Cookie's Kitchen

Stories about music, food, family, faith, and life from Cookie's Kitchen.

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  • Chasing Moments

    Chasing Moments

    I grew up a football fan in St. Louis, in the 70’s. I know. I’m sorry too. I grew up in football family, which also grew up watching St. Louis Cardinal football. That’s right, a family that lived in St. Louis that didn’t grow up around the St. Louis baseball Cardinals. Names like Jackie Smith, Larry Wilson, Jim Hart, Dan Dierdorf, and Conrad Dobler, and Mel Gray dominated most family dinner conversations on Sunday when grandma and grandpa would come over for dinner and a long family conversation about our feelings, topped off with a bunch of hugging and crying. Well, not exactly. They came over to watch football. Every Sunday. I’m pretty sure that there was food there too. I suppose, but primarily football. If they weren’t at our house, we were at theirs. However watching the game wasn’t nearly as fun at their house. There was lots more stuff to break and none of my stuff was there. That didn’t prevent grandpa from engaging in a rousing game of “catch the actual life sized football surrounded by 1 million crystal trinkets, while making sure it doesn’t bounce off the glass table”. It’s a fun yet terrifying game in which grandpa took the blame for every errant throw and pass, regardless of whose fault it was. I also spent many Sunday afternoons reenacting the games with any action figures that I could find, from Star Wars to G.I. Joe. The G.I. Joe figures were a lot easier to pose as football players, even if Cobra Commander’s head kept popping off. There were also real football games played outside in my yard which felt like it was a big as a football field with a dogwood tree on one side of the yard which acted as a tall defensive safety and a giant hunched over tree on the other side that filled in for a punishing defensive lineman. Especially on that day that I was going out for a pass not realizing where I was and ran full steam into the tree. No matter how large a defensive player is in the NFL, they will never be as effective as a tree.

    From what I remember during those years and up until the last St. Louis game in 1987, the Cardinals were pretty terrible. There were a couple of standout plays, players, and games, but nothing very remarkable. For as larger than life as they were to me growing up, they were equally as forgettable nationally. The enduring bright spot for me from that tenure was a game in 1983 vs the San Diego Chargers, in which the Cardinals won by a score of 44-14. It was the only game my mom and I attended and is a memory that I wont soon forget. In March of 1988, the Cardinals were officially off to greener(?) pastures in Arizona, which was willing to build them a new stadium when St. Louis government was unable to get together a proposal attractive enough to keep them in town.

    Thus began my first trip into the football-fan wilderness.

    The mandate growing up was that you rooted for a football team. That’s what you did. I don’t think I ever considered continuing to root for the Cardinals after they moved, mainly because when the team your root for leaves your town, there is some bitterness and resentment there, and it is generally frowned upon to continue to want the best interest of the team that left you for a better opportunity. If anything, they quickly fell into the “hated rivals” category. There were lots of St. Louis Football fans that moved onto to root for the Kansas City Chiefs at that time, but for some reason, I bounced around a little bit. When the Cardinals were really bad towards the end of their tenure in St. Louis, I toyed with rooting for the Raiders and the Bengals in no particular order. For Christmas one year I received a brand new pristine Raiders helmet, which was both beautiful and intimidating at the same time. I also had a Bengals helmet, but If I remember correctly, it was a generic knock off helmet that my dad had painted orange and black. I thought both the Raiders and Bengals helmets were awesome in their own ways even if the Bengals one was DIY before it was cool. It was also during the time that I embraced the NFL as a whole, collecting mini helmets for all the teams, keeping score of my own football seasons playing out using my very own Mattel Classic handheld football game, and countless hours of watching non licensed football teams vibrate randomly around on my classic NFL football board that came with it’s own tiny yellow foam football that my dog usually ate one second after it hit the ground. The foam football was usually quickly replaced by a small piece of crumpled paper that in no way resembled a football, but wasn’t as nearly appealing to the dog as the yellow foam. Being a free agent football fan during those years was actually kind of nice though, because I got to appreciate the game as a whole, and the special plays and moments and stood out. One particularly memorable sequence included Leon Lett celebrating a fumble return for Dallas and losing the ball out of the endzone during the Superbowl during the end of one season and gifting a win to the Miami Dolphins during a snowy game the following Thanksgiving. The term any given Sunday is never more true when it comes to football and the fact that just about anything can happen when two teams get together and play.

    During the lean years of 1988 to 1994, St. Louis was desperate to get a football team back in town after the 28-year run of the Cardinals. There was a blocked attempt to buy the New England Patriots and move them to St. Louis (can you imagine?), as well as a failed bid to earn an expansion team that was going to be called the Stallions. During that time, St Louis began to build the dome that currently stands today as an outsized effort to lure a team to town. In 1995 all of those attempts finally produced a team when the Rams rolled into town from Los Angeles.

    And just like that, I was back in business!

    Our family had a team to root for again, and my beautiful newlywed wife had several free hours every Sunday to read uninterrupted. My grandparents had passed away and mom ended up living in the same house she grew up in. So twenty years later, I was back in the same room, rooting for a different team along with our small family. Mom was all in on the Rams, and took a particular liking to WR Isaac Bruce, even writing him the occasional birthday card, which I’m sure he treasured. She even hung up a printed email and reply that I had sent to him as part of a Rams promotion during the 2001 season. She was very proud of it. These Sundays were an opportunity for a second chance for our family to create new memories with a new team. It was also an instant Christmas list inspiration for mom. Her prized possession from that era was her very own Bruce Jersey which she wore faithfully every Sunday. There were autographed trading cards, a larger than necessary Kurt Warner figure and a terrifying Rams nutcracker, straight out of every child’s Christmas nightmare. In January 2000, I was able to be in that very same living room with my friends and family as the team that my family was rooting for won a Superbowl. I very distinctly remember running into my moms bedroom where my wife was feeding our 4 month old baby. “We won the Superbowl!” I exclaimed, after a last second play forever known in St. Louis as The Tackle. “That’s nice dear” she politely said, at least no longer wondering what all the fuss in the other room was about. Mom passed away in 2011, and the last time we spent together was watching a Superbowl game in her hospice room the day before she passed. The Rams moved from St. Louis back to Los Angeles in 2016.

    Thus began my second trip into the football-fan wilderness.

    This time I decided to be proactive and pick the next team right away, because there was a good chance that no other NFL team would ever be coming to St Louis, and even though there had been some minor league and spring teams come and go, I was looking for a NFL team to throw my support behind. Technically I had 30 teams to choose from (minus the Cardinals and now the Rams, of whom there were lots of new owners of Rams gear in the St. Louis Metropolitan area.) Practically, there were only really four teams to choose from if I wanted to attend the games on a semi-regular basis. Indy was the closest city, with Kansas City 2nd closest. Nashville and Chicago were never really in the mix, even though they were not that much farther away. Between the two, the biggest draw was Arrowhead and the Chiefs. Arrowhead is a classic stadium that I had never been to and the possibility of getting to watch home games at Arrowhead was instantly appealing. I also knew some hard core Chiefs fans and they attested to the awesome environment. Their fans also travel very well to other stadiums creating an awesome environment for away games as well

    My first game at Arrowhead was in November 2017, and from the very first game, I was hooked. The fans were passionate, the stadium had a ton of energy, and it felt like somewhere that I belonged. Not to mention the tailgating, which was incredible. Before every home game at Arrowhead, a small town pops up, with music, snacks, and plenty of brats as far as the eye can see. Honestly, the first time I saw it, I got a little choked up. Mom would have loved it and would have been so at home in this mini football town. I imagined her surrounded by her people with a Stag in her hand and huge smile on her face. The joke I tell people is that I’m a life-long Chief fan since 2016, and that’s how I feel. We all have something in common, that helps to build a feeling of community.

    My buddy Rob went with me to the first couple of games at Arrowhead, but also had a desire to visit other stadiums. So for the last several years, that’s what we have done. Once a year, we pack up and head out on the road to a Chiefs game where I cheer like a maniac and Rob enjoys the people watching and tailgates. We have had a great time and created several awesome new memories along the way, and we are hoping at some point to hit every stadium.

    Most of my friends know that I’m a “Chiefs guy,” but I’m not sure many of them know how I got here. I suppose that’s true of most things we love. There’s usually a trail of people and places behind them.

