Oranges at the Whistle

Growing up soccer was a huge part of my life. I began playing at the age of three and instantly fell in love with the sport. I had played for eleven years before I made the mistake of quitting my sophomore year of high school. Although I am now a fan not a player, I still hold the memories of my "glory days" close to my heart. Nothing seems to spark those memories like biting into a quartered orange slice.

My favorite part about youth soccer was halftime. Not only did you get a break from chasing a ball up and down the field, but whenever that whistle was blown... SNACK TIME! At the beginning of every season the parents were given a date in which they were responsible in providing the team with snacks at the half. Some parents were lame and brought stuff like rice cakes and grapes, but my mom knew better. Raising three kids on her, own who all happened to play soccer, she quickly learned that orange slices were the way to go. Not only were they healthy, juicy, sweet, tart, citrusy, and delicious, but after you eat the edible part of a slice you can put the peel in your mouth as a pretend mouth guard. I can't even begin to count the number of times I ran back onto the field with my face sticky, my jersey covered in juice, my stomach painfully full, and my teeth protected by an orange slice.

Years later I find myself on a path I would have never expected. Not only do I no longer play soccer, but now I actually dispose of my orange peels properly. Although so much has changed, I can no longer simply eat an orange slice without going back down memory lane.

Oranges at the

Mama Pat's Christmas Cookies

Every year, one month out of the year ever since I can remember, my dad will take over the kitchen to make his mother’s special sugar cookie recipe for Christmas. As soon as December first, my birthday, rolls around, out comes the wax paper, roller, dough, and sugar. Our entire house smells like nutmeg and sugar, a smell that will instantly get me excited for the coming of Christmas. No amount of Christmas music or ornaments can make me feel the joy of Christmas like my grandmother’s Christmas cookie recipe.

The two special things about these cookies are the history and the preparation. My grandmother would make these cookies with my dad and his siblings when they were were little. Every year they would each have their own job in what looked like an assembly line of Christmas cookies. I was only five years old when Mama Pat passed away, so it is especially important to my dad and the rest of the family that we keep the tradition going in her memory.

What makes the cookies so special to me is the way that they are made. The three of us each have our own job. My dad’s is to make the dough from scratch and roll it out, my job is to spread the sugar evenly over the cookie, and my mom’s job is to make sure the cookies get in and out of the oven on time. The cookies remind me of how lucky I am to have such an amazing family.

The fact that these cookies are covered in sugar definitely makes it a comfort food. Whenever I’m in the kitchen over the next couple months I grab one of the hundreds of cookies that we make. All of our close friends and family look forward to the tin of cookies we bake for them. These cookies also give me a way to remember my grandmother. Even though I was very young I can still remember her face and most of the things we did together. Whenever we make her cookies I know she will never be forgotten.

My Father's "Back to School" Steak

The smell of leaves burning, the last mowing of the yard until the spring, and the magical smell of steaks on the grill; those three smells culminate into the wonderful but bittersweet scent of the end of summer. It’s the scents that tell me that the carefree times of sleeping until 1 in the afternoon and staying out until the most ungodly hours of the morning with friends doing everything and absolutely nothing all at once are, sadly, over. The start of school was barreling toward me and every other student and there was nothing we could do about it. There was a small comfort that accompanied this unfortunate and annual event: steak. Not just any steak either, but a thick cut, heavily marbled, magically marinated, sinfully juicy, New York strip steak cooked to a perfect medium rare.

It was my dad’s gift to my sister and I. Not to say we were ever deprived, but steak like this certainly wasn’t a regular occurrence. It was our father’s way of comforting us as we entered into another year of intellectual development, or at least a year of sitting in class and spitting back all that we were “taught.” He wasn’t the man with the silver tongue who knew what to say when to say it all the time, but what he couldn’t say in words, he said in that steak. That steak said, “No matter what happens at school, or with your friends, or with anything else this year, your mother and I are both here for you to listen to your problems and to help you through them.” And that, to me, was the best thing my father could do for me, because when I did have problems, and believe me, I did have problems, he was always there to listen and provide his insight from when he was in my same position all those many years ago.

