Day: February 12, 2019

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Hershey’s Kisses Are Good, But They’re Not Real Kisses

The company I buy most of my bow ties from (Beau Ties LTD) names each design of its bows. Bow Tie o’ the Day’s name is KISS GOLD, because it is based on Gustav Klimt’s painting called THE KISS, a photo of which I’ve provided here. (And look, there’s a cape involved in the painting’s smooch.) Cufflinks o’ the Day provide mini lips, for added thematic detail. After I got dressed, I made one of the lips links give Skitter a kiss, and it was about the right size for her lips. Note: I don’t usually make my cufflinks kiss Skitter on the lips.

Because it’s almost Valentine’s Day, I should say something about kisses. But I’m at a loss as to how to begin or end writing about a kiss. There is so much to say, and yet no pile o’ words comes close to approximating how it feels to experience kisses. Like the kiss from your soulmate. Or how it feels to kiss your baby for the first time. Or how it feels to give your crying teenager an it’ll-get-better kiss, after they experienced an unfairness at school. Or how it feels to kiss a beloved parent’s forehead for the last time, before the casket lid is closed. I could go on. There are infinite kinds of kisses, and they can mean infinite things. Sometimes a single, solitary kiss can express a multitude of meanings, layer upon layer.

But about kissing or about being kissed, or about what a kiss even is exactly– I dunno. I am a writer, and all this “kiss” stuff is one topic I know I don’t have the skills to write about in a way that could possibly say what I want to say, and say it in the way I want to say it. Kisses leave me speechless, which is probably the most accurate, graceful thing I can say about kissing.

Having praised all kisses, I will now present the exception that proves the rule (at least for me). Here goes: Slobbery kisses on the cheek from aunts are yucky! The horror! The horror! (Not all my aunts, but most.) When we’d go visit an aunt or an aunt would come to our place, the first moment that aunt would see me, I could see it coming. I’d hide, I’d duck, I’d bob-and-weave but I couldn’t dodge the slobbery aunt kisses.

“Aunt Kiss Slobber” never dried. You were always somewhere a paper towel or tissue wasn’t handy, and you didn’t want that kiss goop anywhere on your sleeve. But you didn’t want to wipe it off with your hand because you knew you could never wash your hand completely clean of it– no matter how long and roughly you scrubbed. It would forever feel like it was there, sticky and ewwwww. Forget about your cheek. It’s toast. There’s no saving it. It’s just plain invisibly scarred for time and all eternity.

Decades ago when I was a wee one, up Oak City Canyon for a family gathering, I received an aunt kiss so wet I knew I would surely die of gross. I ran to the creek, grabbed the first leaves I could find, and used them to wipe, wipe, wipe that goo off my face till it hurt. I dunked my head in the water, holding it under as long as I could stand it. My cheek stung like the dickens and I was sure the aunt kiss had eaten clean through my cheek to my teeth. But nope. The leaves I’d grabbed to wipe it off were stinging nettle. I was too young to know my canyon foliage yet. [Do not misunderstand me: I loved my aunts, just not their over-the-top cheek kisses. Even now, I’d choose stinging nettle over an aunt slobber.]

When you become an aunt, you understand the impulse to cover your nieces and nephews in kisses and hugs. When you become an aunt, you automatically receive The Calling: you are endowed with the aunt power that makes it impossible for nieces or nephews to dodge your hugs and kisses. Despite the Aunt Calling, the memory of slobbery aunt kisses has always haunted me. As a result, I have never given a slobbery aunt kiss. I get a gold star for that.

As far as slobbery aunt kisses go, my recommendation to young nieces and nephews all across the planet is this: Since you’re never going to escape your aunts’ kisses, position yourself strategically in front of them, such that they end up kissing the same cheek every time. That cheek will be tainted, but you’ll still have one pure, uncontaminated cheek left for your soulmate.

BTW I know many a grandma gives slobbery kisses too. But that’s different. That is Grandma Slobber, and that’s the best.

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Personally, I Believe In Oven Mitts

Entwined hearts Bow Tie o’ the Day is perfect for Mom. I have been told she’s having an extremely tough time missing Dad recently. Even though he’s gone, their love lives. It’s a time-space continuum thing.

This photo was taken almost 20 years ago. I think Mom is in the kitchen at the Palomar. Most likely, this was a Thanksgiving bash. Check out Mom’s attack face. She is darn well gonna conquer those two loaves of cheese bread. And note the oven burns on the back of Mom’s hand. You’ve heard of rug burn. Well, this is cheese bread burn. She burned her hands on the oven coils every time she made cheese bread. Every time, I tell you. Mom never met an oven glove she’d use. She was strictly a dishtowel gal.

In our house, the electric knife was used for cutting only two things: carving turkey and slicing cheese bread. It was basically used only on Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter. And then the gadget was put back in its little 70’s original box, and into the kitchen cupboard where Mom and Dad kept the checkbook. The knife laid in its skinny box all alone for 363 days a year. Poor thing. I should have put a bow tie in with it for company.

Mom’s cheese bread is a sacred food. Many of you have had the privilege of tasting Mom’s confections over the years, and you know she was an excellent all-around cook. But Mom’s cheese bread was something she made almost exclusively for family holiday dinners. It was a rare gem. And it was the key food item of those dinners. Dinner did not happen without the cheese bread. Kinds of salads changed. Different versions of potatoes joined the basic mashed potatoes. You’d think the turkey would be the star of these feasts, but it was always about the cheese bread.

And it was war. The most desired slices of cheese bread are the ends, where the cheese-to-bread ratio is the highest. If you managed to score one of the ends, it was only because you managed to steal one before someone else stole it.

At some point after dinner, there was what I’ll refer to as The Semi-Annual Battle Over the Tinfoil On Which the Cheesebread Was Cooked. The tinfoil cheese was like the cherry on top. It was like the prize in the cereal box. The foil was covered in baked-on, cheese bread drippings. Dad usually won that war. And then he would sit at the head of the table, picking carmelized blobs of cheese off the tinfoil—obnoxiously, so we couldn’t help but watch it happen. And we drooled through the torture of witnessing the results of our defeat.

I have made this cheese bread for parties and dinners and potlucks in three states in this U.S. of A., and I can attest to its lusciousness. A couple of enemies became my friends because of this cheese bread. Its powers know no bounds. Hell, Mom’s cheese bread could probably find a way to balance the federal budget. It’s powers are that incredible.