FAY'S GOT BOOBIES - CHICKEN BREASTS

My name is Faith Ann Farrell. When I was a little girl I used to say my whole name REALLY FAST - so it sounded like one, singular NEW name -FAFANNFARRELL- and saying it SUPER SPEEDY 3 times in a row without stopping was my own personalized version of the tongue twister and even though I was in 6th grade and proud of my new tricky yet truthful name - my family just decided - I guess - to rename me with a shorter and easier and sadly BLANDER version - FAY and so FAY I was and this was when we lived in Marshfield, Massachusetts and even though we nearly(but not quite) lived walking distance from Humarock Beach where all the cool kids hung out during summer vacation and would meet by the corner store with their flip flops and lip gloss and everyone would be eating Lick-a-Stix or Push-Ups - I, FAY, would find myself making art projects for the Marshfield County Fair and it would be hot and breezy and you could still smell the salt from the ocean and I would be sitting at the picnic table on the deck gimping away keychains and carving soap sculptures and making candles that looked like ice cream sundaes and then the HEAT WAVE hit and the candles and soap started to melt and my mom announced that NO MORE should we suffer for we would be going to a POOL PARTY at Joanne Grant's House and she was pretty fancy and in Couple's Card Club and they had a pool and a grill and lots of fruit and chips and lots of people there and I went and had this orange and turquoise bathing suit on and I remember looking at the hair on my legs and wondering when I would be old enough to shave because there were a few girls there who went to my school and THEY had smooth legs and long, thin bodies and here I was - with my Leather Tuskadaro SHAG haircut and my unshaven legs and my chunky size and then I got really shy all of a sudden though my brother seemed to have NO problem talking folks up and making them laugh and so I thought the best solution was for me to disappear into the crisp, blue clean chloride of the pool and lose myself to swimming and perhaps some underwater spying and so I took off my towel and went to the diving board to avoid my popular brother in the shallow end and then I climbed the ladder to the top and even though I don't know how to dive I thought I could just jump in quietly and begin my disappearing act and as I stood on the tip of the diving board and was about to jump I hear my brother YELL - "MA - MA!!!!! FAY'S GOT BOOBIES!!!!" and the whole party stops and even the grill stops sizzling and everyone is looking at me - FAY -now with BOOBIES - UP AND CENTER on the diving board and I didn't know what to do except pray for lightning to strike and take me away and instead of just DIVING in to disappear as my initial plans dictated, I STOOD THERE and FROZE and sweated and then the HORROR of it all took over and I began to SCREAM and SCREAM and try to climb down that ladder as fast as I could which was not fast because I am clumsy and awkward and now I had BOOBIES to contend with and so I grabbed my towel and ran to the car and my mom brought us home and even though that wasn't the first of the pool parties we were invited to it was certainly the last - and then summer went by and even though I STILL wasn't allowed to shave my legs- I HAD to shop for bras and my body was going one way though my mind was going another and even though I won FIRST PLACE and a blue ribbon for my woven gimp keychain shaped into the letter F - the fun was gone because I knew that I was no longer a FAY.....but now a FAITH.


FAY'S GOT BOOBIES - CHICKEN BREASTS

(dictated from my mom - Gloria!!!! Go MOM!)

Go buy a pack of regular chicken breasts - about 4-6 in a packet. DO NOT buy the boneless kind! Salt and Pepper them- and braise them a bit in butter to let out the flavor. Put them in a buttered pan UPSIDE DOWN and take about a cup of stuffing (your choice - already made) into each breast - cover with tin-foil and bake in the oven at 325 degrees for about an hour - (this depends on how big the breasts are - but if you look in a cookbook or go online it should tell you the time per pound)

Monster at the End of the Book Basic Pastry for Pies

Today I missed my grandma. I miss my grandma ALL days - but today her GRANDMA SMELL wafted through my mind as I tried to shake that MONSTER AT THE END OF THE BOOK monster far away from me. The Monster at the End of the Book was my favorite book as a little girl and starred the lovable, furry old Grover and Grandma Seering would read it with such fierce glee and terror I found myself between a world of intense suspense and loyal love.