    For me, it runs from my Grandpa throwing a football through a room full of breakables, to Sundays with mom in her Isaac Bruce jersey, to Arrowhead and beyond with Rob, and hopefully to a bunch of stadiums we haven’t seen yet.

    I’m not really trying to replace any of those old memories. You can’t.

    I’m just grateful for the ones I’ve had, and I’m still out there chasing the next one.

  • Steak. Roll. Ups.

    Steak. Roll. Ups.

    I actually started this blog in 2011 (do you still call it a blog? does anyone actually read WordPress anymore? what’s a sub stack? is that like a sleastack?) It was originally intended to be a food blog, full of my favorite recipes. I ended up posting 12 recipes took some very bland pictures of the recipes, and then waited 9 years before posting a smattering of other things including something about how much i love salami and orange tic tacs (Those were two separate posts). I recently revisited those recipes and deleted all of them in hopes to organize the blog a little bit and get a fresh start. Having written 2 other posts in the past several months leaves me feeling a bit prolific. Prolific enough to add another recipe, or my first, depending on when you are reading this. This, however is not just any recipe. It is the one that has anchored many a Mueller Christmas eve, caused several people to race each other to see how many they could consume, and is the main reason that I smell like bar-b-que every Christmas Eve candlelight church service. I humbly present my recipe for Steak Roll Ups.

    The very first steak roll up as I know it was created by my mom, who started making them at some point in my adult life, however I do not exactly remember when. We showed up for what was most likely a birthday dinner or otherwise special occasion and mom had concocted these perfect balls of meat that tasted like they had come straight from heaven itself. When I asked her for the recipe, she hastily wrote down the following on a small note card and gave it to me:

    • Flank Steak
    • Thick Cut Bacon (2 or 3 large packages)
    • Vegetable Oil
    • Italian Bread Crumbs
    • Worcester Sauce
    • Shredded Parmesan Cheese (the good stuff) (3 cartons at least)
    • The largest bottle of A1 Sauce you can find.

    That’s it really. Seems simple enough, however there is a certain way to do steak roll ups right. When is the best time to make them, where to get the ingrediants, how many to make? All very good questions that I will answer as I spend way too much time and words writing about meat.

    The first question is when? It’s a pretty big project, and to the disdain of my family, something I’m not quite prepared to make every weekend. When mom first started making them, it was more of a summertime treat. However, in my opinion the quality and heaviness of the meal didn’t always slot neatly into a summer barbeque. It did not take much time for steak roll ups to make its way onto my Christmas eve menu. We never did a sit down Christmas eve, and once it was my time to start hosting and making the food, steak roll ups fit right in as an easy to eat delicacy that would impress friends and family alike and would be very easy to scale up if necessary.

    The next very important step is sourcing the ingredients. Of the five main ingredients, the oil and Worcester is usually fine if you already have some in your fridge or cupboard. Also, as long as the breadcrumbs aren’t expired and are the Italian style, you are usually fine picking up any brand. However, when it come to the flank steak, bacon, and parmesan, you will need to be a little more discerning. Shredded parmesan is a must, since I’m not sure grated parm would give you the same result. Honestly, I’ve never tried it, but I’m not willing to waste a batch of steak roll ups on an experiment. The better the quality cheese, the better the taste. If you have time, shredding a block of parmesan yourself is probably the way to go, but if you are pressed for time, then getting a package of pre-shredded parm is fine.

    Thick cut bacon is mandatory as it holds up to the rolled out flank steak. You probably don’t need to get anything super fancy. Middle of the road bacon is probably fine, but you want to stay away from flavored bacon as it might complicate the flavor profle. As far as the flank steak goes, getting a fresh cut from the meat counter is would be better than a pre-packaged one since it it larger and thicker. These pics are from pre-packaged flank steak, but getting it from the meat counter would be recommended in most cases when you are feeding lots of people. The first step is to cut all of the flank steak against the grain, a little thicker than the bacon. Cut all of the flank steak into slices. You will basically need as many slices as you have pieces of bacon. It’s an imprecise science, but you will get the hang of it after you have made them a couple of times.

    Once all of the flank steak has been cut into slices, put them into an 8×11 inch container with oil and Worcester sauce. Eyeball it. The flank steak should be mostly submerged in the oil, which should be an overall brown color from the Worcester. Marinate the steak for three or for hours, but overnight is best. When you are ready to make the roll ups, you need a good working space. I usually cover the entire space with saran wrap, including the rolling pin that i use to roll out the steak.

    Line six pieces of steak next to each other and roll them out. When rolled out properly, each piece will actually resemble a piece of bacon and should fit on the bacon one for one. When you get to the ends of the flank steak, you might need to use two pieces per piece of bacon if they are not long enough. The rule of thumb is that you want the flank steak pieces to be as long as the bacon pieces. When I first started making this, I used to do one at a time, roll out the steak, then put the piece of bacon on it, filling, then roll it up and put it on a skewer. It took about three times as much time as it does now. Basically, you want to do as many at a time as fit on one skewer. Once you have the steak rolled out, grab six pieces of bacon and put each piece of flank steak on each piece of bacon. You are now ready for the filling.

    The filling is a mix of Italian style crumbs and parmesan cheese. If you use one cup of bread crumbs, then use 1/2 a cup of cheese and scale up in those proportions. Into the breadcrumbs and cheese mix, pour in enough of the marinade to make the mixture moist. Take a good amount of the filling and place it onto each strip of bacon and flank steak, and press the filling to make sure that it adheres to the flank steak.

    When you roll the flank steak, you want to roll it as tight as possible and then slide the skewer through the thickest part of the bacon. You will have room for about six rollups on each skewer.

    When all the roll ups are on the skewers, separate them just a little bit, so they don’t get stuck to each other while cooking. If that happens, the sides that are touching tend to be a little underdone. Also, in regards to the skewers, metal skewers are preferred, and the thicker the better as the rollups can be a little heavy on the skewer. Now a decent sized piece of flank steak and three or so packages of bacon should get you around 30-40 rollups, which should be enough for a decent sized party. Most of the time, 3-5 roll ups should be more than enough for anyone, and since leftover rollups are just as good as fresh ones, there is no issue making more than you need. When you are ready to grill, turn your grill on high to start and then back it down to medium. You may want to put something on the grate to keep the bacon from sticking. Pam for the grill is usually a good choice. As the roll ups start to cook, you will definitely get flame flare ups from the bacon grease. Make sure that you are moving the roll ups frequently to make sure that everything is cooked evenly and to minimize any big flare ups. You may also want to consider moving them away from directly heat occasionally to minimize the potential for burning and bad flare ups. When they are done, they will be slightly charred on the outside, but cooked all the way through.

    It’s hard to say what the complete cook time is on all the roll ups, but I would say probably 45 minutes to an hour. When you are done, you can wrap them with a aluminum foil and put them in the oven to keep warm at 170 degrees until it is time to eat. As far as what to make with them, potato salad is a pretty good option. It’s something that you can make a ahead of time and put in the fridge to chill. Once you get started on the roll ups, it’s difficult to focus on cooking anything else along with them, so it’s good to have any sides prepared ahead of time. If done correctly, each one of these suckers basically tastes like a fillet mignon. The A1 sauce is a must with these as well. It will definitely enhance the flavor. If you decide to make these, let me know. I would love to hear how it goes. Good luck!

    Here’s a short version for your recipe card:

    Paul’s Steak Roll Up Rules

    1. Use thick-cut bacon.
    2. Slice flank steak against the grain.
    3. Marinate it overnight if possible.
    4. Pound/roll the steak until it looks like a strip of bacon.
    5. Use 2 parts Italian breadcrumbs to 1 part Parmesan for the filling.
    6. Moisten the filling with the marinade.
    7. Roll tightly.
    8. Use sturdy metal skewers and leave space between the rolls.
    9. Grill over medium heat and watch the bacon flare-ups.
    10. Serve with A1 Sauce.
    11. Make more than you think you’ll need. Leftovers are a feature, not a failure.
  • Sand and Water

    Sand and Water

    On July 15th, 1997 Beth Nielsen Chapman released the album Sand and Water. It was her fourth release, and up until that time, she had some moderate success as a singer-songwriter, having written songs for Bonnie Raitt, Faith Hill, Willie Nelson, Bette Midler, Elton John, Neil Diamond, Michael McDonald, Emmylou Harris, and the Indigo Girls.  When Sand at Water was released, it was well received, but did not necessarily set the music world on fire, however the title track proved to be an enduring song about loss and mortality. The entire album was a result of Beth processing her husband Ernest’s death from Cancer in 1994. Interviewed later, Beth said that most of the songs that made up the album were written in the months before and after her husbands death, and that at the time, she did not intend to release them to the public. However after three years of processing her loss and a request from Elton John to perform Sand and Water live on tour, she gave him permission to sing the song live and even tweaked a couple of the lyrics of the song so he could sing it as a way to honor Princess Diana on his tour at the time. She went on to release the album as a collection of songs about love, loss, and moving forward.

