This weekend I helped my friend Suzanne move into her new house. My area of expertise is unpacking boxes in the kitchen. I like to get in there and organize the hell out of it--where silverware? where plates? where glasses? And will this kitchen work for the poor frazzled person directing moving men with furniture?
In this case, the kitchen is circa 1928, the year the house was built, and there are few built-in cupboards, though there is an old Wedgewood stove with mysterious, greasy-dark storage compartments. I didn't venture much into those. There was way more stuff than could be fit in the kitchen, and I made a lot of executive decisions about what would go to temporary shelves in a small breakfast room. Suzanne was totally hands-off in all this. My sister, a designer, was pacing around measuring the kitchen for an eventual remodel and didn't interfere, either. Bliss.
The first boxes I unpacked were so organized it was scary: all the grains together, all the baking stuff, all the dried legumes in a handsome basket. But the last-packed boxes were a random collection of things: dishtowels, coffee table books, a sponge, a corkscrew. At the bottom of one box I found a treasure: a slim booklet called, "Creative Cooking with Velveeta." All action stopped while Suzanne, my sister, and I marveled at this.
"Creative cooking?" my sister said in wonderment. Velveeta, described in the booklet as "Pasteurized Processed Cheese Spread," was a staple in our house when we were growing up. My mother loved it. We always had a box in the fridge. I probably ate my last slice in 1968.
Suzanne had no idea where this booklet had come from. I flipped through it. Every single recipe was creamy-gooey, with names like "Crab Grandee," "Creamy Clam Dip," and, of course, "Buenos Nachos." It was the memento of the day.
After that, I ran around the house placing clocks and Kleenex boxes and figuring out reading lights and switching out rugs. I wanted it to feel homey ASAP, and to some degree it worked. Suzanne seemed very pleased. The bed was made, her cosmetics were on the bathroom shelves, a small desk was set up. Her cats, though, cowered in a downstairs closet, unpersuaded, poor things.
1 comment:
you are a kitchen organizing and general moving savant -- a great combination of imposing order and creating comfort.
and, reading your list of the velveeta recipes reminded me of mom's legendary chile con queso (kind of), made velveeta-style.... it was her go-to appetizer for much of our childhood.
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