I share a secret with my Grandma. Still - even though she's gone. Whe knows that I have a ritual when I go to her house. She knows that when I go to the bathroom, I slide shut the sliding door and open the closet to find this - the BAND AID BOX. It's an old gallon milk carton cut in half - still shiny with it's forty year old wax. My grandma hadn't changed this box for over 20 years - I love that she took the time to label the masking tape on it - and the loop-de-loop of her letters remain the same.

My fascination with the BAND AID BOX, perhaps - is strange considering all of the beautiful photos and antiques and stories hanging in her house - I am obsessed with this cut-up cardboard box. I cherish the old logo and the clunky printing. I take deep whiffs of the the Grandma smell which lives inside along with yellowed cotton balls, rolls of medical tape and a tin of old matches - and of course - there are the band-aids.

Grandma was MY band-aid - she could kiss away the scrapes and bake away the bruises. THere was nothing her handpicked blueberry pie couldn't fix. She was her own kind of medicine man - bringing sunshine to plants and cheering them on throughout the years. In her garden STILL blooms the 60 year old peony plant that sister Agnes gave her. She mothered a family of Easter Cacti - the oldest one over 38 years old - and I do my best to carry them on....Her plants raise their punky, healthy leaves to salute her.

Grandma could fix a heavy heart with her gift of words - an animated story-teller, she grabbed on to the details of a moment and would weave them together to fix a sad spirit. Every card she sent was personalized with a thought, observation, homemade prayer or poem. Doodled in the margins of her phone book - you can find her thoughts scrawled in her loopy, perfect penmanship.

My grandma could cure boredom as well - "let's play BINGO - let's play UNO - let's play JACKS - tell me a story and I will tell you one - Oh my stars, let's stop for fresh bread". We would wash dishes with the game of the biggest SQUEAK of a clean plate.

In college, Grandma healed my home-sickness with care packages of cheese, molasses cookies and Tabu perfume. My roommates would gawk as I untied the string from the brown papered package and revealed the cookies and cheese. You can send cheese through the mail???? OF COURSE you can - it's Wisconsin.

We all know that band-aids can sting it you rip them off too quickly and even though you know its coming, I closed my eyes and STILL -an unspeakable OUCH.

My grandma was more than a grandma - she was a mother, a wife, a friend, and aunt, a cousin, a daughter, a neighbor, a sister a volunteer, a gardener and a cook. She collected panda bears and loved to watch birds. She made the world beautiful with her love for flowers and bright and bold colors. She was sassy and spunky and generous and real. She could gut a fish and make home-made 7-UP. She had flawless skin and beautiful hair. She loved to laugh out loud and win at cards.

As I look at my clunky, homemade treasure chest of Grandma's mystic healings - I realize that the secret I thought I shared with her turned out to not be a secret at all.

SHE is my monster at the end of the book.


Monster at the End of the Book Basic Pastry for Pies

2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cups shortening
5-7 tablespoons COLD water.

Sift flour - salt together. cut in shortening with pastry blender till all mixture looks like cornmeal or small peas. Sprinkle 1 TBSP water over part of mixture - gently toss with fork. PUsh to side of bowl - repeat till all mixture is moistened - then from into a ball - for double crust - divide ball.