    Most of the music consumption in my teens and early twenties was confined to what many people nowadays refer to “80’s Hair Metal”. This particular piece is not meant to get into the finer points of hair metal, and why it is the superior music style, so we will not get into that now, but it would be fair to say that at the time, I was not actively pursuing pop, adult contemporary, country, and folk/singer-songwriter types for my collection. However, for every 15 hair metal cassettes in my collection, you might find an oddity. It was hard to say where or when I was introduced to other genres, but tucked within the hairspray and mascara one might find We are in Love by Harry Connick Jr., Music for the Masses, by Depeche Mode, or the first album from the Indigo Girls. Usually it was a friend’s recommendation, or a particular song I heard somewhere that would lead me to to purchase something out of my comfort zone. As odd as it sounds now, back in the day, there were no easy ways to preview songs to decide if you wanted to buy the album or not. It was a leap of faith that one good song would lead to an album worth owning. Then sometimes, that was the only good song on the record and the rest was garbage and bound for the Record Exchange. For those of you not “in the know”, Record Exchange is a local used Record store that has existed in St. Louis since 1977. I think I really hit my stride at Record Exchange in the early 90’s when vinyl had tapered off a bit, and you could find just about any cassette you were looking for at the time, which is odd considering the name of the shop, and also now, it’s really easy to find vinyl that you don’t want at Record Exchange rather than stuff you are actually looking for. However, a recent trip to Record Exchange yielded 80’s hits from Starship, the Thompson Twins, and the Hooters! Score! So those days at Record Exchange filing past the cassette library could lead me to take a chance on music that I wouldn’t ordinarily choose to purchase. Only two things had to come together, Usually the price was right, at mostly likely five bucks or so, and then it just had to have an interesting cover, and most of the time, I had to have come up empty looking for something else.

    This is probably the most likely reason why I wound up with the debut from Beth Nielsen Chapman on cassette. The cover was simple enough, girl who is obviously feeling some sort of emotional way, leaning against her piano. Hey, I play piano, and girls are neat, so there you go. Sold. Overall a solid album, which resided in my collection for several years and was a nice change of pace from blistering solos and the absence of anything resembling a piano. For some reason, all of the streaming services categorize Beth as a country artist, which might be because most of her hits were actually songs recorded by country singers. As a performer and singer, she probably slots better into the easy listening category, which I definitely had experience with growing up, listening to KEZK whenever mom had control of the radio. I would imagine that most serious music listeners probably have several albums that just don’t fit in with the rest of their collection, regardless of their preferred genre. Once Beth made it into my collection, I would keep an eye out for anything new from her. I can’t say the same for Mickey Mouse Disco. Sometimes you just need to sample one record out of your preferred genre to know that it’s not for you. Her next record came and went without much interest from me, and in most cases, that’s when I would generally lose interest not pay much attention. The next cassette I would own from her was called Sand and Water, and it was no accident.

    The short story is that I met Bryan when I was 14 years old. He was 16 and so much cooler than me in every way, which is not saying a whole lot for 14 year old me. Bryan’s number one goal in life was to be the lead guitarist in a hair metal band, and I was convinced that given his incredible skill as a guitar player and extremely long hair, that it was an inevitability. Without Bryan’s influence, I would not have discovered Master of Puppets, Operation: Mindcrime, or Joe Satriani. I also had never heard of Jeff Beck until I went upstairs at Bryan and saw his older brother’s record collection. Not a huge fan of school and doing what was expected of him, music was the primary motivating factor in Bryan’s life. Taking weekly guitar lessons at Huesling Music on Hampton Avenue, Bryan was a star six-string student, and quickly took to electric guitar, learning note for note how to play solo’s by some of the “guitar gods’ of the day, convinced that his name would certainly be listed among the greats at some point. 8 to 10 hours of practice did not slot in well with a normal school schedule, so Bryan eventually quit school and struck out his own, playing around town with some local guys with similar ambitions while working at Long John Silver’s. I was even invited to play keyboard with them at a huge gig at a local high school. We played Fantasy by Aldo Nova, and it was the highlight of my life up until that point. Not surprisingly, his high school Metal band formed in St. Louis did not make it, and Bryan eventually moved to Washington state. We reconnected many years later after I had gotten married and he had moved back to the area. For the next three years or so, we were inseparable. Bryan was at our house most nights, with standing dates to watch Friends and Seinfeld every Thursday night. In August 1998, we suddenly lost Bryan, which was a devastating loss to Bryan’s family, friends and all who knew him. It was my first real adult experience with grief and loss, and made me aware of the painful truth that I was not very well prepared to handle it. It’s not like any of us are necessarily well prepared to handle it, but I had no real tools at my disposal other than a church community of very well meaning and caring friends.

    I had always had a practice of processing most major events my life through music. The Indigo Girls and the Cure saw me through breakups, White Lion “Told Me” what real love would sound like, and for this moment and this time, Beth Nielsen Chapman helped me process a deeply saddening loss, and gave me a framework for words and emotions that I didn’t have available at the time. I don’t remember if I already had the Sand and Water cassette when we lost Bryan, or if I went seeking it out, but it was a balm and medicine for my weary soul especially at a time when something way more wasteful could have stepped in and attempted to numb the pain instead. The entire record has a theme of dealing with sorrow and moving through it, but not past it. Even more specific themes of shock, longing, loneliness, sorrow, acceptance, and remembrance are deftly addressed through the entirety of the running time of the record. One of the most interesting parts of the record is that it does not treat grief as something to get over, but something that we carry with us and is integrated into our life, changing who we are, and also bringing moments of hope. Even though the loss of her husband that Beth sang about on Sand and Water was different than losing Bryan, the themes were very relatable, which is why it’s a record that I go back to again and again, as well as one that I recommend to those that are going through their own grief and loss. I am so thankful that Beth wrote these songs which helped me immensely through a very difficult and dark time in my life. I encourage you to check it out.

    As the years passed, I lost touch with Beth’s career. After Sand and Water, which was her 4th album, she released 12 more albums including 2010’s Back to Love, which was inspired by the engagement to her second husband. They were married from 2011 until 2022, when he also passed away from Cancer. That’s right, Beth lost two husbands to Cancer, and herself is a breast Cancer and brain tumor survivor. Before its removal, the brain tumor was actually pressing against the part of the brain that accesses language and emotion. She currently still tours and teaches songwriting to a younger generation of songwriters. In 2027, she is going to tour the UK to celebrate 30 years of Sand and Water. Beth has a gift of being able to process and work through life’s highs and low through her music, and though it is not a common gift, it has been hard earned for her, and has been an incredibly helpful tool for the rest of us who are many times unable to find the words to express what we are feeling.

    P.S.

    Through one of the most coincidental series of events kicked off only because I decided to write this post, I was able to obtain a digital copy of Bryan’s band’s first and only demo, recorded over thirty years ago, which until recently was among a pile of cassettes in someone’s basement. I remember being there when those songs were being written and rehearsed, with those memories flooding back the moment I heard those songs again, long thought to be lost forever. The sounds and sites came right back, during those basement rehearsals, marveling at the musical gift that my friend possessed. Long ago, I conceded that I would never get to hear my friend play again, but that concession was either an unanswered prayer or unspoken prayer that God chose to answer anyway. I remain utterly confused as to how the world works or why things happen the way that they do, but I hope to remain open to be present for everything that it has in store. As I was looking into Beth’s career and what she is up to now, I found this incredible interview from early 2026 that was a great dive into her career, creativity, and processing loss. I would also highly recommend it.

