A Young Cook

When I was eight years old my mother dropped me off with my younger sister (age 6) at the town library every Saturday while she ran her errands. We were very into plays and putting on performances (a play, ballet recital, even me playing the violin) but could only find musty books in this small venue so turned toward acting out Charles Schulz’ Peanuts strips. We made my baby brother some dog ears and so he was always Snoopy, somehow I was always cast as Lucy (I have to look into that one), and my sister played everyone else.

Now we needed something else to do in the Library, and I found The Betty Crocker Boys and Girls Cookbook. I kept it for three weeks until they called Mom and told me it was overdue to the tune of thirty-odd cents. So my birthday was coming up and lo and behold, I received the book as a gift. I was in hog heaven. Of course my grandfather prefaced everything I made with the word “suicide.” Suicide Carrot Curls, Suicide Kookie Kat Sundae, you get the drift.

We started planning lavish birthday parties for our brother’s birthdays. Two I especially recall were the first, a King and Queen’s Ball, complete with the Castle Cake, tagboard headdresses for the girls with a chiffon scarf trailing from each, and tagboard “crowns” for the boys, covered in tin foil with gumdrops on each point.

Another year was a pirate theme, with eye patches, tri-cornered hats and a treasure cake, plus a hunt for buried treasure. Oh, and everyone got a tagboard sword wrapped in tin foil.

My sister Alison would get so nervous in the days preceding our special events that she would actually break out in hives! Oh, the pressure to deliver for a three year-old birthday boy.

For this experience I have to thank Mom and Alison, Kevin (aka Snoopy), and the Barker Library. It’s been many years since I’ve printed tickets to the really big show in the basement at the House on the Hill, but I remember it as if it were yesterday.

Cheers, Dee

p.s. Joanie, please don’t let Aunt Lorna read this or she’ll cry like she always did when Dancing Bear appeared on Captain Kangaroo.