A Day's End and Cooks and Friends...

http://janetishungry.blogspot.com

"I need to get back to cooking every other night on my days off," my father said as he walked out of the front door of the pharmacy tonight. "You would appreciate that, too!"

He was talking to me on his cellphone.

"I always did the cooking because you mother couldn't. She'd burn down the house trying to get a meal on the table."

"Well, you've turned into a mighty fine cook," I told my father who needed the applause and accolades.

"You remind me of your mother in your ability to put a fine meal on the table," I told him.

"Charlie told me last night that I needed to find a good way to mass-market my pork chops and rice and we would be rich beyond belief," dad replied laughing.

When I was growing up, mom taught all the time and had a black lady named Rene do most of the cooking. My mother cooked on the weekends for her three kid brood. On the way home from school, we would run by Rene's house and pick up the meal du jour. Mom cooked mainly Sunday dinner. I remember my mother's mushroom chicken and tangy chicken extremely fondly.

Mom caught the house on fire frying french fries one night and my father never did let her cook again. I remember I was at Boy Scouts when my uncle drove over and picked me up to take me home. I knew something terrible had happened when my uncle Steve had arrived to pick me up.

"Somethings bad has happened," he told me stoically.

He drove us to my parent's house with the both of us in a somber mood.