  • Don’t Rush to Judgment: Why This Band Still Means So Much to Me

    My initial exposure to the band Rush was my first day of high school. I spotted a cassette under the desk of a fellow classmate in Freshman English. I was impressed that someone would think either so little of English class or so much of their taste in music to bring a cassette tape to class. (For those of you that are already lost, cassettes at the time were probably the second most awkward way to consume music, behind the dreaded 8-track tape. For those of you unfamiliar with 8-tracks, I’m not sure we have that kind of time, other than mention that one of my first experiences with discovering music was an old Bee Gees Greatest hits 8-track. The weirdest feature of the 8-track is that many times, they would skip “tracks” in the middle of a song and there was no way to rewind a song. In some aspects, I do actually like that design. Well if you missed that amazing guitar solo, then you are just going to have to listen to the whole album again before it comes back up.) Anyway, back to Rush. At the time, I was unfamiliar with the band, but the cassette cover looked cool enough for me to ask about it. Not only did I find out about one of the more interesting bands around, I also was introduced to my future best friend in high school, not bad for an otherwise unremarkable school day

    Thus began my nearly 40 year relationship with Rush.

    It’s actually pretty difficult to describe Rush and their music. They are a three piece power trio, formed in Toronto Canada in 1968, primarily consisting of Geddy Lee (vocals, bass guitar, keyboards), Alex Lifeson (guitar) and Neil Peart (drums, percussion). The simplest bucket to place them in would probably be Classic Rock, however they have changed and evolved over the years, starting out with a straight ahead sound on their debut album in 1974, but definitely taking a more progressive turn with their sophomore album the following year when new drummer Neil Peart took over the lyric writing duties from Lifeson and Lee. With Peart’s addition, the themes and subjects of Rush’s music expanded and included fantasy-based story telling as well as an expansive list of themes and ideas that appealed to Peart. Lee and Lifeson were happy to focus on the music and let Peart handle the lyrics.

    In 1987, when I discovered them, the band had just released a very synth heavy album called Hold Your Fire. I knew they had released a lot of material before that, but I wanted to start with their most recent stuff, so I started with the newest release at the time. As a piano player, the use of keyboards and synths not only in their songs, but as an upfront presence, was really intriguing, especially as my dreams of becoming a rock star one day had not yet been dashed. Now the fact that their keyboard player, Geddy Lee also had to play bass didn’t seem quite fair to me at the time. Of course, I’d find out later, that keyboards were his secondary instrument, and many times they were triggered by tracks and pads running in the background.

    Much of my teenage and young adult years were full of Rush-infused memories, like the time that my buddy and I went to Peaches at midnight to purchase Counterparts while everyone else was there for Pear Jam’s Vs. Counterparts was and continues to be the superior album. Or when we went to see them on the Presto tour and had floor seats at the area next to a couple that were obviously very high and standing on a couple of flimsy folding chairs that were way overmatched for the situation. Or the time that another buddy of mine and I were baptized at our church in the morning, had a giant lunch, flipped on some Rush, and then promptly feel asleep and both had some fairly vivid and similar dreams about Jesus coming back. There were many more personal experiences that I had with the band, which is probably a big reason why I am still a fan after all of these years and still feel a sense of shared history with the band. More on that later.

    The impact of Rush on music and pop culture over the years is pretty clear. Just saying “Canadian power-trio” brings to mind Neil, Geddy, and Alex rocking out a 10-plus-minute instrumental, packed with more time changes than a plane taking off from Newark Airport, and the musical complexity that most bands can only dream of. Seriously, almost every musician you can think of lists Rush as a big influence. They’ve popped up in movies and TV shows, earning the title of “favorite band of your favorite band.” Plus, they’ve made it to this level of fame with a good sense of humor, often poking fun at themselves along the way. One of the things I remember the most that highlights Rush’s sense of humor is Geddy’s bass rig from several tours ago. The common practice of many rock bands was to demonstrate how loud they were by playing in front of very large stacks of amplifiers, almost a comical number. All of the amplifiers had red lights that indicated they were switched on, but most of them did not actually have speakers in the cabinets. They were mainly just for show. Well, Geddy took this one step further and replaced his row of amplifiers with something completely ridiculous, and also pointed a microphone at the item. One tour, it was clothes dryers with a glass front, another tour brought working rotisserie chicken ovens on stage behind Geddy. A roadie in a chef’s hat would periodically baste the chickens during the show. Rush was always in on the joke. I think that’s one of the things their fans loved. It wasn’t necessarily “cool” to like Rush, but then again, in order to really like Rush, you had to “get” them, which in itself was cool.

    Even though Rush’s albums were legendary undertakings on their own, to see Rush live was the best way to experience them. My first concert experience was the Presto tour in 1990. I will not go on to list every Rush concert that I attended in chronological order, even though that is an accepted way of communicating with fellow Rush fans while in line to see them live while also secretly inspecting their concert shirts to see who is legit and who is just pretending. (Nice try, Alice in Chains shirt-guy) Those shows together have added to the mystique of this band that I have learned to appreciate and love over the years. At some point, their story became intertwined with my own story, as those evenings spent listening to some of my favorite songs either under the stars or under the watchful eyes of hockey banners created some core memories that I will not soon forget. Those shows, along with all of the hours spent listening definitely created a sense of connection for me. I’m sure that is a similar story for many of their fans, with many different levels of commitment involved.

    In 2015, Rush announced that the R40 tour would most likely be their final large scale tour due to some health issues affecting the band. Later in 2015, Peart said that he was planning on retiring, and even though there was no specific official announcement at the time, it seemed like the days of live Rush performances were coming to an end. By 2018, the band all but confirmed that they were not going to tour again. In January of 2020, Neil Peart died after a three year battle with glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer. And that was it. Tributes poured in, a 50th anniversary box set came out, a couple of one off tributes came and went, but the chance to see Rush play live again basically disappeared. I hadn’t attended the last couple of tours, figuring that I always would have an opportunity to go see them play, but all of a sudden, that was gone too.

    In the years that followed, even though Rush was still a favorite of mine, without a touring cycle to generate interest in new music, my own interest in the band admittedly faded a bit. There were occasional bits of news from the Rush camp including repackaged albums with new art work for anniversary releases, documentaries, books, and beer. There were also numerous tribute acts making the rounds, in several different formats. Rush was famous for inspiring so many musicians, that it would only make sense for many of those musicians to put projects together as a tribute to their heroes. One of my personal favorites is a band called YYNOT, a four piece outfit with a female singer able to belt out all of Geddy’s iconic vocals. A nice bonus with this band is that they also write and record original material. As I listened to them more, I softened to the idea of going out and seeing a Rush tribute act. Unfortunately, YYNOT were not touring my area, and I had to look locally for an alternative. Luckily, there is a very good Rush tribute act in St. Louis called Thunderhead: the Rush Experience. Every year, they put on an event called Midwest Rushfest, which brings many fans together to celebrate their favorite band and watch other fans do their best to recreate the sound and look of a Rush show. My wife and I attended one of these shows a couple of years ago and I was pleasantly surprised by how well done it was. The guys were very good and knew what their jobs were, to help Rush’s diehard fan base experience the music they love and may never get to hear again live. Towards the end of a nearly three hour show, my wife asked me why the grizzled-looking bearded gentleman adorned in a cutoff jean jacket and newly acquired Rushfest pins in the row ahead of us was crying. I responded in a hushed tone that the band was playing “By-Tor and the Snow Dog”, and that it was a reasonable response from a life long fan, especially if that was his favorite song and he never thought he would hear it again. At least that was my guess. The next question was, “Can we go now? and maybe get ice cream on the way home?”

    Miraculously, in October 2025, Geddy and Alex announced that they had been getting together, playing Rush music and had made the decision to go back on the road for what would be called the “Rush Fifty-Something Tour”, celebrating both the music that they created together and their friend and band-mate Neil. They had recruited the well respected Anika Nilles to play drums, and keyboardist Loren Gold to pick up some keyboard parts that would allow Geddy to focus on playing bass and more of the iconic Rush keyboard lines that he made famous. All of a sudden, Rush was back. Rush fans did not know what to expect, and given that they can be a bit of a “monolith of aging, geeky, and analytical music nerds”, no one was sure what to expect, especially from Nilles, who was an unknown commodity to most, other than the German jazz fusion and progressive instrumental crowd. After a couple of one-off gigs, Rush was back at it again, with a full scale tour scheduled to last into 2027. Honestly, I never thought I would see them again live, and then it was a reality. Not only did they pull it off, but the tour was a hit, with die hard fans praising the band’s musicianship, rooting for Anika on every signature Neil fill, and winning over a new generation of fans with many parents and their kids in attendance together. I had the great pleasure of heading to Chicago to see them on one of many four night residencies, planned to give them optimal time in each city, switching up setlists for diehard fans as well as giving Geddy and Alex time to rest and get ready for the next string of dates. It worked so well that they added additional dates to the tour, including St. Louis, which will allow me to get one more chance to see them.

