Hot Dog! I Love Good Books

I grew up in Texas, which meant I hated hot dogs.  I loved roasting them on a fire at the beach, don't get me wrong.  I loved the fixings.  In fact, my favorite way to eat a hot dog (if I had to eat one), was covered in chili with onions and cheese and mustard.  I confessed, I didn't really need the dog to enjoy all the fixings.

But I married a man from the Northeast.  He introduced me to "real" hot dogs.  I became an instant fan.  We discovered Chicago hot dogs, fried hot dogs, but my favorite remained the split grilled version, simple with mustard and onions.   But I didn't know I liked "real" hot dogs until I had one. Until that moment, I thought I'd eaten hot dogs and understood enough to dismiss them as a food altogether.    I did not know I was ignorant.

I also received my education at Catholic schools, from first grade through graduate work.   As an Double English major, (Literature and Writing) I studied Chaucer, Shakespeare, Renaissance writers, 18th Century fiction, 19th Century Fiction, Mythology, American Literature, British Literature and those were just the prerequisites of the major.   

So I felt surprised when I discovered Walker Percy after college, and G.K. Chesterton and Sigrid Undset in my late thirties, and now Rumer Godden as I approach 49.  How did these writers not get presented forcefully during the course of my high school and college education?  Even Flannery O'Connor got a cursory look in one class, one book.   I know my parents tried to wave authors in front of me, (it's how I discovered Percy, Chesterton and Undset), but shouldn't a Catholic education present some of its Catholic artists as part of the normal formation of an educated mind?   

I thought further, about the Catholic authors I did meet in the course of classes.  Their works, whether Dante or Chaucer, were treated as texts, as works completed, which were somehow to sing to us, the college students, without the context of faith, but with the detailed context of the politics and historical times in which they were cast.   We deconstructed the works, stripping away some of the meaning, both for the creator and the recipient, like removing the refrain from a song, or rendering a color film, black and white.   We did not know we were changing what we were receiving, we thought we were getting to the essence of things, the form not obscured by faith.   But faith does not obscure, it reveals.    

There were a few exceptions, and their classes caught fire.  One wouldn't think there could be a three day long discussion amongst addle brained college students in a class held after lunch about what made for a true relationship.  A woman wanting all of us to get something of what literature can bring, pushed the conversation to be led through the lens of seeking truth in all things first.  So we talked about what Emma, Wuthering Heights and Madame Bovary revealed about the nature of romance and love. The eccentric philosopher who openly grieved when only three in the class openly rejected a purely scientific/materialistic reality, pushed people to recognize that faith wasn't just a bit of local color about the authors we were reading, but intricately connected to why they wrote.

I remember him ranting....You couldn't dismiss Black Elk's spiritual and interior life and read Black Elk Speaks with any comprehension.   You couldn't read the Ramayana and not get some of the great beauty of the poetry, if you were going to just view it as a whimsical Indian version of the Odyssey.   You couldn't read the Iliad as merely a long long long long long long poem in which Hector dies.  The end.

People did.

But these professors pushed against the dismissive casual handling of any text, as merely words thrown upon a page that could have been typed by a monkey given enough time.  Moving to graduate school, and beyond, they were the exception, not the rule. 

Reading and discovering these authors, I had to wonder, how is it we haven't been served this feast?  

I know there are many who love Catholic fiction, and perhaps it is time to craft a course for students, particularly of the college age, as part of their faith formation if a school is Catholic.  For these stories, all of them, are attempts to harness the Catholic imagination, and use it like a sail, to propel forth lives lived on the page.  They allow the reader to ruminate more deeply than a Facebook conversation on Catholic ethics or the role of law or faith in society, or what it means to be in love, and not merely the thralls of desire.  

Part of the New Evangelization is the rediscovery of where we've come from, recovering from the stupor of perpetual Internet amnesia with respect to what people can write, think, and create, when they aren't seeking to be trending or create the next overnight success.  We need the satire of Evelyn Waugh, the acid texts of O'Connor, the delicate and in depth romance of Undset, the puns and poetry of Joyce, the wit and whimsy of Percy, and the whispered understanding of an interior life, portrayed in Godden, as much as we need Tolkien's middle earth.   

