In Memory of Mom

In honor of Mom's birthday, we ate our dessert first for supper--chocolate marshmallow ripple ice cream from Schwan's--followed by homemade pizza (well, Chef Boyardee make-it-yourself pizza) with slices of mozzarella (rather than shredded--more on that below). This was indeed meet and proper for several reasons.

First, Mom loved desserts and, if she thought she might run out of room (in her tummy) for dessert at a big meal, she had no qualms about eating the dessert first, just to be certain that she had room for it. This was most likely to happen at a holiday meal, like eating a piece of pumpkin pie before the turkey dinner at Thanksgiving. However, in honor of Mom, we eat our dessert first on her birthday.

Second, she loved chocolate, ice cream, and Schwan's products, so it's fitting to combine the three in our choice of dessert in honor of Mom. When I was a kid, the arrival of the Schwan's truck in our yard was always a big deal because it meant the purchase of the most delicious ice cream on the planet, tasty ice cream novelties (ice cream bars, fudge bars, root beer ice cream bars, etc.), and frozen treats such as one-serving pizzas and microwavable sandwiches. Mom was a valued Schwan's customer; she felt compelled to purchase lest The Schwan's Man should decide it was no longer worth his time to drive out to our farm during his rounds! *

Third, when I was a kid, our family often made homemade pizza together of a Friday night. That meant two or three Chef Boyardee pizza kits and a counter full of supplies: canned mushrooms, black olives, green peppers, red peppers, onions, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, grated Parmesan cheese, and large slices of mozzarella cheese that would soak up the pizza sauce while sealing in the flavor and then bubble up in delicious, sauce-darkened patches covering the pizza. My sisters and I put together the pizzas, and Mom baked them in rectangular cookie sheets (and cut them with a scissors rather than a pizza cutter, which couldn't get into the 90-degree angles of the pan). I would make a pitcher of Kool-Aid, using about twice the recommended amount of sugar (an infrequent break from our standard glasses of whole milk with every meal), and we would have a terrific meal that we all loved.

(The next day, I would get up before the crack of dawn and eat cold leftover pizza for breakfast while watching Saturday morning cartoons. I'm going to do that tomorrow, too . . . minus the cartoons.)

My sister Sandy's birthday is in a few days, and our sister, Cathy, flew from OR to NE to spend the weekend with her; so I phoned Sandy tonight to visit with my sissies. They were off to an early birthday party that Sandy's friends are throwing for her tonight, but we had time to wish Mom a happy birthday together!

* Funny story:

In Mom's experience, Schwan's men in our rural area had so much territory to cover that they were likely not to return to a stop that hadn't made a purchase a few times in a row. That meant that, sometimes, she would buy items from the Schwan's guy even if the freezer was still full from his last visit to our farm.

One time she saw him driving down the long gravel road leading to our house, and she panicked. She knew that she didn't yet need anything more from Schwan's, but she had already declined to purchase on his last stop or two to our place and didn't want to say "no" again and get crossed off his list! So she rushed us kids into the basement stairwell, where she joined us . . . in hiding from the Schwan's man!

Yes, we crouched so that she could just peek over the stairwell to see him drive onto our driveway, listen to him ring the doorbell, and watch him drive away again. She felt it was better that he think we were merely away so that we could avoid purchasing without risk of getting dropped from his route. Therefore, she chose a hiding spot from which she could keep an eye on him without his being able to see us skulking around were he to peek in our windows. We were all laughing so hard that I'm surprised he didn't hear us!