    Who knows if this tour will be the last for Rush, or what lies ahead, but it definitely has been an interesting ride, and leads me to my closing thought. 80’s synth Rush was the best era. Fight me.

  • The Curious Case of Super 8

    Mark Twain Theater Circa 1980-something from Cinematreasures.org

    On June 12, 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark was released by Paramount pictures and went on to become one of the greatest movies of the 80’s–possibly one of the greatest action-adventure movies of all time. I was 9 years old. Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford, it was propelled by two of the most influential figures of modern action movies. I was first introduced to Harrison Ford by a little sci-fi flick called Star Wars, released in 1977. Star Wars is the first movie I remember seeing, which just so happened to be at the Drive-in theater. Harrison Ford was my hero and by all accounts could do no wrong. I mean, he was Han Solo, and if Han Solo was going to be in a movie, I was going to be there to support him that first weekend. I remember going to see it with my mom at the Mark Twain Theater in St. Louis MO, which itself looked like an action movie set piece, with dilapidated walls and a rust colored templar artifice. The PG-rated Raiders (I like to call it that because it’s cooler to say and shows off my economy of words) was an incredible movie, and if you haven’t seen it yet, please stop reading this post. This movie had everything; dangerous jungles, the Paramount Mountain, a monkey, John Rhys-Davies, snakes, skeletons, trucks, giant boulders, folding coat hangers, treasures, sword guy, Nazis, poisonous dates, submarines, the Ark, and all sorts of plausible action, Yada, yada, yada, along with the incredible music. And don’t forget the face melting. There was plenty of blood splatter, especially when that brute who looked like the Iron Sheik was introduced to that airplane propeller.

    Dreamscape, 1984

    Early 80’s blockbuster movies had their share of gross-out gags, scares and intense spookiness that all lived happily within the confines of the PG rating, and I got to see them all. Poltergeist, Gremlins, Time Bandits, Something Wicked this Way Comes, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, etc. Some of those movies had some downright disturbing moments. So much so that after Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins, complete with beating hearts ripped from chests and enough alien slime to put Nickelodeon to shame, the Motion Picture Association of America debuted a new rating on July 1, 1984, that identified movies including content not suitable for young children. By adding the PG-13 rating, parents had a better chance of knowing what their kids were in for when they sent them off to the theaters. However, a flimsy PG-13 didn’t keep me from seeing any number of movies with copious amounts of mild language, brief nudity, and drug usage. (Hey, what’s up Weird Science?). The first movie to draw this rating was Red Dawn, which convinced us that not only was the bomb going to drop on us any day now (see the TV movie The Day After), we were also going to be invaded by the Russians and Cubans, and our only hope was a bunch of kids in Colorado with some guns they picked up at a local sporting goods store (RIP Powers Boothe). Five days later, the classic Dreamscape was released, also slapped with the PG-13 rating (It was apparently a very busy summer for Kate Capshaw). So, what effect did all of this questionable material have on my impressionable brain? My guess is that had I been shielded from such filth; I probably would have gotten that dream job at Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or maybe even make the world a better place by inventing Olestra!

    One thing is true though, I watched several PG-13 movies while under the age of 13. Movies explicitly not under parental guidance. However, mom and the local theater chain definitely drew the line at R rated movies–those would have to wait until they came out on VHS. I’m guessing this is the reason it took me so long to see The Breakfast Club and Stand By Me.

    On June 11, 2011, Super 8 was released, earning generally positive reviews from critics, even though it never became the next E.T. or made much of a dent in the cinema landscape, it is regarded as a strong entry in the directing career of JJ Abrams, who was influenced by the films of Steven Spielberg. My son was 11. The first trailer had a Close Encounters of the Third Kind vibe, and Ben was enraptured by it during the 20 plus previews that unspooled before another summer movie outing that him and I have long since forgotten. This flick had everything; aliens, trains, kids on bikes, meta-moviemaking, the army, Kyle Chandler, Area 51!!! Ben was all in.

    As the date got closer, more previews released, and Ben started to get more and more excited. However, I noticed something that concerned me as a “responsible” parent. The movie was rated PG-13! How could that be? I wondered. Back in my day, if I wanted to experience some good old Spielbergian cinematic thrills, I could without restriction. But here it was in bold on my TV screen: PG-13. No child under 13 was allowed to view this movie under any circumstances, lest they surely die. Obviously, that was not the case; however, it was a warning. How could I, entrusted with the rearing of a young child in this dangerous world not heed such a well thought out and researched warning like this one? As a good father, how could I bring myself to expose Ben to decidedly non-age-appropriate fare? It’s possible looking back that maybe I over-exaggerated the peril, but nonetheless, I had decided that he was not going to go see it, at least not right away.

    How was I going to explain this to Ben? He was so excited.

    So, like any good parent, I avoided the topic altogether. That was a great tactic for about a day or two, when he inevitably asked me when we were going. Would it be our normal Saturday morning showing after a Friday debut? That was an approach that I used for many movies when Ben was growing up. Even the most popular movies had few attendees at the first Saturday morning showing. Ben and I called it “Popcorn for Breakfast” and we saw tons of movies that way. However, I just didn’t feel comfortable taking him to his first PG-13 movie without knowing what he was in for. Who knew how it could possibly scar his impressionable psyche, which I was responsible for protecting as long as I could. Obviously, I knew that I could not keep him from more adult fare forever, but it just didn’t seem right to rush him headlong into it, especially when I hadn’t seen it. I had already had some missteps when I attempted to show him some of the movies I grew up watching that were actually rated PG. I did not remember that the robot from Short Circuit was interested in Ally Sheedy in that way. I did not want another Johnny-5 incident, so I came up with a brilliant plan. I would go to the movie first and make sure that it was ok for him to watch, and then we would go later after I vetted it. Ben seemed to be OK with the plan, and even though it was extra work on my part, it made the most sense.

    I remember going to see Super 8 at the theater with a friend and thinking that even though it wasn’t a life changing movie that would shape all future movie-going experiences, it was pretty good, that it was not so objectionable as to scar Ben for life, and that it would be OK for him to see.

    I also remember taking Ben to see it, and us having a good time even though it was unremarkable.

    Here’s where our story takes an odd turn (not unlike a good Spielberg movie), he remembers clearly that I did NOT take him and that he never did get to see it as a child, and for the next ten years I sure did hear about it.

    “Oh yeah, like that time you took me to see Super 8?”

    “You really liked that movie? really? was it as good as SUPER 8?”

    “Kyle Chandler? in what movie did he ever play a dad?”

    It would come up in conversation so much so that it became a running joke for the two of us. According to Ben, most of the disappointing things that happened to him growing up can be traced back to me not taking him to see Super 8, including an under-nourished love of film that sent him spiraling into the arms of books and a love of English and grammar (gross). Actually, compared to the actual movie, all of the conversations and fake arguments that Ben and I had about whether or not he saw Super 8 with me were more entertaining than the film itself.

    So last summer at the ripe old age of 21, Ben finally (or maybe for the second time) got to watch Super 8 with me. And….it was fine. I think it took us so long to get around to watching it because we knew that once he saw it and there would be no more debate, that it just wouldn’t be as fun. The movie was fairly unremarkable and ultimately sad, because now there is no more unsettled argument, no more conspiracy, no more mystery, no more guilt. Ben and I watched Super 8, and it was…..fine. As I think about our story and how much fun it was to talk about and debate, I’m reminded over and over again that is usually the case. It is much more fun to talk about the thing than the actual thing. Remember when your friends saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and quoted endlessly from it, and then you finally saw it and it was weird and not nearly as funny as they remembered? It’s kind of like that. It is funny though because we went to see countless movies together, many that he doesn’t remember because he was too young.

    It is true that even though I was given a longer leash as a child than I was prepared or willing to give Ben, there were absolutely moments in which my parents clamped down and protected me not only from the worst parts of the world but from my own tendencies. And, for as seemingly fragile as I thought Ben was when it came to Super 8, I was also the parent that seemed non plussed to find out that he climbed a tree tall enough that his friends could no longer see him. As a parent, we often try to make up for what we think our parents lacked when raising us. The same way that we desire to provide our children with things that we didn’t have growing up, we also desire to give them the experiences that we didn’t have. The adventures that I lacked when I was a kid, I tried to make sure Ben had. In contrast, I also tried my best to protect him from what I thought would jade him earlier than absolutely necessary. I’m sure my parents felt the same way when raising me. However well intentioned, my parents and I both had our moments, and I think Ben and I both turned out OK, depending on who you ask.

