Liver and Onions

I would like to say that my mother loved to cook. I‘d like to say that. But I can’t. She didn’t. And I can’t blame her. When you have seven hungry kids and a husband to feed, you cook based on necessity rather than joy.  She had the book. The pages were dog-eared like our Sears wish list catalogue.  She wasn’t buying it, and we had to eat whatever she made. I remember one day that went wrong. The story is called….

The shoe and the spud

My dad was a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. My mother thought that if liver was good enough for him, it was good enough for us kids. It is supper time, and I could smell the butter seared chopped onions and milk-drowned floured liver as it hung like a cloud above Buckingham Drive. We could all smell it. It was game over in more ways than one. If we had had clothespins for our noses, we could have kept playing. As I walked toward culinary doom, I could get a hint of a better dinner offering that lingered despite the overabundance of stink coming from my house. I could have had spaghetti across the street. Perogies down the road. Sadly, unlike that cereal parrot, I didn't want to follow my nose. But I had to. 

The dish

There I was sitting at the dining room table looking at milked death on a plate. My mother could have dredged it through candy, but I wasn't going to eat it. The glass of milk was placed in front of me to aid in digestion. Good luck. As I looked at my plate, I drifted off and wondered. Insert a thought cloud here.  Who had the idea to eat liver in the first place? I imagine a couple of guys from Quebec. Who kills a calf for da liver? Isn't da veal good enough? Hey! You know wat? Don't trow da liver away, maybe if we drown it in milk, it would be good too.  The thought cloud dissipates, and I’m back to the present. Nothing has changed except that now the liver has a friend.  I thought that liver was bad enough, but beside the carcass is a red potato. Who eats red potatoes? Maybe Dad. I try it and gag. Not me. 

To chew or not to chew

I sat there and tried to find a way to make my folks look the other way, while I offered the dog a sample. The dog took one sniff, yelped and ran to the other room. Okay, I embellished the dog thing for your amusement. You know what was not so funny? Chewing it. Gag reflux overload. I asked to leave the table and use the bathroom.  It was my only escape plan. I spit out the half-chewed liver I had hidden in my mouth into a wad of toilet paper and hid it in my pocket. I put the seat lid down, and I sat. And I sat. And I sat.

The escape plan

I was already told I had to eat everything on my plate.  All mothers say the same thing when their kids don't eat their food. My mother was no different. Starving kids in Africa would love to have this food. From the throne, I wanted to yell out. You're right, I bet they'd make a nice pair of shoes with this discarded milk leather.  I hoped she would forget I was in there. When it comes to kids and bathrooms, there is no fooling my mom. She had a keen ear. She could tell if water was running or not in a tub, a floor away. I don't hear any water running. The reason she never heard water running was that we're running up and down the hallway.

Pate’ over

Eventually, the hours passed, and I emerged from the throne of discontent. Luckily, my plate is gone. I didn’t even ask for a possible substitute. I went to bed early that night and slept through the rumblings of my stomach. I woke up the next day and ate toast with peanut butter. A much better culinary choice,  and I never ate liver again. I still can’t stand the smell of it.