The Miranda Rights of Second Helpings, and other Food Rules I Have Known

I served a hot meal in a theater lobby to 30 hungry teenaged actors last night, an activity that involved planning a menu to include vegetarian, gluten-free and dairy-free options. Since I was paying for this repast from my own threadbare pocket, all provisions were secured at my new favorite sub-bargain haunt, Aldi. I’m proud that I’ve overcome my anxiety over the hostage-release situation they’ve got going on with the shopping carts (hint: never leave home without a quarter) and have embraced the joys of browsing endless stacks of about-to-expire jars of sauerkraut, shipped directly from the headquarters in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

After all the planning, cooking and endless schlepping, I had, last night, finally arrived at the moment when everyone was tucking in and filling their pie holes, so I began to mingle. “Mom, they’re confused,” my daughter told when I walked by. “They don’t know if they’re allowed to go back for seconds.” I was struck dumb. Did these adolescents not understand the very nature of a Julie Kendrick Meal Production, in which seconds are strongly encouraged, as are fourths and twelfths, not to mention doggie bags to take along for a little nibble on the drive home?

I turned to one of my daughter’s friends, a girl who has eaten many a temporary-price-reduction toss-of-the-dice meal at my home. “Tess,” I enjoined, “You know that I never serve anything without first declaring there’s plenty more where that came from. It’s like the Miranda Rights of eating at my house.” Tess, who is no mere “yes” woman, not even to a crazypants like Mary Katherine’s mom, pondered this assertion. “That’s true,” she said, head tilted to one side. “Unless you tell me it’s the last Clementine and I have to eat it right now so you can put the bowl in the dishwasher.”

She had me there, did little Tess. My highest hostess accolades go the guest who Finishes it Up, thus saving me the battle to find a matching Tupperware lid and elbow out some real estate in the refrigerator.

As I dragged all the dirty dishes up the back porch later that night, I thought more about our discussion of Food Rules. Everyone has them, especially the truly batshit people who claim they don’t have any. I am a 20-year child care volunteer at the Crisis Nursery, and if you want to see some truly rigid Food Rules, ones that make a rabbi at Passover look like a Unitarian ordering a bacon cheeseburger,  then spend some time eating meals with preschoolers. No touching. No mixing. Nothing funny looking. Ever. Preferred color of food? Tan. Preferred method of serving: Plain. And more plain. And even plainer than that.

We have such lovely volunteers at the nursery, and many of them gather with co-workers, church groups or friends to serve meals to the kids. They work so hard to make things special, but they often forget that for the six-and-under set, “special” is simple. We had a volunteer this past Sunday who brought in a giant bowl of strawberries and a box of graham crackers. Alice Waters has never received such accolades for her swanky fare; our kids could not get enough of this lady’s snack.

Volunteers who forget the “simplicity” standard do so at their peril. A few months ago, the nursery had an enthusiastic volunteer cooking group from a local food company. They had clearly scoured their test kitchen recipe library for Fun Foods for Kids. They arrived with “pizza muffins,” a concoction in which pepperoni and cheese had been placed in the hollow of a biscuit, then baked in a muffin tin. In case you aren’t grasping the full horror here, it was All Mixed Together. The children reacted as if they were being served pig cheeks, with the pig head still attached. The volunteers were crestfallen. But kids don’t change their rules for anyone, not even the company that invented Lucky Charms.

In addition to my child care work at the Nursery, I get together with a group of friends four times a year to make Saturday night supper for the kids. Our menu, which has been honed to perfection over the years, never varies: turkey meat on Hawaiian rolls. Carrot sticks and dip. Veggie straws. Clementine sections. And then, just to show that simple doesn’t have to mean dull, we roll in our big finish – chocolate pudding cups with – oh yes – squirts of whipped cream delivered straight from the Reddi-wip canister.

Sometimes on Saturday nights, as I watch the kids’ delight as whipped cream is squirted to their exact specifications, I think about the many people all over the world who are enjoying fine meals at that very moment. They’re sniffing corks, asking for a few more shavings of truffle, or setting up their camera for an Instagram shot of course number three-out-of-thirty. But, watching those kids smear their entire faces with our simple-but-worth-it dessert, I doubt that anyone is enjoying their food more than they are, and that’s the only Food Rule that really matters, at least to me. 

