FOOD
Lynsey and I were just now taking some junk to recycling. As we were leaving I noticed that the dumpster holding the nonrecyclables smelt just like buttered waffles! Neat! My brain was just about to send a message back to my nose to breathe in deeply in order to fully enjoy the smell when, fortunately, I was able to intercept the message. My optimistic olfactory senses, you see, are often getting themselves in trouble this way. An accidental whiff gets interpreted in some wildly inaccurate way as to make me salivate, but a follow-up lungful makes me gag.
Truth be told, my nose is quite worthless. I understand there’s a surgery that can fix it, but having it broken a dozen times and living with black eyes and a face cast does not appeal.
I’ve been aware of the problem for years. Ever since my childhood if I could smell anything pleasant (which was never a given), I was lucky to get two sniffs in before the smell disappeared. But dog poo is forever. Seriously. No matter how olfactory incompetent I am, and no matter how much olfactory noise there is, I can always smell the dog poo. Even if it were inside a lead box. Regarding bad, awful, no-good smells, I’m one up on Superman.
I’ve heard tell that as we age, we lose tastebuds, and thus we develop an ability to eat things we hated as kids. I have my doubts about this. I liked liver when I was a kid. But if I have lost tastebuds, I think I likely did it to myself, sucking on the rocksalt for our water softener and bingeing on supersour candy and gum. Ain’t nobody to blame but me.
A different story is grapefruit. I liked grapefruit when I was a kid, too. Mom would cut them in half and separate the sections from the side with a knife, and I would salt, spoon and swallow. I loved it. So once on a road trip as we all piled into a minimart to get ONLY ONE treat and I saw my first ever bottle of grapefruit juice, I knew I had found what I wanted. Once on the road I opened it and took a sip and about died. It was awful. Horribly puckery and bitter. But it was my ONLY ONE treat! I couldn’t just not drink it!
Fortunately, I had some little salt packages I had filled my pockets with at a fastfood joint. I knew that I liked grapefruit at home, and that there, grapefruit had salt on it, so I poured in a few packets and shook it up.
Needless to say, I never did finish it. Reminds me of another time, when in a restaurant at the Ontario (California) Airport. My friend Myke and I, feeling a nauseating case of sticker shock from the restaurant’s menu, ordered one bowl of this awful cold soup apiece. It was the cheapest thing on the stupid menu, and yet still did some serious damage to our budget. And it tasted terrible. So we tried adding salt, pepper, crackers, ketchup, mustard, A1, Heinz 57, crushed red pepper, oil & vinegar—everything on our table went into the soup in an attempt to make it palatable. We failed miserably. It was just naturally bad stuff. We instead filled up on saltine crackers and left the soup for the snooty airport waiter to take back to the kitchen, throw back in the pot, and then serve to another unsuspecting poor person.
Back to grapefruit, now I love it even more than when I was a kid. When I was single, I bought 64oz jugs of grapefruit juice regularly, and I’ve lived on grapefruit for weeks at a time. I eat them like oranges. Mmm, grapefruit . . . right up there with cranberries!1
[ill of a grapefruit and a cranberry, labeled]
Another food I’ve changed my mind about is Oreos. When I was a kid, I only ate Oreos when all the other cookies were gone. And although they’re not an absolute favorite now, I have learned to dig them. Especially in Cookies ‘n’ Cream ice cream. My newfound appreciation for them was fertilized in Nauvoo with a culinary delight called Oreo Cookie Salad. My first run-in with Oreo Cookie Salad at the JSA was, in fact, my first run-in with a salad of any type or sort involving Oreos. I don’t know but that you've been similarly unfortunate.
Oreo Cookie Salad was one of the recipes I intended to bring home with me, but alas, forgot. I emailed Sister Coleman, the self-proclaimed Kitchen Witch, and one of the JSA’s food service missionaries, about five months after my return and asked her about the three recipes I could still remember desperately desiring, Oreo Cookie Salad, Pudding Cookies and Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. Those three foods alone could keep me satisfied and smiling for decades, and while Oreo Salad’s great, it just isn’t as great as the other two. So to end our discussion, and without further ado, here is the recipe for the famous Oreo Cookie Salad,2 as emailed me by Sister Coleman.
Oreo Cookie Salad
2 – 3oz pkg vanilla instant pudding
2 cups buttermilk
1 large tub of Cool Whip
Mix these three ingredients and then add:
4 tins mandarin orange segments
1 tin pineapple tidbits
Mix well and refrigerate for a couple of hours or longer (even overnight if you wish). Before serving add “one package” of fudge stripe cookies or Oreo cookies (cut into quarters more or less). ***We always use Oreos – and I don’t know how big a package you’d want to use. The ones we buy come in a cellophane “sleeve” and I would guess about ten or so cookies would suffice for this quantity.
