My Favorite Celebratory Recipe
Originally written for Jeannette Ferrary's workshop: Food for Thought
MY FAMILY ENJOYED many celebratory dinners in the home of my Great Aunt Maxine – former owner of Spokane, Washington’s Titty Pink nightclub.
Maxine was a voluptuous, bleached blonde who wore blood red nail polish and shopped so compulsively that her cupboards overflowed with unopened boxes and shopping bags brimming with expensive goodies bearing tags from ritzy stores like I.Magnin and the Bon Marchè.
Maxine also collected a long list of husbands including her first, Noel, a slick good-looker who wore sharkskin suits and was, reputedly, a gangster; and her last, Frankie, a stout, mashed potato mountain of a man whose argyle socks were held up with suspenders.
Maxine’s greatest love, however, was Charlie Healey – a yellow-feathered parakeet who chirped his home phone number (“TR8-4080! TR8-4080!”) while perched on top of his mistress’ untidy cloud of up-swept hair.
Max and her husband Frankie owned two homes for Charlie Healey to fly around: one on Queen Ann Hill, overlooking the bright blue waters of Seattle’s bustling harbor, and another at the edge of a lake an hour or so outside the city.
While waiting for Uncle Frankie to return home from the track, where he’d bet on fillies with names like ‘Loose Change’ and ‘Busty,’ Auntie Max cooked with Charlie Healey balanced on her shoulder. She treated Charlie better than his mommy probably had – allowing the little bird to peck morsels of food right off her tongue.
My fondest memories of Maxine are watching her cook. Occasionally she tried the exotic – serving salad as a last course, as she reminisced about a former French lover who’d shown her ropes of a kind best not remembered within earshot of the young. Another time she attempted to ‘roast’ a 15-pound Thanksgiving turkey in an early prototype of the modern microwave oven.
I believe we dined on cold, canned ham that year.
MAXINE BLOOD HEALEY died in 1975 and I still miss her. Here’s one of her best recipes:
Bliss
Open and drain two or more cans of jumbo-size pitted black olives;
Pour olives into a classy crystal bowl (with price tag still attached to the bottom) and cover with plastic wrap;
Refrigerate until the first signs of alcohol fatigue and/or parental disapproval;
Remove from refrigerator and place bowl directly in front of a child;
Allow said child to partake freely – encouraging the placement of olives on fingers and silly giggling;
Settle back and sip scotch on the rocks from a tall tumbler decorated with images of Seattle’s Space Needle circa 1964 World’s Fair while openly enjoying the outpouring of love from two little girls who can, 55-years later, think of no finer role model.