December 12- Childhood Food Memories- Part 2

-Mom’s home cooking- her tomato soup cake, beef soup, pepper steak, macaroni and cheese, fresh baked bread (from frozen dough), and sandwiches- Taylor ham (sometimes with egg and /or cheese) and Steak-Umms.

  

We liked when she’d cook us breakfast for dinner -fried potatoes, hash, scrambled eggs, baked beans, and toast.

  

She would make us our favorite meals for our birthday dinners. I always picked stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes, and corn. Mike chose lasagna which mom used Cousin Donnas’ recipe for.

  

When she was baking, she’d sometimes let us eat the leftover cake batter in the bowl and a little of the dough from the chocolate chip cookies.

-Ice Cream – My favorite flavor used to be maple walnut but then it was mint chocolate chip like my brother’s. We liked getting this from the Magic Fountain and Carvel. Mom used to get ice cream cakes from the latter for our birthdays (and other occasions) sometimes. We loved the commercials for their cakes – Fudgie the Whale (Father’s Day), Wicky the Witch, Tom the Turkey, Cookie O’ Puss, and Cookie Puss.

    

We’d sometimes get Good Humor ice cream from the truck or the store. I liked the chocolate éclair, Creamsicles, Fudgesicles, and chocolate coated bars.

  

My brother and I also enjoyed the little cups of ice cream with the small wooden spoons. We would sometimes pretend that our ice cream sandwiches were various types of regular sandwiches like ham and cheese.

-Salty snacks – Jiffy popcorn made on the stovetop, Pringles, Super Pretzels from Bradlees snack bar (3 for a dollar special sometimes), Fritos, and pretzel rods. There was a company that delivered chips and pretzels in tin type containers. I think that it was called Charles Chips.

-Crackers- Ritz with cream cheese, saltines with peanut butter, and grahams with jelly or jam.

-Strange snack- Mike liked mixing Alpha Bits cereal with cream cheese and sugar. This was a weird combination. As if the cereal didn’t have enough sugar as is.

Carvel cake 1983

Creamsicle

Note- All photos except for the Carvel ice cream cake are from the internet

December 15, 2016- More School Days- Part 2

-8^th Grade- The parents did such a great job of decorating the gym for our “M*A*S*H “dance. This took place not long after the final episode of that show in 1983. Mom and Dad were there as chaperones. I should have kept my 2 “M*A*S*H” shirts.

   I accidentally threw out my yearbook. I do still have the t shirt with my classmates’ signatures on it that everyone got. The girls also received a necklace; I don’t remember what the boys got. I have my class president pin too.

   My parents gave me a Brother typewriter as a graduation gift. They got Mike an in-ground basketball set for his.

   I’m pretty sure that Confirmation was after graduation. Mrs. P was my sponsor. I don’t remember much about this only that afterwards we went to a nice restaurant, The Sleepy Hollow Inn then over to Mrs. P’s house.

-Good Deeds- I don’t remember which particular ones that I did, probably help mom with chores. Mike lied, saying that he took out Mr. K’s trash for him. He was going to do so but never got around to it.

-Science Fair- Someone always did a volcano as a project. I did one on the weather in 6^th or 7^th grade. It wasn’t anything that elaborate, just posters about various types of clouds and some other stuff.

-Games and fun- Operation, Candyland, Perfection, hopscotch, line tag, jump rope, flipping trading cards (Mike won some” Happy Days” and Grease cards), Musical chairs; Duck, Duck, Goose; and Red Light, Green Light. I didn’t like when our class would play Seven Up or the Telephone Game.

-Hot Lunch Friday – Ellio’s pizza, Sabrett hot dogs, potato chips, soda, and Carvel Flying Saucers (ice cream sandwiches). I can’t remember if the milk was just then or every day.

-Gertrude Hawk – We first had this brand when it was part of our fund raiser for grade school at Easter and Christmas. Mom would always get us a white chocolate cross and the Smidgens. We liked the peanut butter filled ones a lot.

-Birthdays- Classmates would bring in either cupcakes or Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins on their birthdays. I am pretty sure that Mike and I brought in cupcakes for ours sometimes too.

-We would have bake sales to raise money for our school. Mom made cupcakes most of the time. My brother said that there were a couple of plant sales too. I do remember buying a few plants that we put in the garden.

-Mom covered our text books with brown paper grocery bags.

-Mom was a member of the PTA for a few years but quit after she and the principal, Sister HF, had a disagreement over the fact that she wouldn’t let mom take us out of class to go to the funeral of one of our classmates’ parent.

  I remember that Mom liked working at the bingo nights; sometimes she would take Mike and me. We would be in the teacher’s lounge with a babysitter and other kids. They served some of the same foods that we had for our hot lunches.

2011

1972

hopscotch

 

Photos 5-18 are from the internet