| Welcome to the O'Boozersons |
On the subway this morning, I was just remembering the last time I'd visited with my entire extended family in Ohio. I can't remember why I'd flown in- I think we all just missed each other and realized we had a free weekend- but my mother and brother had driven up from Missouri as well, which meant that the entire clan was together for about four days straight. In the middle of the summer. In Ohio. Without air-conditioning. What a sweaty snarky crankfest!
Usually I end up doing a lot of the cooking when my family is together, because I like to give my grandma a break, plus then I can rest assured she won't try to use the bloated, dented cans (expiration date circa 2001) from her pantry in some casserole amalgam that might kill us all. Also, I enjoy cooking and I come from one of those families that praises you excessively for the most absurd of tasks, so when you end a day by not getting pregnant and not setting yourself on fire, you're simply a hero. They practically turn themselves inside out with compliments when I manage to make food. It's good for the self-esteem!
This particular evening, I'd made some sort of unremarkable, vaguely tropical chicken dish, and I decided that Bananas Foster would be a nice compliment for dessert (because what's a smart move in a sweltering, airless kitchen packed with bodies? Set shit on fire!) As I started arranging the ingredients on the counter, my mother hovered nervously at my elbow.
"What's that for?" she asked.
"What's what for? The rum?"
"Yes."
"The bananas foster. You pour rum onto the bananas and set that pan ablaze. It's delicious."
"MEG. Rum?"
"MOM. Yes."
"But Meg. We really don't want to enable anyone here. Why don't we just leave it out?"
Let me interrupt myself for a moment here to explain something about my family, who I love dearly: In our unending and relentless quest to fulfill every single stereotype of Irish people out there, we have committed ourselves to a few principles.
1) We staunchly refuse to grow taller than five feet.
2) We are lifelong members of the Democratic party.
3) We jig.
4) We love love LOVE to fight.
5) We are alcoholics.
As an adult, I have adhered to the five elements above save one- I am seven feet tall. Just kidding.
I am not an alcoholic. I have been known to get extremely drunk from time to time (and then I'm forced to do things afterwards to apologize for my behavior- like when I had to bake La Chanteuse a Sorry I Took A Shit in Front Of You Cheesecake), but I'm too scared of becoming an obese incapacitated drunk to really participate in this behavior too often. Plus I'm a ridiculous lightweight. It's embarrassing. Also, for all of my talk, I'm too much of a control freak to get drunk that often. I like to be in charge, always.
And my mom doesn't drink at all. She's one of those people whose bodies just don't metabolize alcohol very well. It's almost like she's allergic to it: she can't even have a full glass of wine without throwing up. Plus I think alcoholism has just terrorized her family so much that she's incredibly resistant to the idea of drinking in general. Of course, in our clan, she's definitely in the minority.
Everyone in my family (both sides!), except for my mother and me, is an alcoholic. Every last one. For real. Some are in AA, some pretend to be in AA, but most are content to stroll around, drinking toasts and starting fights. It's just what we do. They are wonderful, loving, protective people and I wouldn't trade them for anything, but the simple fact of the matter is that I come from a long line of drunks*.
So, kinda getting back to my story, my mom is hypervigilant about what is appropriate behavior in the presence of my alcoholic family. She doesn't keep alcohol in her house, she constantly refers to "the disease," and she regularly attends Al Anon meetings because she wants to engender a supportive environment for everyone who is "in recovery." Which is no one currently, but that's beside the point. Anyway.
We really are a jovial crew, so please don't misconstrue all of this to mean that I come from a very tortured, Interventiony life. It's just always been kind of funny to me how committed my poor mom is to NOT encouraging more drunkenness and how committed everyone else is to NOT letting her kill their buzz. Which brings us to the present.
I tried telling my mom that I was only adding a few tablespoons of rum to the sauce for the bananas, and most of the alcohol would be cooking off anyway. I also wanted to say "Everyone is so wasted already that a little more alcohol won't hurt anyone" but I didn't want to upset her. My grandmother overheard part of our conversation and came over to try to help mediate:
"Mom, seriously. It's just like making a spaghetti sauce with a little wine in it. We're just doing it for the flavor. You can totally still drive after eating bananas foster."
"I just don't think it is very supportive to deliberately feed someone's addiction so directly."
"But they won't even know its there, I promise."
"But YOU'LL know. Doesn't that bother you?"
"It bothers me that I might be making bananas foster incorrectly!"
"Just leave it out! Just serve it cold! Or without the sauce! What's the difference?"
"The difference is that then dessert will just be sliced bananas!"
"How about we just don't let Patrick have any?" suggested my grandmother, offering one of my drunk uncles as a sacrificial dessert-free lamb.
"Ma, that won't work," said my mother. "You can't say 'here is dessert for everyone except for those of you who most recently lost their license because they drove into another car in the pub parking lot!' "
"We don't have to SAY that," said my grandmother. "We can just tell him he probably wouldn't like the dessert. Let her make it the way she wants to make it!"
"That is a nonsensical option. Let's just have bananas and coffee and call it a night."
"No!" I whined. "I already started the sauce! What the hell am I supposed to do with this stuff?" I gestured to the bubbling pan of brown sugar, bananas, and spices.
"Meg, just serve it without the rum, okay? For me?"
"Okay. But don't blame me if someone calls it inauthentic."
"It's a deal."
So a while later, we were sitting around eating Bananas Foster, Hot Bananas In Sugar, when my uncle Patrick complimented me on the ridiculously weird dessert.
"Good sweets, kid."
"Thanks!" I said.