Finally, I've wondered why we've grown so casual and carnal (if the New York Times Best Sellers list is an indicator) in our appetites for literature.   Perhaps we have been living too long on lesser hot dogs, and forgotten how much better it could be.   If so, here's my attempt at serving you, a grilled Chicago dog with all the trimmings.  I know you're thinking, what's so great about a hot dog but trust me, you'll love it.

So if you've stuck with me this long, I've begun a list --which I hope people will add to, of Catholic writers who strike the heart, and get to the marrow of the faith with their fiction.   The list is in order as I thought of them, not in preference.  I've read or am reading all that I'm listing, though I know there are many many more.  But I don't want to list a book I haven't read or am reading.

1. This House of Brede by Rumer Gooden

2. Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self Help Book by Walker Percy

3. The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor  (Cover is beautiful). 

4. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset  

5. The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton

6. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien  (Yes, I love the movies of the LOTR and will watch it any time it's on). 

7.  Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos

8. Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh  (Yes I know of Brideshead Revisited, I haven't read it so I can't list it in my part of the list but if anyone is needing an idea for my birthday....I don't own it).
9. The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

10. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

If that doesn't get your book juices pumping, there's an obnoxiously long list (I want to read them all) over at Catholic Fiction.net.   In the meantime, many thanks to Elizabeth Scalia for the suggestion of the book, and the idea to write about this topic.  I stopped at ten because....I need to feed these people lunch.  Guess what we're having.

As a final P.S. for those poor souls who still don't know what a Chicago dog is, here's the link for the recipe (Just in time for the 4th of July) and a picture: 

Enjoy!

What's on the Menu?

An oldie but a goodie re-run for today.

Each week I post a menu, including Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snack, plus notes of who has hot lunch and if there are any specials –like a team Pizza Night or some such. When I first started the Menu, there were of course, complaints.

“I …DON’T…LIKE...CHICKEN!” Ignoring the fact that pasta was also listed for that evening, such that he didn’t have to eat the chicken, he howled at the injustice of it all. Having chicken simply available was tantamount to a poisoning of the dining experience in my seven year old’s mind.

Similarly, my oldest groaned when he saw pasta without meatballs listed, and another day where eggs were the primary source of protein. He lives on red meat and potatoes, or would if the budget allowed. When the nine year old stamped her foot in protest of seeing beans as the selected vegetable for a night with hamburgers, I instituted two new rules regarding meal time.

Complaints equals Kitchen Patrol.

Reaching back into family lore, I took a tip from my Granddaddy’s days as a herder in Southeast Texas. Cowboys had a simple rule about meal time. If you complained, you got to do the dishes. Granddaddy had made it a point of honor to never get stuck with KP duty. One evening, so the story goes, his fellow cowboys and field hands plotted to get “Green” to do clean up. They laced his scrambled eggs with enough Tabasco to kill a Bull.

Granddaddy sat down to his eggs and took a bite. His eyes popped and he stood up quickly, “Boy That’s HOT!” he gasped.

Everyone’s eyes were on him as he stood. The he smiled, “But it’s just the way I like it.”

Granddaddy never did have to do dishes.

My children are inspired by his wit and such a devotion to avoiding unnecessary and unpleasant tasks, and thus have learned not to make such announcements in the presence of their Mother.

The second rule is a concession on my part to the legitimacy of not agreeing with the menu planner’s choices. It also eliminates sullen faces at the table. If a child objects strongly to the dinner on tap, they may request the option of cold cereal, provided they make the request before the meal is actually served. This also prevents my getting overly frustrated at having fixed a meal which no one eats or fretting over the fact that someone did not eat at all.

Special Orders Upset Us.

I admit, the mistake was ours to begin with, we wanted to raise strong minded individuals. We now must cope with their individualized opinions about how food should be prepared and augmented. We have learned that the transitive property that works so well with algebra (if a=b and b=c then a=c) does not work with children and food.

