{"id":2394,"date":"2016-08-18T16:32:03","date_gmt":"2016-08-18T21:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/?p=2394"},"modified":"2016-08-18T16:32:03","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T21:32:03","slug":"the-best-of-63000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/the-best-of-63000\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best of 63,000"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Spare<\/a><\/p>\n

I grew up in an atmosphere of food as fuel, though my mother would wince to hear her culinary efforts so lightly dismissed.\u00a0 But she was in charge of feeding five kids three meals a day, and then a separate meal for my father,\u00a0who arrived home later.\u00a0\u00a0Our kids\u2019 meals were simple and repetitive \u2013 hamburgers, macaroni and cheese, carrot sticks, brightly colored Jell-O for dessert.\u00a0 Done \u2013 15 minutes tops, with a reward of two Hershey kisses for a clean plate, then it was out the door for more horsing around in the summer twilight, or during the winter watching the Dick Van Dyke show at\u00a06:30 PM.\u00a0 In our family, shared food was just not the vehicle to create a forced intimacy prompting teachable moments, lessons learned, experiences shared.<\/p>\n

The sensory elements of food \u2013 smell, texture, or artful presentation \u2013 were \u00a0 foreign concepts.\u00a0 I do recall the\u00a0creamy-mouth\u00a0feel of ice cream and\u00a0the sound of burbling bacon on weekend mornings, but beyond that,\u00a0nothing.\u00a0 Cheese was limited to American cheese of suspect orangeness.\u00a0 The only foreign food was dreadful Chop Suey sloshed out of a can.\u00a0 Indian food \u2013 never heard of it.<\/p>\n

Yet even in this desolate palatal environment, there was one instance when everything coalesced into the pinnacle food experience, a shining moment among the estimated 63,000 meals that I have consumed in my life.\u00a0 And it didn\u2019t even involve a table, a plate, a fork, or a napkin.<\/p>\n

I was a newly minted teenager skiing with my mother and four younger brothers in Aspen.\u00a0 This was a budget-driven trip.\u00a0 We all squeezed into a basement rental apartment. As the only daughter, I manufactured some privacy by sleeping in a closet with a make-shift bed fashioned out of sofa pillows.\u00a0 I recall my peculiar view of looking up into the small-bore tunnels of the sleeves dangling above me.\u00a0 My mother slept in a cot beneath the open staircase, every night sweeping out the bits of mud that had flaked off our ski boots as we tramped up and down the stairs.<\/p>\n

I shudder now when I think of my mother\u2019s added responsibility of grinding out the same parade of meals, of tromping through the local grocery at the end of the day in half-fastened ski boots.\u00a0\u00a0Breakfast was frozen waffles or Fruit Loops whose colored sugar dusting turned the thin milk grey.\u00a0 After breakfast we made picnic lunches of cold cut sandwiches lubricated with a \u00a0smear of mayonnaise and colorful mustard. Dinner was some sort of slop-dop spaghetti and meat ball affair, over in about 15 minutes as we rushed back to the slopes for night tobogganing.\u00a0 But we were functioning as a united family, all doing basically the same thing at the same time.\u00a0 I could see my mother\u2019s pleasure watching us all get along, dispersing and coming together again and again on the ski slopes and then swapping quick-fire stories at night recapping the days\u2019 frantic activities.\u00a0 All this communal experience lacked was the mutually enhancing impact of shared food.<\/p>\n

I stood at the top of Snowmass for the last run on our last day of skiing at the end of a week of uninterrupted sun.\u00a0 I had achieved a respectable skier\u2019s tan, a particular point of pride when I would return to school after spring break.\u00a0 But cracks were beginning to show.\u00a0 I felt the skin tightening over my forehead and knew that another day of high-altitude sun would produce flaking and peeling and my perfect tan would collapse into tatters.\u00a0 My lips were chapped and cracked.\u00a0 Time to head down and home.<\/p>\n

I started down the Big Burn ski run, a wide expanse that was\u00a0tailor-made\u00a0for my mediocre skills.\u00a0 I hoped that I looked like and skied like a pro.\u00a0 I was making sweeping parallel turns, I had a perfect tan and my blonde ponytail streamed behind me.\u00a0 I wondered if others thought the same.\u00a0 As I sent up a spray of snow by a ski instructor, I imagined that he would tell his student, \u201cLook at that woman ski.\u00a0 She is doing it exactly right.\u00a0 Try to be like her.\u201d\u00a0 I spotted my mother skiing off to my right, and my brothers ahead of me.\u00a0 We would all funnel down to the bottom at the same time.<\/p>\n