Frosty Come Back Pop-Rock Cocktail

When I was a little girl we had a dog named Frosty who was large and white and fluffy and sweet and one time woke up my mom in the middle of the night and dragged her into my bedroom where I was hot with sweat and laying in puke even though the room was eerily ICE cold and there were no windows open and OF COURSE we ALL LOVED Frosty for he was the Farrell version of Lassie by saving me from the chill and the fever and watching over us as my dad traveled the country due to work and then one day my dad comes back from his work travels and tells us that for Christmas we are going to Disneyland where I was tall enough to ride Space Mountain and buy POP ROCKS - the candy of the future- and we all rode the Flying Dumbos and even the Twirling Tea Cups where - in a midst of swirl and twirl I hear screaming from my brother and so I try to crane my neck up to look at the CAUSE and I see my mom laughing hysterically and her hair flying out loud in the twirl of it all - and then I see blood coming from her mouth - but it is FLYING BLOOD and now I am scared like my brother and my dad is on the sidelines snapping away pictures to remember our now not FUN but HORROR and the teacups stop and my mom is still laughing because she doesn't know she is bleeding and she looks at the FEAR on our faces and the blood on her hands and HUSHES us up because it is no big deal - she just bit her tongue and LET'S NOT RUIN THE FUN and hurt your father's feelings.....and there we were in the land of CROCODILES and FUTURE CANDY and TRA-LA-LA ladies like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty who bothered me with their prissy pomp when my dad announces that we were getting one final gift - the gift of music and salt-water sea fish!!!! We were going to Sea World on CHRISTMAS DAY to see Johnny Cash and June Carter LIVE - singing about jail and love and boys named Sue while having a killer whale named Shamu as their back-up dancer/splasher -and my dad took pictures of Johnny and June and also my brother who was pirate-like with a REAL parrot on his shoulder and one of me feeding some goats though the goats actually FED ON ME as they actually tried to EAT the Holly Hobby T-shirt I was wearing - and then our VACATION FUN TIME was over and so we flew back to Ohio and going home meant coming home to loyal FROSTY and that meant the holiday wasn't yet quite over - but when we got to the place to pick him up our family ride stopped spinning and my dad returned after a very long time - and when he came to the car there was no dog and only my dad taking off his glasses and wiping what looked like tears though he NEVER cried and I remember thinking how odd it was to see now BOTH my mom and dad have things leak from their faces on vacation - and there was just silence and even as a kid you KNEW without KNOWING and so I went straight to my room where the air was once again CHILLY and sadly now empty and I opened my pop-rocks - my CANDY of the FUTURE - and like blackmail money for the Tooth Fairy - poured some on the end of my night table in hopes that the FUTURE could somehow be changed and lure back Frosty into the chill of my room and make me warm once again.

FROSTY COME BACK POP-ROCK COCKTAIL
(thanks to Pop-Rock Web Page)

Ingredients:

1 oz Absolut Kurant
1/2 oz Chambord raspberry liqueur
Fill with Tonic water
Drop Sour Berry Pop Rocks on top

EXHAUSTION LEMON WATER

I am tired and my body looks like a beat up robot with its toxic silver spray paint drippings even though I wore a paint SUIT and a hair CAP and eye goggles and a respirator and gloves and steel tipped boots and even did the LADY'S SPA TREATMENT of slathering vaseline on hands under gloves and I am beat and tired and tired of the color SILVER and so today - my story is over and I know that when I wake up I will be - once again - content to know that even though I may not win first place and WIN GOLD - a second place SILVER MEDAL is not so bad............

EXHAUSTION LEMON WATER

Get your favorite glass and fill it with ice CUBES - preferably from those metal ice trays with the lever on them.

Throw in a slice of lemon

Pour water over them and nod HELLO to the goosebumps you get from the sound of the ice CRACKING and be thankful that YOU - yourself - are somehow not.

SCOTT BAIO- YOU BASTARD- CHEESECAKE

One day in 6th grade we got an extra thrilling assignment to write about what our FANTASY WORLD would be like if we ever were to get one and live it and we were also told to draw a picture of it and the only other rule was that we could only have ONE other person in our FANTASY LAND and so I ran home and sharpened my pencils and arranged my crayons and started writing about how I would live on a cloud and this cloud would be made of cherry cheesecake and I would never be STUCK on the cloud for important events like birthdays and slumber parties because there was a RAINBOW SLIDE connected to home and on my cherry cheesecake cloud were palm trees because palm trees were exotic and I lacked the exotic and fancy even though I DID have a canopy bed with pink and lime patchwork fabric and because I would need liquid to survive on my cloud I had a water bubbler but instead of water you could press a whole bunch of buttons and get different flavored kool-aids like cherry or grape but never orange because orange was like that McDonald's orange drink which gave me sore throats and then - for comfort - I designed a giant HEART SHAPED BED that turned around and sparkled and played music like Beethoven and the B-52's and I was soon done with my composition but stumped on the other person to share with part and really I knew who it would be because I LOVED HIM - and I knew he LOVED ME - I spent all babysitting earnings on Tiger Beat and Teen Beat and memorized the gold cross necklace he wore and all the foods he loved to eat and so after a while I let the TRUTH - the FATE of my life take over and gently push me towards the union I would forever have with SCOTT BAIO and then I made my picture and used an eraser - which I NEVER used- to make sure all the drawings of palm trees and rainbows and heart shaped beds were perfect and when it came to the drawing of Scott and Me sitting on the bed I got stumped on drawing the faces so I unglued one of the photos of Scott's beautiful head from my window shade and pasted it on his body and then it dried and I didn't know what to do for my face and all I had was a 3x5 photo of me with my permed hair and buck teeth but it was almost time for bed and my picture to be done and so I glued my GIGANTIC HEAD next to Scott's proportionate peanut head and I knew I could win him over by my LOVE DECLARATION and so when we got our graded themes back there was no going back and so I sent it off in a homemade envelope made of his heads and sent it to the PRESIDENT of the Scott Baio Fan Club and for the next 3 months I would rush home and check the mailbox for I had NO DOUBT that he TOO was in LOVE with ME and then another 3 months went by and I notice I didn't like tape-recording the audio to Happy Days as much as I used to and then 3 MORE months go by and finally I throw myself on my canopy bed and listen to Air Supply's - I'm All Out of Love - and as I cry into my diary I realize that my quest was not one of FANTASY - and only one of FAN.

