After living nearly ten years with a brain tumor, my friend’s husband Wayne is nearing the end of his life.

On Monday I told the kids that Wayne will soon die, maybe tomorrow, maybe in two weeks, maybe in a month. “You were aware that it was getting close, right?” I asked, trying to gauge their level of understanding.

Yo-Yo said, “Oh yeah, we know all about it. I wish I could make myself big and make him all better.”

Miss Beccaboo chimed in, “I hope he dies in his sleep. And I hope he dies when I’m asleep and when I wake up no one tells me.”

On Tuesday morning I asked the kids if they’d like to go see Wayne. The girls both said yes. Yo-Yo said no.

“Do you want to take him anything?” I asked.

“Let’s make him a cake,” Miss Beccaboo said. “And we could write ‘We love you, Wayne’ on the top of it.”

“That’s a nice idea,” I said. “But he’s not eating anything, you know. Mostly just some applesauce when he takes his pills.”

“Then how about we make him an applesauce cake!” Sweetsie said.

“Well now, that’s a thought,” I laughed. “But he couldn’t eat that either. But you know what? Let’s make him a cake anyhow. Even if he can’t eat it, I bet he’ll still like it. And the rest of the family would enjoy it.” And then I put my head down on the table and sobbed, worn out from the previous night’s crying jag, raw from the horribleness of it all. (This is what I do now, cry at the least provocation. I cry on the phone, while I’m hanging up the laundry, while I’m driving. My eyes are sore, I have trouble concentrating, and I snap at my kids. I crave sleep, but even when I get it, I feel tired, all muddly and distractable.)

So I blew my nose, hugged Sweetsie who was watching me warily, her eyes rimmed with tears. And then I made a cake. Or, rather, chocolate chip peanut butter brownies spread with chocolate ganache, our love scrawled across the top in peanut butter frosting. I made the whole thing, for the most part, but the kids hovered and tasted and admired. It was a joint-enough effort for me.

Wayne was sleeping when we got to their house, but then he woke up and Shannon wheeled him out into the room. The Baby Nickel, the only child present at the time, stared and grinned, grinned and stared. Shannon said, “Say hi to Wayne,” but Nickel just grinned away. Wayne poked him as he rolled on by.

Sweetsie came into the room then and as she tip-toed by his chair, Wayne stuck out his good arm and attempted to tickle her. (It’s his signature move, teasing, tickling, and rough-housing the kids.) She giggled and, suddenly shy, crawled onto my lap. “Go get the cake and show it to him,” I urged. And she did, approaching him slowly, the cake extended in front of her. Wayne took it from her, read it, and passed it back. I told him the story about Sweetsie’s applesauce cake suggestion. He looked at me, expressionless (the brain tumor has squelched his affect), but he heard—his eyes told me so.

When it came time to leave, Miss Beccaboo walked by his chair and Wayne snagged her, hugging her to him.

Or so I’m told. I was out on the back deck trying to convince Yo-Yo to come in and say goodbye to Wayne. Yo-Yo refused, and once safely in the van he burst into tears. I didn’t blame him, really.

This afternoon I got an email from Shannon saying that Wayne ate some of the cake. In fact, he loved it so much that she had to take the plate away from him so he wouldn’t get too much in his mouth at one time and choke. He kept grabbing for it though, she said. The sneaky guy.

I hollered from my desk, “Hey kids! Guess what! Wayne ate some of your cake and he loved it!”

They came running, eyes wide, incredulous smiles lighting their faces. “He ate it? Really?”

The Baby Nickel asked excitedly, “Wayne’s not going to be dead now?”

My heart seized. I said, matter-of-factly, but gently, “No, honey, he’s still going to die. But he liked our cake. Isn’t that neat?”

About one year ago: Aunt Valerie’s Blueberry Bars

Allow me, please, to introduce you to Strawberry Shortcake With Milk On Top, your new best friend.

I grew up eating strawberry shortcake like this, for supper. It’s simply biscuits, berries, and milk—a heartier, more filling version of the gourmet, whipped creamy affair, but still glorious indeed, simple and lush, eaten with complete abandon since there was nothing else offered to fill up on.

It went something like this: one of the first hot evenings of the summer would find Mom standing at the kitchen sink in her empire-waist sundress, her thick hair frizzing about her head and her glasses slipping down her nose, rapidly topping a big bowl of berries, just-picked from the garden out back. The tray or two of biscuits that were baking in the oven would be making the kitchen even hotter (and everyone crankier), so she’d declare we’d eat out at the picnic table and Jennifer, get the old plastic tablecloth out of the drawer, and Will someone come fill up the water glasses? Dad would come into the kitchen to carry out the heavy tray loaded with filled glasses and bowls and clanking spoons, and the rest of us would trail behind, bearing milk, sugared berries, and the trays of piping hot biscuits, the back door slamming shut behind us.

We’d crowd around the wooden picnic table, bare knees bumping, the evening breeze tickling our sweaty necks. After whizzing through a rendition of Johnny Appleseed, we’d fall to, crumbling biscuits into our bowls, smothering them with berries and drowning the whole mess in cold milk. The simple food quickly filled our tummies and muted our tempers, but still we’d eat, gorging on the glorious sweetness until our stomachs distended and our eyes glazed over.

Summertime bliss, that’s what strawberry shortcake suppers are. Try it for yourself and see!

