http://youtu.be/GOEcgQZu06Q - Good Friends & A Glass Of Wine - Leann Rimes & Joss Stone
Terri and Me in 1987
Background to this story:
My first, vivid recollection of a song from my childhood was How Can You Mend a Broken Heart by the Bee Gees. The reason I remember it so vividly is because it was what was playing on the radio, the afternoon I trudged, spirit deflated, down the hallway to my bedroom. I needed a moment, you see, because my mother had just told me that my best friend, Terri, was moving away to a place called Pensacola.
"But," she attempted, valiantly, to offer some consolation coupled with a cheerful tone in her voice. "She’ll still be living in Florida, and they’ll come visit us, and we’ll go visit them." [As if that made the telling of this horrible news somehow better.]
In that moment, I didn’t care about, what felt to me, a VERY sub-standard offering! Big deal, I thought regarding the visiting "pitch". As things currently stood, I got to see Terri everyday. Why would I want to change that? It didn’t sound like a good proposition to me, and it hadn’t made me feel better either! All I knew was that my best friend in the whole, wide world was leaving our neighborhood and going to a place called Pensacola. It might as well have been to the moon as far as I was concerned, because it sounded just as far away.
I think the pillow on my bed took the brunt-force of my displeasure over this news, before I punched it one last time, then threw my face into it and wailed, in true Sarah Bernhardt fashion. There are few things that feel like the end of the world to a child, but telling them that their best friend is moving away takes the first or second slot, as far as I was concerned.
True to my mother’s word, however, we did visit back and forth. You are now up to date with the facts, and I can share the true story at hand regarding this entry.
Wait! I MUST digress again: I began having problems with my weight as I entered the fourth grade and truly became what can only be classified as "chubby" going into fifth. [I won’t bore you with all the gory details of what was going on that was part of the culprit of my poundage issues...let’s just leave it as a story for another day!] Anyway, I couldn’t wait for school to get out the year that ended the fifth grade, because I was going to spend a month in Pensacola with the Lombardos. A whole month! It felt like heaven! The vacation would culminate with my parents stopping over to pick me up after they’d finished up my father’s work-related convention that was being held in New Orleans.
My mother double-checked with me, to make certain I was alright being away from them for a month. "You sure you don’t want to go with us to Louisianna, then drop by to see the Lombardos on the way home?" she broached.
I felt like Jack Benny, crossing my arm across my chest, standing the other one on top of it and holding my cheek in the palm of my hand. "Why on earth." I asked. "would I want to go to New Orleans, when I could go to Pensacola for a month to see my best friend in the whole, wide world?!" I didn’t know the word "ludicrous" nor its definition, but had I, it would have been tagged onto the end of my thought.
That settled it, and I wasn’t asked again. The plans were made, the suitcases packed and off to Pensacola I went for a glorious, month-long adventure that was "Mm Mm Good" on so many levels.
I had the best time that summer! The Lombardos belonged to a neighborhood pool, and we went everyday - Monday through Friday. We swam and played for four or five hours at a time. I didn’t realize the weight I’d begun to drop, but pounds slowly began to disappear. When we weren’t playing at the pool, we were out riding bikes. Terri even had a tree-house that we’d climb up into and hang out in – just her and me. When we weren’t doing that, we lounged around in her bedroom, both reading Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. We had a contest to see who could read the most by summer’s end. I don’t remember who won. More than likely, it was a draw, because both Terri and I were voracious readers. [I still am but can’t speak now for Terri] We kept a log of our reading achievements in a spiral bound notebook. My name was on one side of the paper and Terri’s was on the other, with a line drawn down the middle. I wrote the books down that she’d finished reading in her column, and she’d do the same for me. It was one of the rules. We also traded-off. I’d read a book that she had in her library and vice versa, though, I only had a limited number that I’d brought over in my suitcase. When we’d finished reading what we had, Mrs. Lombardo would drive us over to the store, and we’d buy more. Outside of Icees and candy, books were my mainstay and what I spent most of my allowance money on, when I wasn’t saving for special gifts...;-)
I think we read two books a week! I remember them all too. [For a list of favorite Nancy Drew stories, please refer to the end of this post.] However, the main activity that summer was the fun at the pool. We swam and played–played and swam, until fatigue overtook us, and Mrs. Lombardo made us sit down on a lounge chair and relax for a bit; eat a sandwich; refuel so that we could swim some more. This was back in the day when people put Iodine in baby oil and peroxide in hair, and we baked in the sun all day because it felt good, and we didn’t yet realize there would be a little matter of the Ozone layer and harmful rays to worry about and contend with years later. Who would ever think that something so natural as playing in a pool and sitting outside for hours at a time could be potentially harmful? But, that’s a story for another day...
Back then, the days were golden and lazy. It was hot fun in the summertime, just like the song said. Now, all this swimming and playing, and even reading, can work up quite an appetite! I’ll never forget the night that Mrs. Lombardo made a delicious casserole for supper that is one of my mainstays regarding comfort food: tuna casserole. It was so simple but so good. I couldn’t believe my mother had never made it for us! I thought Mrs. Lombardo was a genius for creating it, which is what I’d thought back then.
