Thank God for gravy, honestly. Hattie and Ann couldn’t help but drop the potatoes—plunkplunkplunk—into the sink. Third time in seven holidays, neither one of them ever seeming to get the hang of pouring out a gallon enameled pot of boiling water, each one grimacing, holding onto a handle for dear life with hand shielded by a cow print, terry cloth potholder.
“We can scrub them off!” Ann would always laugh, and Mama Rose would give them a look and take over, determined to keep those ‘two ninnies’ away from her nylon dish scrubber, which they would always try to use in place of a vegetable brush, insisting that soap was clean. Pop would try and watch the game as best he could while administering to the roast—it was his job, and the old stove was persnickety and gas. Last year he bought what must have been his twelfth meat thermometer to make sure the roast was turning out even. Come Wednesday morning he realized that once again he’d managed to misplace it.
“Come on, run the ball—ow!” he’d seethe and lick his fingers, head rotated nearly around like an owl trying to peer into the living room. He’d found a replacement meat thermometer at the five and dime right around their six o’clock closing.
At the end of it all Mama Rose’s mashed potatoes would come out mealy from Ann and Hattie’s overcooking and Mama Rose’s watery béchamel, Pop’s roast would always have an inch and a half pink spot right in the middle and a near blackened corner on the left, the greens would have been left at home by Mom and she’d have to take the car, the carrots would be too cold and the yams would be molten hot, but when it came to the gravy? Mom made the home stop count. She would always come back with two big glass containers of store bought gravy that she seemed to have forgotten she was going to bring. A pretext, maybe. Mama Rose would fuss and dump them into her smallest pot, bubble them for a few minutes with her own added crackle of black peppercorn and pinch of salt, and then pour it into her big butter colored cow-shaped gravy boat. (Her kitchen was gloriously overtaken by cows.)
In the end, we’d douse everything in gravy until our mouths nearly ran with sauce.
INSTANT NOODLES 