Their Thing

It was one of those typical weekend afternoons in a which a playbook, a GPS system and a healthy dose of Ritalin would be required in order to keep up with where everyone had to be, and when. It involved a lot of driving, a lot of talking and, of course, a 13 x 9 potluck dish. And yet it turned into one of those days that, better than any birthday or Christmas celebration, gave me a chance to witness pure delight in each of my girls. So, even taking the potluck into account, it turned out to be worth the effort.

The first leg of the slog involved that now-familiar routine of fetching various teenagers from wherever they happened to have landed that Sunday afternoon, then ferrying them across the river for a climb up those steep stairs to their theater space. Because we needed to head to the next part of our own personal goat rodeo after this effort was complete, I didn’t just drop and dash, but followed them upstairs and tried to melt into the background.

With that particular sort of short-term amnesia that seems common to actors, they squealed and jiggled at the sight of one another, even kids they’d seen just a few hours ago. But all that free-floating energy snapped into place when the director called them to order, introduced them to the choreographer, and got them started learning new steps. Their focus was a surprise to me. I’m used to watching these kids lounge about my house watching reruns of “Awkward” and hitting the pause button every thirty seconds for a sidebar conversation, so it was strange to suddenly observe them as such unwaveringly determined professionals.

When the director interrupted to share some bad news with the cast – a local television station that had been planning to film them that afternoon had canceled because of a hurricane – they handled the setback with a grace and professionalism that I don’t think I could have pulled together on such short notice. They seemed to be thinking not Now I won’t get to be on Live at Five, but Hey, at least we got to learn the new number. With the shoot cancelled, they were told they could leave early, but no one rushed to the door. They doodled around on the piano, sang snatches of lyrics to each other, demonstrated the finer points of the new dance. Sitting in the back, I took the opportunity to look, really look, at Mary Katherine’s face. She was utterly at home, as if, in this rehearsal space, she fit in her own skin in a way that just wasn’t possible anywhere else.

Here, I thought. Here, stuck inside on a beautiful day, with someone playing the piano and everyone wanting to play someone else -- this is the place she is meant to be.

But the potluck was looming. We re-deposited the teens we’d accumulated, then headed for a massive scramble of directions and dishes and reminders to bring the dogs inside, before we shot out the driveway again, this time in two cars (naturally, since that’s more complicated). We arrived at the welcome picnic for our new exchange student. There were at least a hundred people already there, bunched up under a gazebo at Minnehaha Falls. All of them were either kids who’d just arrived from some other land, or American kids who had just returned, or their host families and parents. The food may have been standard-issue Midwestern glop, but their faces created the most diverse display of humanity I’d possibly ever seen in Minnesota.

Plopping the dish onto a massive lineup of refined carbohydrates, I slumped onto a bench and affixed my name tag over the “Heather” that’s stitched over the pocket of my bowling shirt. (It’s my hands-down favorite piece of clothing, but if I don’t cover up the name, these lovely people with irony deficiencies just call me “Heather” all evening.) Mid-slump, I allowed myself to think about how, when I die (which should be any minute now, given this pace), I want my remains to be forever stored in a 13 x 9 potluck dish, with masking tape slapped across the top and my last name written in permanent marker.

That’s when I noticed Emma. She hadn’t sat down, she hadn’t gotten a drink, and she hadn’t stopped smiling. First she had decided to locate every Chinese national and welcome them, in Mandarin, to the U.S. Then she found a white kid who’d spent last year in China, and she compared notes with him. She sat down long enough to size up the college boy I’d roped into chatting in French with our Hugo (when I found out he’d spent last year in Belgium, I dragged him over). As she listened, she leaned backward to eavesdrop on the huddle of Italians at the end of the table.

“My brain is about to explode from all these languages!” she said, and I realized that Emma is the only person in the world who would accompany a statement like this with a smile. “Explosion” is the only pace that isn’t too slow for her. Then she hopped up and ran off to speak a few more languages to a few more jetlagged foreign nationals. Here, I thought. Here, with an ever-expanding chance to explore what’s unknown, to keep cramming new vocabulary and syntax into that near-exploding brain. This is the life she’s meant to live.