My grandmother cleared her throat. "You know, this is an authentic island recipe she made. From a tropical, you know, Caribbean place."
I frowned at my grandmother, who was obviously lying. I've never been anywhere tropical. And if I did go, I sure as shit wouldn't spend my time asking locals for their recipes.
"Yes, authentic," continued my grandmother. "You know, except for one thing."
"MA," warned my mother, at the same time that I said "Grandma, want more coffee?"
"You see, she couldn't make this recipe exactly how she wanted to make it. She wanted to make it the way its been made for thousands and thousands of years."
Prehistoric bananas foster, anyone? Just like Jesus made for His holiness's dinner parties!
"Oh yeah?" said my uncle, intrigued now. Poor clueless bastard. "What did you do differently this time?"
"She left out the r-"
"I ADDED NUTMEG." I said loudly, trying to prevent my grandmother from making my stupid uncle feel like he ruined dinner.
"And she left out the r-"
"AND I SET IT ON FIRE TWICE." I yelled again.
"AND SHE SERVED IT WITH ICE CREAM INSTEAD OF POUND CAKE!" said my mom, trying to help out.
"WHY ARE WE ALL YELLING?" asked my brother.
"I JUST NOTICED THERE WAS NO GRAVY FOR THE POTATOES! WHY WAS THERE NO GRAVY??" bellowed my grandfather, all excited by the noise.
"And! She didn't put in any rum! Because...SOME people...here...shouldn't be drinking as much as they do!" my grandmother exclaimed triumphantly. The hypocrisy of this is absurd, as my grandmother herself hasn't gone a day without drinking since I've known her. MAYBE when she was undergoing chemo. Maybe.
My uncle looked at me, crushed. "You could have put it in, kid. I can handle it."
"He didn't drive here," said my grandfather, helpfully.
"Patrick. It wasn't because of that. It was just that Grandma only had bad rum!" I said.
"She has very high standards for her ingredients." said my mother. Yes, I sure do. That's why I used that banana that I dropped on the floor. What? Don't judge me. Give that fucker a quick rinse and you're good to go.
Anyway, appropriately chastened, Patrick and the rest of the men retired to the front porch to sit, drink whisky, and smoke. My mother, aunt, grandmother, and I cleaned the kitchen and then drank coffee and played cards until we got bored and joined the men outside. Eventually, conversation turned to what everyone should wear tomorrow when we had our family portraits taken at Sears (no joke). The still-mostly fun night ended all too soon.
Perhaps you think I should have taken the opportunity at dinner to not shoo my uncle's addiction under the carpet. Instead, you might be thinking, I could have helped hold an open, honest, and loving conversation about addiction and encouraged anyone with a problem to seek treatment, immediately.
The problem with this, though, was that I didn't want to do that because that would leave me all by my lonesome, and I don't want to clean the kitchen alone.
The End.
*Recently my brother and I were talking, and he said "You know, as members of the (LastName) family, as we age we have to choose between becoming bigots or drunks." "This is true," I acknowledged. "I think I'm going to go with drunk," he said, "they get invited to more parties." "Suit yourself. I'm going to go with bigot. They get their own Fox news shows."Labels: family |
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| 11 Comments: |
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Doesn't the alcohol all burn off? I don't know how it works.
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For a day, you can be an honorary Native if I can be an honorary family member. I mean, I already have a whiskey-lovin' old sot at home...but it's not the same since he's over 6' tall and doesn't really jig or love to fight and for sure isn't a Democrat...wait...I don't think he's Irish after all.
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Srah- yes, it totally burns off! that's why the argument was so infuriating.
D- you think your sot doesn't love to fight? I'm afraid i'm going to have to call bullshit on that one. Don't worry, he's irish.
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i'd say that argument was infuriating, but totally rad. how totally awesome is your grandma, sacrificing one of her kids so the dessert can still have booze in it? in my alcoholic family, everybody hides their shame and shows up to family functions pretending to be sober. so when both of my brothers are reeking of beer and my grandma steps out back to pour herself a finger of whiskey from the bottle she's hidden in the closet in the garage, i like to throw out a joke or two about the president and then step back and watch the flames.
that's just me, though. your family sounds awesome.
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I am a great admirer of your grandma for her vigilance in the face of gourmet censorship. If you don't want to get buzzed at dessert, just change the channel.
Also, I think it was insensitive of your mother to encourage having plain bananas for dessert. Just think how that enables those with Oral Sex addictions.
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I think your family and my family should join forces and form a drinkin' and fightin' army of sin. It would be awesome. And we could even out the height thing, since I come from a family of giants. We'd tear the town to pieces.
Just think about it, ok?
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I got nothin'. My family is just a long line of people who wants to know when the hell I'm going to get married.
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meg, is this the same weekend you had to wear the gigantic underpants of the recently deceased?
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PS: not to be greedy and self-absorbed (actually to be precisely that), the link to my blog on your page doesn't work. I hope I haven't angered you in some way.
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Kelsi- I know the feeling. It's just a comedy of errors every time we are together. They're really good people- just really good, really drunk people. Sigh.
Rev- I know. My ma's such a fascist.
TK- It's a deal. Can your clan make it to MO? Or OH? We're not so good with the driving...
Jamelah- So, when are you? Come on. Enough dilly dallying.
EMJ- Different visit. Just as tragic.
REV! I'm so sorry! I fixed it.
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Name: A Lover and a Fighter
Home: New York, NY
About Me: "It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information."
-Oscar Wilde
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Doesn't the alcohol all burn off? I don't know how it works.