33 years ago I had a meal that I can’t stop thinking about to this day.
Art by Pete Whitehead
Listen Free: | Apple Podcasts | Pandora | Stitcher | Spotify |
Story performed by: Aaron Calafato
Audio Production: Ken Wendt
Original Art: Pete Whitehead
Podcast Coordinator: Cori Birce
Creative Consultant: Anthony Vorndran
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:03.090] - Cori Intro
You're listening to 7 Minute Stories with Aaron Calafato. Please keep on subscribing and leaving those five star ratings and reviews. It helps others find our podcast and that helps us out! Also, we want to hear from you. We set up a number you can call or text. It's 216-352-4010. Use it and share some feedback about one of Aaron's stories or a story of your own. We might feature your message on an upcoming episode. This episode: Breakfast for Dinner.
[00:00:42.910] - Aaron Story
It was 1988, I was four years old, and my dad must have been on vacation or had the day off because this was a very unusual day. Because my dad and my mom and myself were all together in the house during a weekday, for the whole day. It was an awesome time. It was like really special. And I remember it was around Christmas time or, you know, winter because I was looking outside. I could see the snow out on the lawn and in the trees. Beautiful looking out there and seeing that. And we had just finished lunch. My mom is in the kitchen doing her thing, and my dad and I are in the TV room. He's watching a program. I'm sitting next to him. And I could see my dad was deep in thought. He's working through something. And then he turns to me and he says, "What should we do for dinner?" And I started thinking about all the different possibilities for dinner. It's like one of those beautiful, relaxing days where all you think about is the next meal. So I'm thinking about all the dinner options. My mom's still working in the kitchen. I'm not sure if she heard him, but I look back at my dad and I see his eyes light up. It was like this eureka moment. And he looks at me with such conviction and he says, "you know what we're going to do?" I said, "What, Dad?" He said, "we're going to have breakfast for dinner."
[00:02:01.200]
Now, there are moments in a child's life, like when you're a kid, where reality as you know it can change. Where new concepts are introduced, or you have this moment of enlightenment, that literally changes the world and how you see it. I am not kidding you. This was one of those moments for me because it just never occurred to me that you could have breakfast any other time than breakfast., As a four year old brain, it just never occurred to me. He blew my mind when he told me this, and he must have seen the shock on my face because he almost had to reassure me that this was OK. And he said, "listen, buddy, the cool thing about being an adult is that you can have food whenever you want to and whatever food you want at any time of the day, day or night. Isn't that cool?" And when he put it that way, I felt like, man, first of all, my dad's a rock star. He's breaking norms. He's pushing boundaries. I felt very edgy. I felt very cool, like we were like throwing aside this basic norm that everyone's been oppressing us with. And we're saying, "hell no, we're going to have breakfast whenever we want to. And in fact, we're having it for dinner." It was was like an adventure.
[00:03:17.610]
And so I took that enthusiasm with me and I waited for like two or three hours before dinner time. The sun goes down and it starts happening. My mom and my dad are in the kitchen. Again, I'm four. I'm probably more of a hindrance than a help, but I'm in the kitchen doing what I can. Most importantly, I remember this. I'm just observing. It was like magic. And first my dad starts with the eggs. So let's start there. A lot of people like eggs, a lot of different ways. Some people like them. Sunny side up, some people like him over easy. Some people like him over medium. Some people like a poached egg. My dad was an egg purist. He loved a fried egg. But with the yolk broken, so you don't have this big chunk of cooked yolk with your egg. He would put the egg, crack it, put it in the pan, slow and low, medium heat. He had melted the butter already. So it's nice and hot. Cracks the egg puts it in there, breaks the yolk, so it evens out with the rest of the egg white. He's patient. He waits until it's the perfect texture, flips, a little salt, a little pepper, it will change your life. So he's doing that, simultaneously with the fried eggs he's frying the bacon. Is there anything better than frying bacon? The transformation that happens from this really weird, like raw floppy meat to this incredible crispy, golden, brown, reddish hue that happens. And by the way, we never burnt our bacon, but we loved crisp bacon. Meaning, and he would tell me this,. And he told me when he was cooking, he said, listen, "when you put a crisp piece of bacon in your mouth, you should hear the crunch. You should hear the crunch. And if you press it too hard between your fingertips, it should crack."
[00:04:46.710]
So we got crisp bacon frying. We got fried eggs. My mom is in the corner working on the rye bread toast, rye bread with caraway seeds. But she's toasting it golden brown. We had just gotten a microwave, so she's melting butter in the microwave. And then each time the toast pops up, she's taking a brush and she's brushing the entire surface area of that golden brown toast and then stacking them up, putting it on a hot plate and keeping them in the oven and warm because you can't have cold toast.
[00:05:13.410]
Here's The X Factor. My dad loved Cream of Wheat. I know a lot of people in the South love grits. He loved Cream of Wheat. So do I. So, I'm helping as a four year old, right? it was the only thing I could do. He gave me a little stepstool. While they're doing all this cooking, he has me stirring the cream of wheat. And he said, "you got to make sure and stir it so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan." Add a little butter, little sugar, and a little milk and I'm stirring it and what I'm seeing in front of me, it was just amazing.
[00:05:41.510]
And there you have it, we're ready to eat. And so we take all the ingredients from the kitchen and we take it to the dining room. And my mom brews decaf coffee, that unmistakable smell of coffee. And I have a tall glass of ice cold milk and this breakfast that we've created and it tastes so good. And there we are, my dad, my mom and me having breakfast for dinner. This memory has been so important to me. And I always wondered why and I thought about it for a long time and I realize why it is now. It is the last memory that I have of my mom and dad together happy. Because every memory after that was after they got divorced and all the memories changed and my family changed. And I think, you know, memories like this. Like this one I talked about, can serve as the essence of family, even when families change. And so I just held on to that, and I've kept it to kind of keep me grounded in that feeling, you know? And maybe that's why as I've gotten older, when I was in high school or college, I went to get a late night breakfast at Waffle House, you know, 2:00 a.m. in college. Why there was that extra layer of meaning. And maybe why even now with Cori, when we used to be able to go places before the pandemic and we'd come back from a party and we're still hungry, that we wouldn't hesitate to stop at a Denny's. Go in there and get some flapjacks or some fried eggs, you know? That it had an extra layer of meaning to it.
[00:07:15.220]
But here's the crazy thing. Here's the twist. With my family, my daughter and my two bonus kids, the two boys and Cori, all five of us, within the last four years, I don't think we've ever had breakfast for dinner. And what a shame that is. And so this is a call to action, we're going to be doing it, we're going to be having breakfast for dinner very soon and I'm just very anxious to see. If breakfast for dinner means as much to them as it has to me.
