Let’s Eat - Milk and Eggs

Let’s Eat — A Writer’s Guide to Cooking
I’ve been thinking about all the milk and eggs our family of five went through when I was a kid. It was ridiculous. My father hated milk. My mother drank only a little. And yet every other morning, the Sequoia Jersey Farm milk truck arrived in the dark and the white-clad driver left a crate containing twelve quarts just outside our door. That’s three gallons for three kids, or half a gallon each per day. Of course we didn’t drink all the milk. Our mother used some in her baking. She baked most days. She made cakes, pies, and cookies. About once a week, she made madzoon. That required half a gallon. And frequently during the summer, we cranked a batch of homemade ice cream. Come to think of it, I don’t know how we got by with so little milk. No wonder I drank only three glasses at suppertime. I was deprived. Now I’m depraved. To me the connection is obvious. Oh, how I suffered. Anyway. The eggs: we bought seven dozen at wholesale every week from one of our farm neighbors. But we often ran out and had to go back for another dozen or two, just to tide us over. That means we consumed no less than a dozen eggs a day. For years, bacon and eggs were a favorite breakfast. My brothers and I ate two apiece. Mom usually skipped the eggs and had toast. Dad had usually had toast and coffee earlier, before everyone was up. But if he was in the mood, he would join us. We also had scrambled eggs, and when we did, for some odd reason we always used more, usually three or four eggs per person. The rest were used in baking. And every now and then, Mom would make me an eggnog: one fresh egg beaten to a foamy lather, ice-cold rich whole milk, a spoonful of sugar, and a several drops of vanilla all mixed together and served in a tall glass. What a treat. What a tremendous source of energy, especially after playing basketball for three hours and sweating out every last ounce of protein. Hard-boiled eggs. Deviled eggs with potato or macaroni salad. Eggs in pancake batter. Later on, we kept a few chickens ourselves — Rhode Island Reds and Plymouth Rocks. Delightful, comical creatures. Brown eggs. Highly superior to that of the White Leghorn variety. (It should have been Egghorn.) Do you know what chickens love? They love to scratch and eat their way through piles of fresh lawn clippings. It also makes their egg yolks darker. (If you live in an apartment and keep your chickens in one of the bedrooms, the chlorophyll will do wonders for the smell.)	Also by William Michaelian POETRY Winter Poems ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 52 pages. Paper. —————————— Another Song I Know ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 80 pages. Paper. —————————— Cosmopsis Books San Francisco Signed copies available Main Page Author’s Note Background Notebook A Listening Thing Among the Living No Time to Cut My Hair One Hand Clapping Songs and Letters Collected Poems Early Short Stories Armenian Translations Cosmopsis Print Editions Interviews News and Reviews Highly Recommended Favorite Books & Authors Useless Information Conversation Flippantly Answered Questions E-mail & Parting Thoughts
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Let’s Eat — A Writer’s Guide to Cooking