  • Barbara and Barbara

    “Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.”

    -Leonard Bernstein

    When I was a kid, my mom listened to A LOT of Barbara Streisand. She had a very large collection of Streisand music on 8-track, album, and cassette.   Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s during the height of Babs’ power, I experienced Disco Babs, Movie Star Babs, Director Babs, Broadway Babs, and several other iterations of Babs.  (However, political Babs was later, which I was mercifully saved from.) Her infiltration was so complete that for many years I thought that she wrote “New York State of Mind” and was somewhat disappointed and underwhelmed when I heard the original by that hack Billy Joel.

    Through mom’s love of Barbara and assisted by the welcome captivity that comes from being a child, I grew to love her music as well. I remember staring endlessly at the cover of the Streisand Superman record thinking that she sure was prettier than the actual Superman and that a Superman movie starring her would be a lot more interesting. At the time, I didn’t categorize her music per se, but just listened and appreciated it for what it was. Since she used an abundance of different writers and was comfortable covering other people’s songs, there was a good variety to her music, even though she is mainly categorized as “easy listening”. (Easy Listening is just that, comfort food for the ears. There’s not really that much for the listener to do rather than sit back and enjoy. Perhaps cozying up by the fire and enjoying a delicious cup of hot chocolate with your trusty lapdog Shep. Way more inviting than other genres with names as off-putting as Technical Death Metal, Grind Core, or Screamo. Thanks but no thanks.) Babs’ voice was powerful and unique, and she was able to elevate many songs with sparse and simple arrangements with her voice alone. She has recorded a couple of Christmas albums and even one in French. She also carved out an enviable niche with duets. Over her career, she has recorded with many distinguished singers including Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Ray Charles, Neil Diamond, Donna Summer, Celine Dion and also Don Johnson (a anomaly occurring when a lesser talented person dates or is married to someone more talented and accomplished than them in a different field, and that person is included in the more talented person’s artistic endeavor, which is why there is a Guy Ritchie-directed movie starring Madonna.)

    Due to my Babs exposure, one of my favorite movies of all time is the Streisand-era A Star is Born. I wore out the soundtrack and watched the movie several times on VHS after mom recorded it from the Sunday afternoon movie of the week. (At one point in time, every movie we had in our collection was recorded from the Sunday afternoon movie of the week, interspersed with small clips of wrestling matches, music videos, and clips from Saturday Night Live. You’re welcome, mom.) It was the third filmed version of the story of a young apprentice that soon overshadows her mentor. It was the first one that was set in the music industry, and music was one of the main draws of the film. The soundtrack was number one on the Billboard charts for six weeks and certified quadruple platinum. The tunes that Kris Kristofferson fronted were massive anthems inhabited by an over-the-hill rocker. I was amazed at how the songs felt like a lived-in collection of greatest hits even though they were written special for the movie. Babs’ songs traced her as an artist in the movie from a talented and tentative amateur that gets pulled up on stage by her boyfriend, who is clearly burned out, to a confident star belting out the love theme from the movie. The soundtrack on its own told the story vividly, and I remember listening to it over and over again. It’s probably one of the reasons that I was so fascinated with live music and performing at a young age. I even sampled the beginning of the song “Queen Bee” for a song that I wrote many years ago. (I am pretty sure that there are no outstanding copyright issues since no one really heard the song and I lost the cassette years ago). I’m of the opinion that this soundtrack is much better than the most recent version, and I’m also willing to accept that I’m biased because my mom loved Barbara Streisand, and so did I.

    Don’t get me wrong, mom and I shared a lot of other music together. We had a giant old console stereo with a built in record and 8-track player. (for the non initiated, I would describe the 8-track as the worst engineered music delivery system ever created with a seemingly random pattern of switching tracks in the middle of songs as well as the fact you could never rewind a song and car stereos loved to eat them.) The console stereo of my youth was the heaviest piece of furniture in the house and lived in my basement unused for many years until I recently repurposed it for blanket storage. (Possibly the only handy thing I have ever done in my life and it almost broke me). Music filled the house every weekend when we were home, and we also devoured Live from the Met on Saturday nights on PBS. I would practice piano for hours and mom, even though she appreciated me gaining the technical skills needed to play piano, also often asked me to play something that she knew and would be clearly annoyed when all I did was practice scales or make up my own songs. I’m not saying that she didn’t encourage me, but I think she was eager for a time when the music filling the house was that of her own son. I can’t remember many times that were we home together growing up when there wasn’t some type of music either playing in the background or as the main event. I have vague memories at a young age of pretending that I was a conductor as I furiously blazed my way through the 1812 Overture and always fell to the ground at the end after the Canons went off, obviously exhausted from all the conducting. There were also the lip synch/tennis racket guitar concerts I would give, highlighting “An evening with Elvis” as well as several Disco-themed Bee-Gees dance parties for one. Mom tried to appreciate the music that I was into at the time and claimed for a while that Jump by Van Halen was her favorite song, but I’m pretty sure that she just had a bit of a thing for David Lee Roth.

    But Barbara was different.  At the time I was not sure why.  There was something about her songs that just clicked for mom.    Babs’ songs came from a myriad of world-class writers, including Carole King, Barry Gibb, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Diane Warren, Paul Williams, and Jim Steinman, so they covered many different perspectives and experiences. Those songs captured several different moods as well as periods of music that ensured no matter what you were going through there was a perfect song that fit. Even though Babs was fluent in all these styles, mom’s favorite was the ballad.  At the time I think I preferred Disco Babs myself, and she even had the ability to turn a ballad into a disco tune halfway through (see Enough is Enough).  Streisand shined on the ballads, something about her voice made you feel what she was singing, and mom certainly felt it. 

    As a child I have vague memories of mom being upset many evenings after dad left for the night. At the time, I did not know why she was upset, as she didn’t put me in the middle of it, but I did know something wasn’t quite right. Their relationship was both complicated and unconventional, and I wasn’t privy to the details until I was older. Dad left every evening during the week around 10:00pm, but he did stay with us during the weekends. This time was stressful for mom and many times music, and especially Streisand, would fill the house in the quiet when dad wasn’t there. Dad actually didn’t seem to enjoy music all that much, and we really never listened to much of anything when dad was there. But when he wasn’t, the TV went off and the music came on and up.

    In 1984, when I was 9 years old, Barbara Streisand released Emotion. It was her 28th album. To say that she was prolific is an understatement. I remember it being a pretty good record, but mom wore it out. She listened to that record A LOT, and even bought me the sheet music to a couple of the songs so I could lean to play them. Those songs were sad, passionate and deeply felt. Make no Mistake, He’s mine and Left in the Dark. Songs about love, loss, resentment, jealousy, and complicated relationship themes that mom could relate to at the time. I think she resonated with these and other songs on the record because they helped her better connect with the things that she was feeling and gave words to feelings that she couldn’t. Bab’s vocal style personified the emotions that she was singing about, and they had a profound impact on mom. At the time, there was no one that mom could talk to about what was going on with her personally, but Babs was her confessor and therapist all rolled into one. Listening to those songs was therapeutic and helped mom get through some really difficult and confusing times in a way that no one else could. I certainly was aware that she was upset a lot and knew that something wasn’t right, but those were things that she couldn’t talk to me about, and rightfully so. I was just a kid, and she did her best to protect me.

    The interesting thing about it looking back is that I don’t think mom was necessarily a big Barbara Streisand fan. Her songs came along at a time when she was going through some things and they became a vehicle for her to process what was happening in her life at the time and then move on from it. As I got older, I would give mom Babs related merch as a gift for holidays and even though she appreciated the thought, several of the later albums and DVD’s I gave her would go unwrapped. It always was a curiosity to me why she no longer seemed interested after having such a deep connection with her music when I was younger. Babs’ music helped her process things that she was going through at the time but wasn’t willing to dwell on. She wanted to move forward, and that’s what she did. She never really felt compelled to go back to that place. It’s fascinating and deeply meaningful to me how sharply my mom’s relationship to Babs and her music contrasts to my connection with the exact same artist.