(Note: it may be cultural, this love of dousing baked goods with milk. One of our favorite lunches, growing up, was peanut-butter-and-jelly-bread with milk on top. Even now, my brothers like to put their shoofly cake or apple pie in a bowl and then pour milk over top. So I don’t know, maybe you have to grow up with this kind of food in order to enjoy it. On the other hand, maybe not?)

Strawberry Shortcake With Milk On Top

The original recipe calls for all white flour, but I use half whole wheat. Whatever you do, keep it simple—which is the whole point of summer suppers, after all.

For the biscuits:
1 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar, plus more for sprinkling
4 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup milk

Mix together the dry ingredients. Using your fingers, cut in the butter. Stir in the milk. Drop spoonfuls of the batter (it’s thick like cookie dough) on to a greased cookie sheet. Liberally sprinkle each biscuit with more white sugar. Bake the biscuits at 425 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

For the strawberries:
1-2 quarts strawberries, washed, topped, and sliced
1/4 – ½ cup sugar

Mix together and set aside till ready to serve.

To serve:
Crumble one or two biscuits into a bowl. Spoon strawberries over top. Drown in milk. Devour. Repeat.

About one year ago: Ranch Dressing.

My kids know me. The other night I walked into the kitchen as Mr. Handsome was in the middle of scolding Yo-Yo for doing something mean to The Baby Nickel. As I passed by the table, I shot Yo-Yo the most heavily weighted, reproachful look I could muster. And then Yo-Yo piped right up, “Don’t shoot me a reproachful look, Mom!” Dang! That boy knows how to hit the nail on the head—thunk!—dead center.

We’ve been reading the book What The World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio, Menzel being the same fellow who wrote Material World. The kids and I were discussing the world obesity problem (did you know that there are now as many overfed people in the world as underfed?), and I explained a little about Michelle Obama’s efforts to curb child obesity. Miss Beccaboo said, “When I get big, I’m going to work in a school and be a cafeteria lady and feed everybody your good bread!” That girl knows how to melt my heart.

Later, after picking some strawberries from the garden, Miss Beccaboo came into the kitchen to wash, top, and slice them. Along the way, she discovered an old onion bag and put it on her head like a hairnet. Already playing the part of food service maven, my girl is.

Remember those ridiculous outfits my children were wearing the other day? Well, here’s a picture of their craziness. I particularly like Miss Beccaboo, waggling her finger like an old school marm.

And look at her stance! Hips thrust forward, arms akimbo, chin jutting.

She makes me feel like I’m living a real-life slapstick comedy.

Back to What The World Eats. My kids notice everything in the pictures: the rotting teeth, the porky bellies, the bottles of soda, the lack of silverware. We were all floored by the amount of meat reportedly consumed by an Australian family of seven: more than fifty pounds of meat a week. I got constipated just looking at the picture!

Our meat consumption is considerably less than those particular Aussies, but I still feel like it’s on the high side. We eat between three and eight pounds a week, I think—maybe a couple pounds of ground beef and a chicken (they weigh in at about three pounds). We eat bacon, sausage, and ham, too, though I usually use them to season dishes, not to fill us up as the main course. We do eat lots of eggs, though—well over four dozen a week—and a fair amount of cheese. It would be a fun (but tedious) exercise to assemble all the food we eat in a week and snap a picture of it. Maybe sometime when I’m bored.

When we do have ground beef on hand, one of my favorite ways to serve it is in chili. It’s a simple dish and everyone likes it. I’ve taken to adding dark chocolate to the mix.

Doing so makes me feel like Tita in Like Water for Chocolate, subversive and sensual. I feed the chocolate-spiked chili to my family and then watch for strange symptoms—the tearing off of garments, unexplained weeping, giddy laughter. All of which might happen, mind you. I just can never be sure that it’s on account of the chocolate. I can assure you, however, that no one has streaked across the yard buck naked and jumped on a strange man’s horse.

Yet.

I’ll let you know if that changes.

Chocolate-Kissed Chili
Adapted from Simply In Season

You can pretty much do whatever you like with this recipe. Want more green pepper? Put it in. No garlic? Take it out. A hotter dish? Pump up the chili. The biggest discrepancy is with the beans. I like a lot of beans in my chili, but I know other people like less. Do what you will.

Keep in mind that leftovers freeze well.

1 pound ground beef
2 ribs celery, washed and diced
½ cup diced green pepper
1-2 onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced, optional
2 quarts stewed tomatoes (not drained)
2 cups corn
4-8 cups cooked beans (red, black, pinto, etc), semi-drained
2-3 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons salt (may use part smoked salt)
1 ounce dark chocolate

Garnish and accompaniments:
Fresh cilantro
Sour cream
Cheddar cheese, grated
Hot sauce
Tortilla chips, cornbread, or flour tortillas

Cook the beef, celery, pepper, onions, and garlic in a kettle over medium-high heat till the beef is beginning to brown and the vegetables are tender, about 10-15 minutes. Dump the contents of the kettle into a crockpot and add the remaining ingredients. Cook on high heat for 4-6 hours, stirring occasionally. Taste to correct seasonings and serve. (Turn the heat back to low if not digging in immediately.) Serve with the garnishes, all the time keeping a sharp lookout for strange men on horseback.

About one year ago: Fowl-ness