nor heartwarming stories of learning anything of value in my mother’s kitchen. She was a major Diet Workshop devotee and everything she cooked had to be low fat, low calorie and low of portion. Her meatballs were grey and flavorless, her vegetables came from a can and her chicken drumsticks were drier than the Sahara.

Despite the bleak picture I just painted, I do have some warm remembrances of meals in my childhood home, though. They came from eating Chinese takeout.  There was nothing better than the shrimp and lobster sauce that came from the Golden Crown Restaurant in Weymouth, Massachusetts. To this day, I have never had Chinese food as good as it was from the Golden Crown. Another indulgence my mother allowed was pancakes on Sunday nights. She didn’t make the batter herself, though. Oh, no. In the 1970s, you could buy ready mixed liquid batter in a pint-sized carton. All you had to do was pour it in a skillet and flip them over once they bubbled. I would devour them while I watched ‘Space, 1999.’

It is a little bit funny to me that my favorite food memories from my childhood center on food my mother did not actually cook. But, there was one recipe that I enjoyed that she did actually cook herself. And it was called, ‘Totie Fields Recipe.’ The five of you reading this Substack may not know who Totie Fields was, but my mother adored her. She was a hugely popular (at the time) comedienne who made the talk show rounds from the 1950s the 1970s. She was raucous and self-deprecating. Wild and unapologetic. During one appearance on the Mike Douglas show (think daytime Johnny Carson), she revealed a recipe that my mother couldn’t wait to try. This recipe was so against type for what my mother would usually eat (or allow me to eat) and it was so completely basic and easy to prepare, she couldn’t fail this one. And she didn’t. It was delicious every time she made it.

I thought it might be fun to re-visit that recipe and see if it truly was good or if my memory is holding it in higher regard than it should be because it was much more fattening than the foods my mother usually allowed. I mean, there is some serious carb, meat and cheesy goodness in this dish, so I was pretty confident in my memory of its delectability. The other experimental aspect to re-creating that dish was to also see if I still dislike cooking. I haven’t prepared much in my kitchen of late and I had hoped that if I went in to make something nostalgic, maybe I would enjoy it more. I am a little unusual in that I have always preferred cleaning and organizing over cooking. So, here goes (and yes, like a true food blogger, I have also typed a long story before I finally got around to listing the ingredients and instructions).

‘Totie Field’s Recipe’

·         1 to 1.5 pounds of ground hamburg

·         1 large can of diced tomatoes

·         1 can Campbell’s cheddar cheese soup

·         4 cups cooked elbow macaroni

·         (optional – chopped onion, like a child, I am not a fan of chopped onions in my food, so I opted for onion powder), also – season this dish as you see fit, if you like cayenne pepper, add it, if you like minced garlic, add it. I made the basic recipe.

Cook macaroni according to package. Drain, rinse, set aside. If you are using chopped onions, throw them in a pan with some oil and sauté until clear. Add the hamburg to the onion until crumbly and brown. Yes, my mother’s recipe said, ‘crumbly and brown.’ I cooked the hamburg to said crumble and brown consistency but added the onion powder while it was cooking. Drain the liquid from the meat and return to the stovetop (lowered heat). Add the diced tomatoes and the cheddar cheese soup and stir until blended and heated through. Pour the mixture on top of your macaroni and serve.

This recipe was as tasty as I remembered. So, I believe I made it successfully. My husband said his mother made a dish just like it called goulash. A friend told me her mother called it American Chop Suey. So, maybe that recipe of Totie Fields was not as unique as I thought. But, while I toiled in the kitchen, (the word toil is used loosely because this recipe is about as easy as it gets to make), I did not have fun. The entire time I was in the kitchen, I kept thinking I should re-organize my cabinets. I want to try new things and try again with activities that I haven’t typically enjoyed seeing if I still feel that way. In the case of cooking, yeah, I still don’t like it. But, I was glad to get into the kitchen and make a meal that made me think of my mother and her gifts. And Totie Fields.