There. That done with, we must now talk about the so-called “Pudding Cookies.” It’s an unfortunate name. A much more appropriate title would be The World’s Absolute Best Chocolate Chip Cookies.
The first time I had one, I was leery. (Are those walnuts or white chips in there? It had better not be walnuts.3 But if it is white chips, what are white chips doing in there?) But on the first bite, I lost my doubts in ecstasy. So soft! So delicious! I ate roughly one dozen that meal. And I thenceforth kept a close eye out for them.
When we would pack up lunches before a field trip, I would watch the cookie table, and when everyone had had their share, I would swoop back in to stuff my cardboard lunch box with more. And more and more and more if possible. Mmm, those cookies!
Those cookies . . . .
In the interests of world peace and the brotherhood of man, and with the strongest of recommendations, here is the recipe:
The World’s Absolute Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cream together:
2 cups softened margarine
½ cup white sugar
1 ½ cups firmly packed brown sugar
2 (3 oz) packages vanilla instant pudding
2 tsp vanilla
When creamy and smooth, add:
4 eggs – and mix well
In a separate bowl, mix:
4 ½ cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture
Stir in 2 cups of chocolate chips (or 1 cup dark and 1 cup white chocolate chips—or part butterscotch or peanut butter chips if you wish.)4
Drop by spoonfuls on a baking sheet and bake for 8 – 10 minutes at 375 degree F
[ill-marginalia]
The third recipe I’m graciously sharing with you is for the nummy Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. I understand Chief Chef Davis made them on a request from fellow student Kate, and when they proved a huge hit, he officially added them to his repertoire.
I have always loved citrusy things. Oranges? Yum. Lemons? Let’s suck. Gyuls? This must be why the Lord sent me to Korea. So that I would enjoy a Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin came as no surprise. Just how delicious the muffin turned out to be was another thing altogether. I was surprised. I was astounded! I was humbled and gratified. I became a gluttonous pig and made myself sick. When there were Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins for breakfast, that’s all I would eat. When there were Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins for lunch, they served as a premeal appetizer, a midmeal snack, and as a postmeal palate cleanser. When there were Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins for dinner, it was every other bite. Love those Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins!
So imagine my surprise, when the great, secretive, long lusted for and coveted after recipe came from the Kitchen Witch in these words:
Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins:
Go to the grocery store and buy a package of muffin mix. Prepare it according to the directions on the package and add “some” lemon extract and “some” poppy seeds and bake as indicated on the package. Elder Davis said the amount is up to you. “To taste” is how he described it. Good luck!
[ill signifying end of LPSM tolrohn]
You might suppose by my ramblings that the Brother Davis-led kitchen brigade was a team with a few good tricks, but that is all. Not so. Not so, not so, not so! All food at the JSA was overwhelmingly good. I’m envious of all those Ricks College students who ate the proceeds of his kitchen for so long. I’m awful glad he was called on a mission to serve us after he retired! And I’m awful glad he brought along his wife and Sister Nelson too. (I understand many of the best recipes were Sister Nelson’s.)
Just as Brother Dahl liked to say about all the service missionaries in Nauvoo, our four kitchen missionaries were doing what they could no longer be paid to do; in this case, cook for a bunch of punk kids. On the errand of the Lord, many people will do what they otherwise might not. Take the ever-popular example of Nephi and his adventures in decapitation.
The kitchen staff did a fantastic job. I was unsettled by how many people (including such luminaries as my mother and my fiancée) told me I looked “healthy for a change” upon my return. Why, you look like you’ve been eating! they would say. Everyone agreed I looked better than I had in years. I’m still not sure that I shouldn’t be insulted.
[ill-marginalia]
I had a goal while I was at the JSA to never spend a single penny on food. Naddasent. After all, some hundreds of my dollars had already been delivered to the JSA cafeteria, and if I didn’t fill up on the food there, then it was my own darn fault. There certainly was enough of it in our thrice-daily smorgasbord. This goal proved to be a very healthful plan for me—the JSA cafeteria never served SweeTARTS, Airheads or Sprees, for instance, so my candy consumption decreased considerably. But then, they did serve those incredible cookies. I could have lived on those. If, that is, the diet was further supplemented by Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. Because, although all I may be able to smell is dog poo, I seem to be able to taste just fine. Try the recipes, and then tell me if you don’t agree.
[ill]
Everyday we find ourselves eating so much food
We know that we can blame our waist size on the Davis brood
But also Sister Nelson and Sister Coleman too
But with food this good I’ll have some more and so I think should you
return to the table of contents
Thanks for revisiting Nauvoo with me. I would love to hear your thoughts.