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 12- Childhood Food Memories-Part 1

-Fast Food/Chain Restaurants– Roy Rogers, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy’s, White Castle, Stewart’s (good root beer), Chick Fil-A; Bonanza, Ponderosa, The Rustler, and Ground Round (near Aunt Ann’s house).

-Restaurant– Alipertis’, Spiritos, Big Stash’s, Coach and Four, Cock n’ Bull at Peddler’s Village, P.A. and the Smithville Inn. JFK Airport had a good buffet style one that Mom, Mike, Pat and I went to before my trip to Germany in 1989.

-Diners – The Rustic Mill, Parsonage Road, The Cavalier, Galaxy, Westfield,  Mastoris, Sleepy Hollow Inn, Woodbridge, Reo, Mark Twain, St. George, Betty Lind, GM, Scotchwood, and Macedonia (now Wisdom).

-Mastoris –They have delicious sweet cheese and cinnamon breads. The pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream are yummy. We used to go there sometimes when visiting Aunt Ann and Uncle Joe.

-Mom and I would sometimes split our meals at diners. We liked getting liver and onions. Mom enjoyed the chopped liver at their salad bars too.

-Special birthdays -13^th and 16^th – Our parents took us out to the diner or restaurant of our choice. I picked a seafood place down the shore but I forget the name of it or even where it was for my 13^th. I was wearing a white hand-me-down dress from Fran.

  We went to the Fulton Restaurant in Rahway for my sweet 16. Mike chose the Sleepy Hollow Inn for his 13^th but I don’t even remember where we went for his 16^th- maybe nowhere.

-Alligator Bread – Mom went to The Three Little Bakers Dinner Theater in Delaware with her friends/co-workers in the mid-1980s and brought back a bread shaped like and alligator. I took a picture of it before we ate this. It was so cool.

-Pizza – This was a Friday or Saturday night treat for us (and sometimes our friend Kelly) in the late 70s – mid 80s. We’d get it from Venice in Linden. Other places we liked over the years were Tony’s, Two Tony’s and Rosario’s, which is near our Aunt Ann’s house.

-The Butcher Block –We used to go there a lot in the 1980s for our lunchmeats, some meats, rolls, rye bread, bagels, potato salad, and coleslaw. We’d also sometimes get sub sandwiches and party platters.

1974- Roy Rogers

 

1978- Betty Lind

My 13th Birthday

Mike's 13th Birthday

Sleepy Hollow Inn

 

 

My 16th Birthday- 1985-Fulton Restaurant

Mastoris

Mastoris' Cinnamon Bread

Mastoris' Cheese Bread

 

Peddler's Village- Cock 'n Bull

 

Spiritos-Elizabeth

 

 

 

2013

 

Reo- Woodbridge

 

Scotchwood

 

Parsonage Diner

 

 

Rustic Mill-Cranford

Coach and Four- 1980s

 

alligator bread-Three Little Bakers

Three Little Bakers-Delaware

 

 

1977

White Castle-Rahway- 1973

 

 

Rosario's Pizza- Bordentown

 

Venice Pizza

 

The Butcher Block

 

 

Note-some photos are from the internet- pizza places,The Butcher Block; fast food except for Roy Rogers; Diners and Restaurants except for our 4 family photos, Sleepy Hollow postcard, Three Little Bakers, and Coach and Four

                                     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                  

 

 

 

June 10, 2016- Dancing

 

 

I’m embarrassed to be dancing around at concerts, maybe partly because mom used to tell people that when I was a little girl I used to dance around to the” I Dream of Jeannie” theme and that song from the Gypsy soundtrack- “You Gotta Have a Gimmick” sometimes. I was always so humiliated when she did that in the 70s- mid 80s.

   It’s just so hard for me let go of past moments like that. I did dance around a lot at the DD Foxwoods concert which I totally regret. Amy has asked me if I was feeling ashamed at the time or not until afterwards; a little during and much more later on.

   In 1979 or 1980, Cindy, Jessica and I were disco dancing in the basement at our house. Mike was mainly waving a flashlight around to make it seem like we were at a club. “Hot Stuff” by Donna Summer was one of the songs that I remember from that day.

   We had been having a good time until Cindy fell and slightly injured her head when hitting it on an end table.

   Jim H asked me to dance at our 8^th grade “M*A*S*H” - themed dance but I turned him down and felt so ashamed because he had only done this as part of a dare. I saw 2 boys talking to him and laughing and pointing to me before he came over to me. They were laughing afterwards too.

   I’ve never really danced with a guy; doing so with my cousin Kevin at his wedding does not count. That was in 1988 at a country club in Saratoga Springs, NY.

   I can’t remember my 2 proms that well which is probably for the best. I’m wishing that I had never even gone to them. Friends of the family set me up with dates for both. “One More Night” by Phil Collins was the theme for junior year. 

   My date looked a little like the actor Jon Cryer. He only went because a classmate of his was there; he seemed to be talking to her more than me. They were seniors. I might’ve danced with him but only for like 30 seconds.

 My brother called him Duckie but not to his face. That was the name of Jon’s character in Pretty in Pink. I hadn’t even seen that movie until a year after that- I wasn’t really that into those teenie bopper films like my friend Cindy was. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was okay, I guess. 

   I had an even worse time at my senior prom and was so glad when that night was over.” Never Say Goodbye” was the theme. I never did care for that song because it brought back some bad memories.

   I’ve only seen Bon Jovi perform that once at a concert- Giants Stadium 2001. I’m pretty sure that I’m right about this. A friend of a friend did dance with my date but I don’t think that I did. I’d rather not remember.

 

I Dream of Jeannie-opening sequence

 

1983

 Jon Cryer-on right

 

 

 

 

Note- The Jeannie and Donna Summer photos are from the internet