How Original: The Oreo

Staying up late with my friends for my first late night sleep over (a very long time ago), we would hear a weird noise in the kitchen around 3 am. We all huddled together, and waited to see if we could hear anymore. It was a clanking noise, and we could hear footsteps too. I was the brave one of the group, and it was my house, so I decided I’d go check it out. I snuck downstairs, peering around every corner, and when I reached the spot that was producing the sounds, I saw a big shadow. I gathered up some courage, and got close enough to see what it was…
Turns out it was just my father getting three Oreos and a small glass of milk, so I decided to join him, and do the same while my friends were left thinking I got kidnapped or something.  That was just the start. From then on, every weekend night, my dad would wake me up at three am to have a little snack, and we’d just talk and hang out. Turns out, he’d been doing this years before I found out; I was just never up at that time. We’d try different combinations like with marshmallows heated up, peanut butter, and other crazy ideas.
Now, every single time I eat an Oreo, I miss my dad, which is weird because he’s usually been right down the hall, and I’ve never missed anybody when I left before. Sometimes, I set my alarm for 3am and have a couple that are secretly stashed in my room. (Lauren sleeps through everything ) So, I guess it’s a bittersweet feeling that it gives me because I remember all the fun conversations we used to have, but at the same time I miss them a lot. I’ve showed my friends a couple of the crazy combinations we’ve had, and the stories of misfortunes, and they always get a laugh out of it.
Just the word Oreo brings up the feeling of happiness and love from the times we spent in the wee hours of the morning. The cookies brought me and my dad so much closer, which I never thought could happen. Whenever I start to miss home (which hasn’t happened yet) I’ll probably start the freshmen 15 (or 50) because I’m going to be eating Oreos nonstop: not gonna be good for soccer season. Who would have thought that a food that people buy from the grocery store every day could bring a daughter and father together so easily? Definitely not me, but it happened, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. I can’t wait for the summer so the tradition can continue. I hope that even when I visit them when I’m married with kids that he’ll still want to do it. I love it, and I know he does too. Writing this has even made me in a great mood because of the funny memories.
Oreos: America’s cookie, Dad’s tool of getting to know his daughter.

A Purple Frozen Summer

Another summer day had passed, and as the sun began to set, the children were all wrangled in from the trees lining the creek, and we made our way back to the garage, where we would line up for a Fla-vor-ice Freeze Pop.

The senses I associate most with these treats are not borne from their variety of flavors, but are more in relation to the type of day that ended with a cool stick of purple ice in hand. The feel of the sharp morning air cutting through my hair as the neighborhood gang raced through the park; the bitter scent of the broken grass and crushed dandelions as we marched our way through the woods behind the elementary school; the crack of an overturned rock in the creek bed, unearthing a world where two legs seemed several dozen too few.

When we returned home, the trees would be silhouetted against the sky, now orange and red and purple like the treats we were going to receive. The cool, fresh breeze of the refrigerator opening graced the garage, and as I was handed the plastic tube of ice, the frost on the outside would melt into my fingers, and send a relaxing chill up my arm. The ice came packaged in a clear tube, whose edges were sharp and dug into the corners of your mouth, but such a small nuisance would not keep us from the chilled leftover slush at the bottom of the wrapper once all the rest of the ice had been eaten, which always clung to the bottom of the tube. After finishing off several ice pops, the sun would have set, and with sweet, sticky, tie-dyed hands, we would find our parents wander back home.

Luc's Cookies

Each Christmas Eve, for as long as I can recall, my brother, Davis, and I would leave cookies for Santa Claus. We would place them by our hearth along with carrots for the reindeer. And yes, of course, I do realize there is no such thing as Santa Claus. Letting go of childhood fantasies is part of growing up, so my parents made sure to tell me this past summer before I left home for college. But I digress (and kid, though I did have the advantage of pretending to still believe in Santa for many years since Davis is almost six years my junior). The cookies we would leave for Santa were not just any old cookie. Certainly one could not leave Chips Ahoy, or Oreos or even “gourmet” cookies for Santa. They had to come from the heart and from the home.

My Grandmother named different types of Christmas sweets she prepared after family members. These particular cookies were named for me: Luc's cookies. They were sugar cookies, but to call them that is a bit like calling a well-prepared risotto “rice.” These sugar cookies are not for health freaks or dieters; no Splenda or honey, no whole wheat flour, no egg substitute and certainly no skimping on real, quality, unsalted butter. Horrible, dangerous things – or so the dieticians seem to want to tell us – comprise that’s only part of what makes them so delicious. The sweet, buttery aroma of these freshly baked cookies, followed by the sight of them emerging from the oven, perfectly golden discs like the sun on a bright, snow covered December's day, made me want to attack them like Joey Chestnut eating hot dogs on the Fourth of July. (Though washing the cookies down with milk, rather than water, is the preferred plan of attack). I would try to restrain myself because Luc's cookies demanded to be savored, not devoured. Sometimes I even succeeded.

Culinary experts say we eat with all our senses, but Proust would tell us we eat with our memories. And though my mother now makes Luc's cookies, the memory of my late grandmother baking my cookies makes these sugar cookies all the more special to me. And another tradition continues as well. The anticipation of Santa Claus coming every Christmas Eve, and knowing he would love those special cookies, has not stopped in the years since we learned that Santa didn't live on the North Pole but in our house. The cookies were and are gratefully consumed (which may or may not be related to the fact that my father likes to get up in the middle of the night and eat a cookie). “Santa” would invariably write a letter to us, thanking us for the delicious cookies and encouraging us to continue to be kind and loving brothers. Having the satisfaction of knowing that I pleased Santa Claus, earlier the mythical and later the one that lived with us, did, and does, bring a smile to my families faces.