School's back! Time for Show and Tell.
School's back!
Okay, fine–school's actually been back for a while here; my kids started classes almost a month ago. I've been seeing first-day-of-school posts from parent friends from late July straight up to this week, so there's apparently quite a bit of variation there. Still, I think we can all agree that school's spiritually back this week. Even if you don't have a bus stop or car line to get to, it's in the air–football's back, cooler weather's coming, new television programming is returning... it's a new year, and you owe yourself some new pencils.
A few weeks ago (again, we've been back), my son's fifth-grade teacher tasked his class with "bringing in an artifact that represents a piece of their family's culture". This could mean culture in the nationality/ethnicity/religion sense–their school is pretty diverse for Kentucky–but really, it was intended more to ask what do you and your family value?, a dressed-up version of Show and Tell.
My son agonized over what object might represent us, eventually settling on one of the many snow globes he's collected from our travels over the years. I liked the choice, and was pleased that he managed not to break it in transit, but it also got me thinking... what would I have chosen for me? What object would represent my culture?
What IS my culture???
I can't let a good existential crisis pass without sharing, so I'm putting the question to you today, too.
If you were given this assignment, asked to bring in a single artifact to explain your culture–however you might choose to interpret that–what would you choose?
It'd have to be something you have on hand right now. (These assignments never come with much advance warning, as any parent knows.) Something portable enough to fit in a backpack, and not so fragile or valuable that it might be at risk of loss or damage on the school bus. Something that tells us about you.
(I am still figuring out the nuances of the Ghost editor.)
After a few days of self-imposed agitation, I finally decided that my show-and-tell artifact would be this squeeze-operated pancake batter dispenser.
I love to cook. (You know this, but the hypothetical class doesn't know yet.) All the men in my family love to cook. In fact, this dispenser belonged to my grandfather, and my Dad passed it along to me when Grandpa Hines died. It's not an heirloom by any means, but when I use it, it reminds me of him and the church pancake breakfasts he often ran. It's not a terribly necessary tool, admittedly; it's the kind of 'unitasker' that Alton Brown once decried as needless kitchen clutter. Still, it delights me when I make perfectly-round pancakes for my kids on a Saturday morning.
It's a silly little thing, but it works well and it makes me happy, and hey: that sorta is my culture, isn't it?
Friends, it's Friday again at The Action Cookbook Newsletter.
I'm still unpacking all the boxes here after moving the ACBN off Substack and onto Ghost, but I've still got a loaded slate for you today, one that includes:
- The one stupid food that my kids will remember me for!
- It's not a cocktail, it's a cinematic franchise!
- Great new music and book recommendations!
- Talk of baseball, pop music, dogs, cats and more!
School's back, but I brought enough Friday for the whole class to share.
We can be heroes, if just for one day
My kitchen is a land of contrasts.
Despite what this newsletter (and my reputation as a connossieur of Husband Meal) might have you think, most of what I cook during the week is pretty simple, straightforward and healthy-ish stuff, things like broiled salmon, grilled chicken, soup and the like. Of course, this routine is punctuated roughly once a week by some often-deranged and occasionally-regrettable culinary experiment.
(I have a reputation to maintain, after all.)
Invariably, when I'm working on those projects, one of my kids will stroll through the kitchen and innocently ask "what are you making for dinner, Daddy?". With a twinge of embarrassment and guilt, I'll have to reassure them that "don't worry about this, this is for the newsletter, I'm making you something else."
Sometimes, though, my worlds can collide.
Three years ago, I found out that it's apparently common for pizzerias in Naples, Italy to offer "American Pizza" for kids–that being a pizza topped with cut-up hot dogs and French fries. As an American, I could've been insulted by the concept–an insult I'm sure that was at least partly intentional on the part of the Neapolitian pizzaolos–but I wasn't, because it sounded too good and I immediately made it.
I couldn't let Italy beat us at our own game, though; I put macaroni and cheese on it, too.
Scott Hines
I did this mostly for giggles, but the pizza was quite tasty–and it was far from a waste, because my 10-year-old son has spoken reverently of it ever since. He apparently even looked up my newsletter in his elementary school computer lab last year so that he could show the pizza to his friends. I don't encourage children reading this newsletter, least of all my children, but I do appreciate any chance to be a Cool Dad. A few weeks ago, he asked if we could have it again, and with school back in session, it felt like a great time to re-up my grade-school street cred, so I agreed. I couldn't just rest on my past successes, though. I needed to go bigger.
(I added chopped-up chicken fingers this time.)
I'm not going to go through the pretense of typing this out as an actual recipe; it's not that kind of party. This is Trader Joe's pizza dough topped with sauce, cheese, a sliced-up Costco hot dog, Raising Canes chicken fingers and fries, and Trader Joe's frozen Mac and Cheese, all baked in an Ooni piza oven.
It was, if you can believe it, incredibly well-received by my children.
In the words of Bull Durham's Crash Davis: "When you speak of me, speak well."
Now, it's time for a drink.