SCOTT BAIO - YOU BASTARD -CHEESECAKE

1 - 9 inch graham cracker crumb crust
8 oz cream cheese - softened
14 oz EAGLE Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated)
1/3 cup Lemon Juice
1 TSP vanilla extract
Canned cherry pie filling - chilled

In large bowl, beat cheese until fluffy. Gradually add sweetened condensed milk - beatuntil smooth. Stir in lemon juice and vanilla. POur into crust. Chill 3 hours or until set. Top with desired amount of pie filling. Refrigerate leftovers.

Enjoy while NOT watching Happy Days or Charles in Charge!

CHAIN GANG MAGIC DUMPLINGS

Today I got to be a member of a chain gang making these giant chain links for some fancy pants magician's billboard......... I don't like magic.

I have a faint and defined memory of one evening in this Pizza Parlour Basement Restaurant near the brownstone I first grew up in on 6th Street in Milwaukee. One particular FAMILY NIGHT we all went to have pizza in this vine-coated cellar full of smoke and garlic and dusty plastic grapes and SOON - the pizza was coming and I was excited because there was to be a MAGIC SHOW and all little girls LOVE magic because it is what girls loved besides ponies and TV's Judy the Monkey and Partridge Family and my homemade white dress with daisies on it and things that glitter and I once had a fun gift given to me by a distant relative who bought me a camera that squirted water when you said CHEESE and BOY did I think that was MAGICAL and I was eager to see a PRO at work with his arm flingings and TA-DA's and everything ABRACADABRA - and this magician meant business with his top-hat and red velvet cape and he was a MOUNTAIN of a man - a MAGICAL MAN - and there were card tricks and birds and laughter and then - the END-ALL TRICK TO END ALL TRICKS ! - CUTTING A LITTLE GIRL IN HALF! and I sat there wide eyed and scared and secretly hoping he would pick me though I knew that THAT meant there might be blood and no legs and I sat there and then - MAGICALLY -all pizza-eating stopped at the table because MR. RED VELVET TOP HAT was there - standing in front of me and I look at the little-girl-cutting-box on stage and there was this GIANT SHINY SILVER SQUARE KNIFE BLADE that was bigger than the pizza next to the cutting-little-girls-in-half- box and then he is speaking his mystical speak to me and next thing I know is that my eyes have turned into pancakes and I was shaking my head - NO NO NO - I WANT TO LIVE and tears are running down my cheeks and I just wanted the SCARY MAGIC MAN to disappear into that magic hat of scarves and bunnies and bag of tricks - I would not, could not look into his hypnotic, lightning-bolt BLACK EYES and so I threw my UNCUT, NOT-HALVED BODY into the nook of my mom whose Jean Nate Perfume and last night's Vicks Vapo-Rub and her HUSHES- meant only for me -quieted THE FEAR - and made me calm and finally allowed me to fall - like Alice - into the lap of a different, new kind of magic.

CHAIN GANG MAGIC DUMPLINGS
(discover the MAGIC and COMFORT of simple ingredients turned magical)

1/2 cup NON-SKIM milk (or cream)
dash salt
2 eggs - maybe 3 - depending on consistency
2 1/2 cups flour plus 1 TBSP

Mix together so neither runny nor stiff. Dollop about 1 TSP into boiling soup/water for 10 minutes.

Enjoy the light, dumpling magic!