Take hotdogs as a prime example. All of my children will happily scarf down up to three hot dogs a piece, or as many as money and parental patience will allow, sans condiments or any special preparation techniques, if we are at a ball park.

At home however, their appetites become a bit more selective. The oldest likes his grilled with the buns toasted and then adds ketchup or mustard, depending upon his mood.

The second prefers hers sans bun with ketchup or chili on the side for dipping.

My third wants her dogs boiled and in a soft bun, no condiments.

The forth likes two in soft not crunchy buns and will accept boiled or grilled if the grilled have no black. He also uses ketchup excessively.

The fifth likes hers to be obliterated by ketchup but for the bun to be absolutely “clean” but toasted. I don’t know how this is possible physically.

The sixth howls for a bun but eats his dog cut up, dipping it in ketchup and usually rips the bun into shreds and molds it into a gooey inedible red ball of dough before asking for seconds.

In the interest of self preservation, I haven’t introduced the toddlers to hot dogs yet.

The Trifecta List

Some of this knowledge has become so routine for me that it is institutional memory. As such, I forget that when visitors like grand parents show up, my frame of reference for meal time is radically skewed from most people’s reality. As such, I tried to create a list of meals entitled, Trifectas. For babysitters and grand-parents and any other friends and family who for some reason have to take on the task of cooking for my horde, these meals were guaranteed successes.

Upon examining my first three choices, Pancakes and Bacon, Spaghetti and Meatballs and Fietas with Beans and Rice, I found each involved a level of complexity that rivaled the Hot Dog senario.

Looking at the list, my in-laws opted to run the kitchen like short order chefs, cooking each child’s meals separately and my parents when they visit, just order out.

I revised the menu for babysitters and Grandparents: Cold cereal, it’s what’s for dinner.

Playing Catch Up

Exposing children to activities they do not want is rather like serving fish for dinner. Sure there’s a chance that one of them might like it. There’s also a distinct possibility that you will wash off a gallon’s worth of ketchup off each plate to reveal filets submerged beneath the Heinz if you do so.

The rule of thumb in our home for outside of school hobbies has been one activity at a time unless it slips into the schedule. For example, one year, two of my kids played basketball because their practices were back to back. One child does band in addition to her sport because it doesn’t take time out of the schedule at all. I wish others of my children would do band, then I could feel virtuous about providing parental enrichment without actually engaging in any physical effort. In the past, I have lobbied to double up kids because of the apparent benefit of multi-tasking, but repeated experiences of one child poking along not finding the needed equipment while another bounces up and down in the car saying, “Come on, let’s go!” has head me to hold fast to the “You’ve got to want it” Mantra.

These days, I’m encouraging enrichment activities that don't involve me driving anywhere. You can read a book. You can play a game of pool. You can go outside and play catch. If you play catch every day with your brothers and sisters, you’ll be as up to speed as those kids whose parents love them and sign them up to play baseball year round.

The response of the children has been similar to their reactions to food. Hot dogs served at school for hot lunch at $2.75 a plate, they’re fabulous. The same meal served at home…and I’m scraping a lot of ketchup off plates. When I point out that throwing a ball at a field is not dissimilar to throwing one in our back yard, they point out that the coach has a speedometer to measure the accuracy and rate at which one throws. I offered to make up numbers and do color commentary.

"P. is backing up to make an out from a thrown pop up....and he just missed that catch.
His sister picked it up to throw back and it's a wild throw to center field."

"MOMMMM!"

They settled for me pitching to them.

After twenty minutes of watching me throw the balls, catch and drop the balls and wince as I sometimes got hit by the balls, the children took pity on me and announced they would play catch on their own. I went inside to make hot dogs but I told them it was fish so they’d stay outside and practice longer.

The two muddy kids came in twenty minutes later, “I thought you were making fish.”
“I decided to make hot dogs instead.”
“Wow!" "That’s great!”
“Do we have any ketchup?”

“Hit the showers, dinner will be ready when you’re done.”
When they’re in the major leagues one day they’ll thank me.