    When I listen to Barbara Streisand, I can’t help but think of mom. The same music and artist that helped mom through some very difficult times that she choose not to dwell on reminds me of incredible times that I often revisit when I start to miss her. She passed away 10 years ago, and I can honestly say she was one of the best friends I ever had. Sometimes in the car or at home, I’ll put on a Bab’s record and be instantly transported to simpler times, when it was just me and mom, and Babs. I view it as a true gift that we can still have this connection through music.

    Explaining my affinity for Babs to people is difficult, and not a quick story. It’s actually a story about my love for my mom, and my appreciation for the person that helps me remember her best.

  • A Simple Plan

    When I was young, my dad would pick me up from my grandma’s house after school, and he was in charge of dinner. He had no idea what he was doing. When pressed for time due to baseball practice or a piano lesson (baseball didn’t stick, but piano did), dinner consisted of either microwaved Chef Boyardee Ravioli or Campbell’s Vegetable Beef Soup. Occasionally, they came cold, straight out of the can. Both of them were actually pretty good considering the circumstances, and after a while I actually preferred cold vegetable soup to the warmed up alternative. If you could get past the strong aluminum taste and sound of the fork scraping against the can, they were actually pretty good. Many times, dinner hinged on whether or not dad could find the can opener.

    Even though dad’s repertoire was small, it did not deter his enthusiasm for frying anything he could get his hands on. When given enough time, he could certainly make a mess in the kitchen for dinner. Dad was a master at fried bologna sandwiches four or five slices deep and fried so crispy you could hear it break when you pressed the bread together. He always made the entire package of bacon, no matter how many pieces were actually needed (the correct answer is all of the pieces) every time, no exception. A favorite of mine was hamburger with cheese and then an extra piece of cheese, along with the best fried potatoes I’ve ever had. (I’ve been able to repeat the hamburger, the key is to just keep adding American cheese and some Worchester for good measure. However, I’ve never been able to get the potatoes right. The crispier they get, the more they stick to the pan. If I don’t get them crispy enough, they are just mushy and still stick to the pan. Do I not have the right type of pan? Do I need to do something special to the potatoes? Do I need a certain kind of potato? We all have questions that we hope to ask departed loved ones if we ever see them again on the other side, and near the top of my list will be “how did you get those potatoes both thin and crispy?)”

    He was at a bit of a disadvantage as an older dad with absolutely no experience in the kitchen. He didn’t have much of a hands on role in raising his first two kids, and didn’t have me until he was 45. When I started grade school, mom went to work full time as a bank teller and didn’t have time to cook during the week anymore. So dad was the next man up, and I can only imagine that first night looking around the kitchen, shell shocked, in full on panic mode. I didn’t have much patience for that, and “that’s not how mom does it” was a common refrain in our house during the week. In retrospect, it’s a miracle I survived.

    The kitchen was mom’s happy place. Even though it was small, she loved it. Every weekend I remember the house being full of great smells and music spilling out of our under-the-cabinet radio. She was always experimenting, trying new and crazy things, which had mostly positive results. I don’t remember any of the absolute duds, so she at least must have been able to cover her tracks well. She had all of the gadgets and gizmos, choppers, mixers, and a container for every known type of food. It wasn’t just the food–every item in the kitchen had some sort of deep connection for mom. When I was older, I donated an old meat slicer of hers and it was like I sold a sibling to the circus.

    Mom was an inspired baker as well, and her Christmas poppy seed cakes were a huge hit with family and friends, garnering orders starting in September. I must have been too young to properly appreciate the poppy seed cake at the time. To me, they tasted terrible, and at some point I heard that they caused you to fail drug tests, and I knew for sure that at anytime they were going to implement a strict drug test for the local CYC eight and under boys baseball team, and I didn’t want to risk a dirty test (even though I never played due to complete lack of athletic ability). The poppy seed cake only ever grew in legend, yet I have never had another–part of me doesn’t want to try them because I’m afraid I will still think they are awful, and that will (somehow) tarnish mom’s legacy.

    When it came time for me to start cooking for the family 15 years ago, I really had no idea where to start. Up until that point, Jenn did all the cooking, but right before Thanksgiving one year, she came down with the flu and pneumonia within a couple of weeks of each other and was out of commission. So my first real meal was Thanksgiving dinner Simple right? So I did what any self respecting IT guy would do, I downloaded an app and started looking up recipes online. I have no idea how that first one went, but we all survived, so it must have been OK. I had a lot of fun, and asked Jenn if she would be okay if I was the primary cook for us going forward. She was ecstatic. My wife never loved cooking, and food for her was always more about necessity than ingenuity. Over the years, my cooking style has evolved– or shall we say, coalesced, into what I loved about my parents in the kitchen .

    On most Saturdays and Sundays, I get into the kitchen early and get a chance to mix it up a bit. Just like mom, the kitchen is my happy place. I pick a complicated recipe that will take all day to make, start mixing various sauces, chopping ingredients and placing them in their special measured out containers, and partaking in plenty of samples. Unlike mom, I’m not much of mad scientist in the kitchen, and have a strong desire to follow the recipe down to the last item, which often results in quick missions to the store to get capers, specific types of butter and a zest-worthy lemon. I’m also a gizmos and gadgets guy, with my Mueller Chopper as my most prized kitchen tool. I also inherited some pretty awesome kitchen stuff from mom, including a Griswold 9 cast iron skillet that was her mom’s. It’s kind of a big deal if you ask me. Usually a good three course meal takes up to three hours to make, with several stops to taste and adjust the playlist to find just the right tunes to fit each activity–also stopping periodically to check the score of the appropriate sports game (Go Sports Team!) and refresh my drink accordingly. For me, the more people the better. One of my joys is cooking all day for a house full of people and sitting down and enjoying a meal together.

    Weeknights, however, are a different animal. I often find myself channeling dad. On these evenings, I have about 20 minutes to throw together something compared to the leisurely three hours that I give myself on the the weekends. There is definitely less sampling and playlist adjusting, but other things take a hit as well. I have to be creative and simple at the same time, with varying degrees of success.

    Here is a list of some of the things that I have come up with over the years. This is no way an exhaustive list, but the ones I find myself going back to over and over again, as well as some that remind me of a good story, which I can’t resist.

    • Family Sandwich is a large deli sandwich, at least 12 inches, preferably a King of the Hill Sandwich from Schnucks that allows each person to take as much as they want as well as add their own condiments at will. I’m not exactly sure when family sandwich became a weeknight staple, but it definitely is a go-to and probably the easiest to pull off because basically I just buy a sandwich and we eat it. Done. (After doing some informal research, I have discovered that family sandwich isn’t possible in larger families, since it it usually gone before everyone gets a crack at it.)
    • Making a chef salad is a great option since you can put whatever you want in it within reason and you can continue to refresh it as the week goes on. Your only limitation is the lettuce, since that is usually the first thing to go. You can also be creative, and if you have extra time, and you can even make your own croutons, which can be quite delicious. However, be careful what the proportions are as you add ingredients to it as chef salad can easily become “cheese salad”.
    • (The Crock PotTM is every weeknight cook’s best friend. It’s also known as a slow cooker, if you don’t actually own a Crock PotTM . Crock PotTM is kind of like the KleenexTM of slow cookers. For simplicity sake, and to not have to use my TM anymore, I’ll just refer to it as a slow cooker.) The slow cooker is every weeknight cook’s best friend. The tricky thing about a slow cooker is that even though it is simple by nature, it can get get complicated on either side of the prep, depending on what you’re making. There could be any number of extra things to do, including chopping, browning, mixing sauces, boiling noodles, or going to McDonalds when you forget to actually turn on the crockpot before going to work. Also make sure that you don’t overcook it. Apparently you can burn something in the crock pot, and it’s an especially disturbing kind of burnt.
    • Another easy one that all the kids love is pigs in a blanket, with the adult version of that being normal sized hot dogs sliced down the middle with a slice of cheese inside, and wrapped in a crescent roll. Only recently did I figure out that you need to spread out your crescent rolls as to not take this meal from being a hit to gag inducing. No one likes gooey dough wrapped around a cheese-stuffed hot dog.
    • Soboro Donburi is an Asian dish that includes ground beef and a green veggies with white rice. However, without this information ahead of time and if you eat all of the rice, it just looks like a bowl of hamburger with peas in it. (Also, is it just me or does everyone hate peas? I mean, it’s not completely unwarranted. Small green blobs of nothing worth mentioning, and no discernible flavor profile.) “Hamburger Peas” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. This one is pretty easy to make, but you have to make sure that you have enough rice, or you will be mercilessly mocked by those that you feed every night.
    • Wild Rice Casserole is a weeknight staple at our house. Throw some long grain wild rice in the rice cooker (also a must have for any self respecting weeknight cook), and then mix it up with some precooked chicken, soup and wine, top with some parm and throw it in the oven. Super simple, but it’s tasty enough to seem complicated.

