Feast, Famine, and a Mink Coat

A micro-memoir of a childhood in two houses

1. At Dad’s, the next meal wasn’t always certain.

Ministers don’t get paid well. One night, food was anonymously delivered to our doorstep: my parents’ answered prayer at the last moment. I didn’t learn to cook; the kitchen was holy ground.

At Dad’s, food was scheduled on the fridge in ruled-up squares. It was measured, counted, restricted, sacred.

2. At mum’s, we pushed a bulging trolley around the supermarket.

We threw in whatever we wanted: bags of candy, huge jars of pickles, smoked salmon in thick vacuum-wrapped chunks, blue cheese and three flavors of crackers.

Mum added capers and avocado to everything.

And ice-cream. There was always ice-cream, but never the cheap kind. She loved Italian-sounding slabs of vanilla with layers of thin, wavy chocolate that gave a delicate crack when you bit in. She didn’t even blink when the checkout girl named the price.

3. Her fridge sat unused, two weeks at a time.

She travelled for work and my sisters and I lived most of the time at dad’s.

On weekends at mum’s, we knew to test the milk, slosh it for signs of sour lumps settled in the bottom of the plastic container. Lumps that were usually there.

Jars of tomato and olive relish, opened but barely used, became experimental petri dishes. We examined mystery bacterial growth on the butter, the Greek yoghurt, the bread.

The fridge was her laboratory.

Mum took a sharp knife and surgically removed black scum from the cheese. She was a nurse once.

4. My 13th birthday party, she themed with yellow smiley faces and posh food.

A huge yellow cardboard platter rose from the table’s center with three-tiers of meat and antipasto: rolled pastrami slices, carefully placed cherry tomatoes, fat green olives stuffed with pimento.

“Did you see the pressed tongue?” I asked my friends.

We had a fashion parade and wore mum’s heels, her mink coat. “I pretend it’s fake,” she said. “So people don’t throw paint at it.” It was the 80s.

I didn’t eat the tongue but it felt nice, just knowing it was there.