It was getting dark. The first day of school was tomorrow. We had to go. On the ride home, Emma was jubilant. “That’s my thing, you know, that’s what I love best! I got to talk to people from all over the world! Those are my people!” From the backseat, Mary Katherine mused, “I got to do that today, too. I got to do my thing and be with my people.”

I hated to ruin the sweetness with a teachable moment, but I just had to say it: “Some people go their whole lives without knowing what their thing is,” I said. “And you two know already. And you both got to have a taste of it, all in one day.” 

And me, I got to see the two girls I love best experience their greatest bliss, all in one short span of time. There haven’t been many days like that one in my life, and there probably won’t be many more.  Even if it did have to include a 13 x 9 potluck dish, it was worth it.

Why Pea See

I’ve been reading a book about Stagedoor Manor, the famous performing arts camp in upstate New York that was attended by Natalie Portman, Robert Downey, Jr., and a whole bunch of neurotic Manhattanites. In the early pages, I was sold on what a swell spot it is. One camper quote that caught me was, “The camp is like Oz. Your real life is in black and white, but the minute you step off the bus, everything is in color.”

Wow, I thought, I wonder if I could set up a crack lab in the downstairs bathroom so I could raise the $15,000 to send Mary Katherine to this camp next summer.

Then, as I was about halfway through the book, she got a part in a Minneasota Fringe Festival play that was being produced by Youth Performance Company’s Young Artists’ Council. I finished the book while I waited for her at rehearsals, and I began to wonder if Stagedoor Manor was more like Oz than perhaps I’d realized at first – replete with a pill-addled teen who would soon become a boozy train wreck, and perhaps with a scary flying monkey or two thrown in for good measure.

Biding my time and sitting on YPC’s comfy red couch, I read about the highly sophisticated campers who clawed and fought for those juicy Sondheim show roles. One visiting instructor said she had middle schoolers describe themselves as “Kristen Chenowith types” or “Sutton Foster types.” There were many stories about the camp’s lofty industry connections, but after a while, it really began to seem like an industry – grinding out row after row of determined, ambitious stars, and very few whole, good people who just happened to be actors.

I began to compare the descriptions I was reading with what was going on in rehearsals across the hall. The play in which Mary Katherine had been cast, “Semidarkness,” was a parody of “Twilight” that was far from Sondheim and much closer to Looney Tunes. Written by a group of funny and energetic under-21-year-olds, the show was bursting with silliness, satire and plenty of physical comedy.

But more than the material, there was the production process, which was collaborative, inclusive and – have I mentioned this yet? – fun. Mary would bounce out of rehearsals with a glowing face, full of stories of how hard they had worked and how much they had laughed.

This was her first show, and the other cast members were much older than she is, with many heading off to college the week after the show closed. They were not veteran performers by Stagedoor Manor standards – no agents, managers or imdb listings. They’d started hanging around the supremely welcoming environment of Youth Performance Company, then they’d stayed and learned some stuff. Some of them were heart-breakingly talented actors, I thought. As I began to put the names with the faces later, I realized that some of the most talented ones were the very people who had gone out of their way to be kind to Mary Katherine. They were about to leave YPC for college at the end of the summer, but they still took the time to show my middle schooler how it was done. You worked hard. You created something good with your friends. You put on a show.

The results have been on display this week. The show has gotten good reviews (one public radio guy called it “the best of the Fringe,” but then he got the name wrong and called it “Sunny Darkness.” Critics.). The houses have been fairly full, even at odd festival times like 10 p.m. or 4:30 p.m. But more importantly, the cast has worked together to pull off something wonderful and entertaining, no matter what a bunch of old people say. To use an “industry” term, not only is their end product high-quality, but they had a terrific process all along the way. They cherished each other’s company and tried to learn from one another. They enjoyed the ride.

Mary Katherine is determined, for the moment, to pursue a life in theater, so it won’t be long before she understands what a rare thing her experience with this show has been. Perhaps I’ve seen “All About Eve” one too many times, but I have a pretty good idea that she will be shouted at, disrespected, manipulated and double-crossed, probably all before she graduates from high school. She knows now that it won’t be easy, but she’s the only one who can ever decide if it’s worth it. I’m just happy that her start in the “industry” was such a kind and glorious way to begin a career.