A blossoming aroma wafted up to me followed by music.\u00a0 As I turned the last corner and slid into the base, I landed in the midst of an impromptu apr\u00e8s-ski party complete with a steel drum band.\u00a0 To my right I spotted a plume of barbecue smoke rising from an enormous grill covered with racks of sizzling spare ribs.\u00a0 The barbecue sauce was a rich brown sheen, the crystalline sugar glinting\u00a0in the waning sun.\u00a0 The pit master dramatically flipped the ribs as he swayed with the music.\u00a0 He caught my eye and nodded yes with a thumbs up motion.\u00a0 I shook my head.\u00a0 Spare ribs were a rare luxury, both due to their expense and the fact that in our gender-defined household grilling was considered a man\u2019s job, one that my father had no skill or interest in.<\/p>\n

I swallowed to control my gushing saliva and glanced at my mother standing next to me.\u00a0 She swallowed twice.\u00a0 I knew she would probably say no if I directly asked her for such an indulgence.\u00a0 She preferred surprises so I stood in silent anticipation. Suddenly she stood straight up and announced to my siblings dispersed in the crowd, \u201cHey kids, who wants ribs?\u201d<\/p>\n

We were all stunned but knew to seize the moment.\u00a0 We crowded around as she peeled off bill after bill so that we each could get our own rack.\u00a0\u00a0 The ribs were lean with crispy charcoaled edges and firmly\u00a0baked-on sauce.\u00a0 I could feel their warmth seeping into the palm of my hand as the weight of the ribs folded the thin paper plate into a trough.\u00a0 I dipped my finger into the barbecue sauce accumulating in the crease.\u00a0 The sauce singed my tender flesh as it penetrated my creviced lips, but I pressed ahead.\u00a0\u00a0I sucked the ribs and then slowly pulled each out, scraping every tendril of meat and charcoaled remains.\u00a0 My mother and I looked across the barbecue pit at my younger brothers and laughed\u00a0at their faces smeared with sauce.\u00a0 My brothers returned my salute of two gnawed ribs held high in triumph.<\/p>\n

I began to sway along with the crowd to the Caribbean rhythm.\u00a0 I glanced over to the right and was surprised to see a woman staring at me.\u00a0 She was wearing a white turtleneck that highlighted her tan, as burnished as the barbecue sauce.\u00a0 She was standing next to a man whose arm was casually draped over her shoulder.\u00a0 The two of them each took a sip of beer from their sweating bottles.\u00a0 She said something to the man, who dipped down to give her a quick kiss on her head as she continued to look my way.<\/p>\n

My confidence on the slopes faded before this golden couple.\u00a0 They looked like they were in their early twenties, maybe just 8 years older than I, but so much more sophisticated.\u00a0 A few of my schoolmates had boyfriends, passing notes in class, maybe sitting at lunch together, but even that innocent beginning seemed a long way off.\u00a0 I was still wearing oxford shoes and bobby sox and my quilted ski jacket came from the children\u2019s department.\u00a0 Such a transition seemed daunting and mysterious.\u00a0 \u201cWhat do I have to do to get there?\u201d\u00a0I thought. \u201cI want to be that woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

I pivoted away from the chatter of my mother, took a deep breath and directly faced my new aspirational goal. The woman met my gaze and said, \u201cAre those ribs as good as they look?\u201d<\/p>\n

I quickly wiped my lips on\u00a0my sleeve to remove any smear.\u00a0\u00a0I held up one of the ribs as a demo and tried to speak as a connoisseur. \u201cYes, they are nice and lean. Just the way I like them,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

The man dazzled a smile at me. \u00a0\u201cWell based on your recommendation, I think that we\u2019ll get some too.\u00a0 He held up two fingers toward the pit master.\u00a0 As my smile broadened I felt the deepening sting of the barbecue sauce.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 I could only think, \u201cWell now, maybe this is how it starts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sleeve of my parka crinkled as the man brushed by me to collect his order.\u00a0 His beautiful girlfriend gave me a welcoming nod.<\/p>\n

The missing words in the following poem are a set of anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like post, stop, post).\u00a0 One of the missing words will rhyme with the previous or following line, giving you a big hint.\u00a0 The asterisks indicate the number of letters.\u00a0 Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem.\u00a0 Scroll down for answers.<\/em><\/h4>\n

I thought, \u201cIs this a ******** seat here at the bottom of the hill<\/p>\n

Watching that young couple and those ribs sizzling on the grill?\u201d<\/p>\n

What was it about those two that I found so inspiring<\/p>\n

Was it the coming of age that my heart was ********?<\/p>\n

I might have been ******** in a delusion cloud, but I didn\u2019t care<\/p>\n

I just wanted to start my journey from here to there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Answers: ringside, desiring, residing<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

,<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>Share: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I grew up in an atmosphere of food as fuel, though my mother would wince to hear her culinary efforts so lightly dismissed.\u00a0 But she was in charge of feeding five kids three meals a day, and then a separate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-stuff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-CC","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2396,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394\/revisions\/2396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}