    I’ve been able to find a happy medium when it comes to cooking and this is in no small part due to what I’ve learned from both of my parents. There’s an art to mastering a weeknight meal–probably more so than during the weekend. The bulk of cooking you’ll do is by sheer volume, and the mistakes seem bigger because they are harder to fix under a time constraint. Too many of these quick mistakes and your hungry friends and family will be searching for the can opener.

  • An Argument for Orange Tic Tacs, the sixth Love Language

    Back in 1992, a book was published called The Five Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman. At the time it came out, the Five Love Language theory was all the rage as people raced to figure out how best to communicate love to one another in a way that would be most readily received through either words of affirmation, service, quality time, gift giving, or physical touch. Any pre-married couple worth its weight poured over this book hoping to label one another so they could be the perfect spouse, to various degrees of success. At the time, I was pretty convinced that my love language was gifts. However, after almost 30 years of narrowing it down, I actually think my love language is Orange Tic Tacs. Allow me to explain.

    I have an deep affinity for Orange Tic Tacs.

    I can’t get enough of the little buggers.

    Only the orange please

    I honestly can’t remember when my fondness for these little delicious orange bursts of flavor began, but I remember as a young child receiving a case of Orange Tic Tacs for my birthday one year from my grandma, and feeling so loved and valued by her that my mom and dad could have set the new Huffy Bike they got me on fire and I probably wouldn’t have batted an eye. Thinking back on it, she probably had to go through great lengths to acquire an entire case of twelve at the time, since there was no Amazon.com (yes they are available online. I checked.)

    Not my actual car, but close enough

    My very first car was a 1973 Super Beetle, which just so happened to LOOK like an Orange Tic Tac. It’s a slight understatement to say that I was obsessed with this car. I saved up to have a really nice stereo put in it, which was promptly stolen and then attempted to be sold back to me at school one day. The heat for the car was supposed to come from the engine, which I never really quite understood, except for the fact that it got really hot and the electrical tape that I used to close off the vents would often melt and get on my shoe. Needless to say, It was my prized possession for several years, and also elicited my first and only “stalker” which turned out to be some guy that followed me all over town until he finally cornered me and asked me to be in his Super Beetle Club (uh, where do I sign?). The inside had white canvas on the ceiling and I remember reading that cleaning it with toothpaste and a toothbrush would get it as white as the day it came from the factory. I vividly remember this because one hot summer day I was in our driveway vigorously scrubbing the ceiling when I was called into the house to take a call from my first real life girlfriend saying that she needed to break it off because our relationship was bad for her reputation. Who knew?

    I digress

    Also, I actually can’t stand all other original Tic Tac Flavors and I’m not actually sure why they exist. If you want a mint, get an Altoid or something that actually refreshes your breath. Tic Tacs are NOT mints. They are candy, plain and simple. and the only flavor worth anything is orange.

    B-A-N-A-N-A!

    For a brief shining moment in time, there were also Banana flavored Tic Tacs, which were specially made for the Minions movie in 2015. I did get my hands on a couple of boxes, but by the time I did, they were terribly stale. And yes there is a difference between a stale and fresh Tic Tac. You cannot comfortably chew a stale Tic Tac. So it’s difficult to tell how good they would have been in 2015, but in 2018, not great. So given the fact that I only had stale ones and as far as I can tell, they are no longer manufactured, Banana Tic Tacs don’t technically count. I will say that generally in most food items, artificial banana flavoring is the absolute best (I see you Banana Laffy Taffy and Banana Sno Cones), when ironically, actual bananas leave something to be desired. If you could somehow engineer a banana that tastes like artificial banana flavor, I think you might actually be onto something.

    Again, I digress.

    Most trips to the store almost always include one box of Orange Tic Tacs, which are usually at the checkout. I quickly find myself judging the quality of any retail grocery outlet by whether or not Orange Tic Tacs are indeed available. I always feel a small sense of victory and a great deal of satisfaction as I surveil my items, and included among the spoils are my favorite orange treat. At some point I remember that Target actually stopped carrying them. I quickly asked to talk to the the manager about if it was an oversight or if they actually thought that they could continue on without Orange Tic Tacs. I mean, come on. As I laid out all of the obvious financial benefits and business upside to continue carrying them, I can only imagine that the manager was slightly annoyed and maybe equally impressed by my conviction and tenacity. A recent scan of a local Target confirms that they currently do carry Orange Tic Tacs. You’re welcome, everyone.

    For some reason, a box of Orange Tic Tacs makes me smile. I’ve even tried to make a case in my brain for it being a combination of all the love languages rolled into one.

    • Gifts: This one is pretty obvious
    • Words of affirmation: “Hey, would you like a Tic Tac?” (note that most people do not turn down a free Tic Tac)
    • Quality Time: Time spent enjoying Tic Tacs together.
    • Acts of Service: Giving someone a unsolicited Tic Tac feels like you are performing some sort of good deed, because you are making them happy. It even looks like medicine.
    • Physical Touch: Even holding a Tic Tac is fun, unless you drop it. That’s a zero to sixty from happy to sad, especially if it is your last one and you drop it between your seat and the middle console of your car, and somehow it gets lodged UNDERNEATH the carpet and the car and no matter what you do, you can’t reach it, and it’s there for years and is probably still there even though you sold the car several years ago…

    This small orange candy, mint or whatever you might want to call it means something to me. I’m sure that there was probably a particular moment in time when it began, or it’s possibly just the memories of family and youthful days gone by that have added up over the years and created this connection. What I do know is a day that includes Orange Tic Tacs is just a little bit better than one that doesn’t.

    “Hey, would you like a Tic Tac?”

  • Got Salami On My Mind

    I’m a big fan of salami. I’ve never done a deep dive into how salami is made. Which is likely why I’m a big fan of salami.

    When I was a kid, the go-to was the hard salami sandwich with yellow mustard on plain white bread. Not toasted, not melted, nothing. Also, it had to be at least three pieces of salami and if not that much why even bother? Oh, and a cup of milk. Always a cup of milk.

    I’m also not sure exactly why only hard salami, but that was a requirement, and it couldn’t have any of those peppers or anything else in it because that just distracted from the salami, and again, why even bother?

    It also had to be very thinly sliced because again, why bother?

    There was never any talk of warming up the salami first. Blasphemous! I thought. I was very content to eat my cold salami sandwiches for the rest of my live long days.

    Over the years I also expanded my repertoire to include salami roll ups, which included cream cheese, various herbs, and recently a small slice of pickle. Delicious. These would most likely come out around the holidays as a snack, and usually I wouldn’t make a pass by the tray with at least grabbing a couple as I quickly passed by, and then as I passed by again.

    I was reminded of all my Hard and Fast Salami Rules (band name) as I was pleasantly surprised by having someone buy me one of these bad boys today for lunch.

    why, hello beautiful!

    If you are wondering, this is a Gioa’s Hot Salami Sandwich from Goia’s Deli on the Hill in St. Louis. https://www.gioiasdeli.com/

    The existence of this sandwich actively flies in the face of all of my preconceived notions of how salami is supposed to be enjoyed. it is simply one of the best sandwiches around.

    The best thing about it is that acquiring this sandwich was a surprise and someone else bought it for me. Miracles do happen.

  • Welcome to Cookie’s Kitchen!

    Welcome to Cookie’s Kitchen, a blog dedicated to the memory of and inspired by my mom.  All of the closest people in my mom’s life knew her as Cookie, and most of what I learned about life and food, I learned in Cookie’s Kitchen.

    My mom instilled in me many valuable things over the years, including a love for cooking.  Over the last few years of her life, I had the joy and honor of having her live with me.  During that time, I was able to cook for her.  It was an amazing experieince to share new meals with her and see the look on her face when I cooked something new or surprised her with her favorite meal.

    My hope is that through this blog, I can share with you some of the things I learned about food, faith, music and life in Cookie’s Kitchen…