Two Teaspoons of Turtles

My father cooks.  (He is a cook).  He can also build things.  Like our house, and elaborate science projects and dollhouses and collapsible walls that turn his daughter's expensive 1-bedroom Manhattan apartment into an affordable 2-bedroom share.  He also is really great with fabric.  He can tell when a shirt has a hint of acrylic or polyester in it- just by putting his fingers near it.  And more useful- he can sew, do any alteration.  He made my mom's wedding dress.  Bought the silk and sowed it himself.

But most often my dad cooks.  He's been cooking his whole life, my whole life.  I remember bratty kids coming over for dinner when I was in elementary school.  I just wanted the kids to like me and I knew my father was going to make a big production- lots of pots and pans, his chicken-and-chorizo pie with my name spelled out on top in dough calligraphy... And then the whole family would sit down together for the big presentation.  

I suspected, though I never knew from first hand experience, that the cool kids didn't eat with their parents, that they probably ate pizza bagels (we never had those growing up) while sitting on the couch watching 90210 (a show I was never allowed to watch) and talking on the phone (no phone calls for me during the school week).  

And as I assumed, after hours-- of sauteing garlic, onions, chopped peppers, tasting, adding spices, tasting, and stirring a bubbling concoction-- a chunk of Asiago cheese was in the silver grater, a million pots and pans were in the sink, and my dad's brilliant homemade sauce was steaming in a glass bowl in the middle of the table, spaghetti in the other, garlic bread in the basket.  Oh it was all on display that night.  We sat down at the counter and the two kids who were visiting asked for ketchup to put on their pasta.  They "never ate red sauce."  My dad almost choked on his semolina angel hairs.

Another time we had to bring snacks to school- the last day of technology class (8th grade) and I asked my dad to make the popcorn he always made me (secret ingredient: sugar).  According to my dad, that's the way they made popcorn in Argentina.  Sweet.  I proudly brought in the popcorn in a giant Ziploc bag.  I thought for sure it would change the lives of every kid in that classroom.  Well nope, it didn't.  No one even ate it.  (Except me).  And my teacher held it up to some students during the "party," when he thought I wasn't looking: "What did she put in the popcorn? Is that sugar? Gross."   

When I was in junior high my mother told me that I'd better ask my father to teach me how to cook.  "He's not going to be around forever," she told me, "and his cooking secrets will die with him."  Well after I had a good long cry over my father's quickly impending death, I went to him with a notepad and pen and asked him to teach me how to make his family-famous dessert:  crepe suzette with dulce de lece.

When I got ready to write it all down- for posterity- I watched my father silently dump an indiscernible amount of flour into the mixing bowl. I said, "Dad what are you putting in? I have to write this down."  After a pause, he answered, "Two... teaspoons... of turtles." 

At first I thought this was hilarious, and so he kept it up. But then I looked down at my notebook and the page was full of "turtles" and "giraffes" and other nonsensical descriptions for food. So I begged him to be serious. But he just shrugged and said he didn't know how much of anything he put into his crepes.

My father may be many great things, but a great communicator is not one of them.  At the time, I thought he thwarted my efforts to learn his recipes because he didn't want someone else to become a better cook and take his place-- I mean, as far as we knew, we needed him in order to eat.  But that's a silly over-simplification from a young mind.  The truth is, I think, that my father has no recipes.  To this day he doesn't measure.  He doesn't read instructions from a book or a note card.  He feels his way through it.  He experiments.  When he finds something that tastes good, he remembers it.  It's rote.  After years and years of practice, and formal culinary training, he's just really good at eyeballing it.  

Growing up, I never thought it was out of the ordinary-- a little girl going into school telling the other kids that she had London Broil with chimichurri marinade with roasted potatoes and sauteed mushrooms for dinner the night before.    And I think that's pretty darn cool.  

I'll tell you one other thing- that nay saying technology teacher eats at least once a week at my dad's restaurant.  Gross.