She boiled the noodles then drained them off and added a can of tuna fish. Next, she stirred in a can of Cream of Mushroom soup, and some other stuff, then covered the top with crumbled potato chips. Some people, I later learned, were fancy pants and added June peas into the mix, but I was relieved Mrs. Lombardo didn’t do that, because I didn’t like peas back then. I remember devouring the first plate. She, happily, gave me seconds. I think it made her feel good that I loved it so much, because of the scrunched up, distasteful face that Terri had made when she found out that we were having tuna casserole for supper that night. Now, I’m a southern girl, and my parents instilled certain manners with regard to being "lady-like". It was alright to request a small helping of seconds, but it was more linebacker-ish instead of ladylike to ask for third or even fourth helpings of anything. I couldn’t help myself! I remember Mrs. Lombardo laughing and scooping another spoonful of that delicious concoction she’d made onto my plate. It would have just been easier if she’d given me the entire casserole bowl and let me finish it off, because that’s basically what I did. But, given my upbringing, I didn’t think it was proper to ask for the entire bowl.
Before I went to bed that night, I made doubly certain that Mrs. Lombardo wouldn’t forget to give my mother that recipe.
"I promise," she said as she tucked me in. "You can help me write the recipe down tomorrow if you’d like," she offered.
I nodded, feeling my insides relax a little, because it truly seemed that she would not forget.
I believe I saw Terri roll her eyes at me a couple of times that evening because it probably seemed like I was brown-nosing. However, I really wasn’t! The truth of the matter is that when you taste something that you really enjoy, it’s not unusual to want to have the recipe. It’s not unusual at all. It wasn’t my fault that Terri didn’t appreciate, in my opinion, one of the finer dining experiences of life back then!
Over the years, I’ve made that casserole more times than I can count, and I always think about the first time I ever had it. I also don’t like people messing with it, unless it’s to add a little sauteed onion, or, now that I like them, peas. Other than that, I’m a tuna casserole purist.
So, imagine my surprise, a few years ago, when I watched one of the food shows, where the contestants on the particular episode had a challenge to "re-invent" an old comfort-food classic. You got it! Someone drew tuna casserole. I watched, in horror, – I believe my face scrunched up much the way Terri’s did, when she found out we were having it that night for supper, so long ago. Only in my case, it was the finagling that was done to the recipe that furrowed my brow in displeasure. Fancy named noodles were boiled in a Morrell-infused liquid, then a Beurre Blanc sauce with freshly chopped mushrooms was drizzled over a half-cooked steak of tuna that was placed on top of a bed of said fancy-named noodles, then topped with a dice of crispy, fingerling potatoes. It was sacrilege!
"Ugh!" I replied, turning away from it in disgust. It neither looked nor sounded good to me. It certainly wasn’t the warm, fuzzy, delicious recipe I had grown up loving!
Tom laughed at my reaction. He’d never liked tuna anyway so he didn’t really get it. "What’s wrong with it?" he asked.
"That’s NOT how you make it!" I replied in an indignant tone. "Some things just shouldn’t be tampered with!"
To my husband’s credit, he knows when not to disagree, [the "pick your battles" philosophy of marriage applied here] so, he simply shrugged and said, "If you say so."
"Yes!" I replied, fervently. "I say so!" then, for good measure, I added. "I don’t understand why some people just can’t leave well enough alone?!"
He humored me but not in condescending way. "I don’t know why either, Sweetie!"
So, let me just conclude with this advisory comment: If you feel the need to "fancy up" the tuna casserole classic, just toss in those June peas that I previously mentioned – add a loaf of crusty French bread and a fresh garden salad. Simple elegance is just as good as fancy schmanzy, in my opinion – better in most cases. Comfort food is at its most impressive when it does what it sets out to do: comfort. All I know is that if someone put both dishes in front of me, I’d go for the tried and true version every time, because some things just shouldn’t be messed with. The original way of making Tuna Casserole is still, and always will be, "Mm Mm Good"...
Written by Jhill Perran
July 15, 2011
http://youtu.be/YPuIoVOEx1I [How Can You Mend a Broken Heart/The Bee Gees]
Jhill’s Top 10 Nancy Drew MUST reads [In no particular order]:
The Mystery of the 99 Steps; The Bungalow Mystery; The Hidden Staircase; The Secret in the Old Attic; The Mystery at Lilac Inn; The Password to Larkspur Lane; The Secret of the Old Clock; The Phantom of Pine Hill; The Clue in the Old Stagecoach; The Clue of the Velvet Mask
and, for good measure:
Classic Tuna Noodle Casserole
Ingredients:
2 cans (10 oz) of StarKist Albacore Solid White Tuna [packed in water/drained]
½ cup milk
¾ cup Lays potato chips, crushed
4 oz. (2 ½ cups) egg noodles
1 can (10.75 oz.) Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup
¼ tsp. garlic powder
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 cup of Baby June Peas (Optional)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Cook noodles according to package instructions, drain in colander.
In a separate bowl, mix together soup, milk, salt/pepper and garlic powder. Stir in noodles, and tuna (if you use June Peas, add them now)
Transfer into a 1-½ quart casserole. Bake 15 minutes; top with potato chips. Continue baking 5 – 10 minutes or until heated through and chips are golden brown.
Bon Appetit & Enjoy!
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