Food Fights I Have Known

There's nothing funny about a food fight and no one should indulge in them. When you think about how many people in the world are starving to death, the idea of tossing food at your neighbor for fun and frolic is appalling. Yet sometimes things just happen, and before you know it a war has broken out and the enemy forces are hurtling chicken thighs. No one threw food in front of me until I was about forty years old. What broke the ice was when I sat down at the kitchen table with my second husband and two children for our first family dinner in our new home. You should know that family meals with both husbands were…um…not happy camper times. My children knew better than to be seen or heard at the dinner table. Yes, it was sad. No, they didn’t carry on the tradition. So there we were, on our best behavior, when my twelve-year old daughter shovels mashed potatoes onto her spoon, aims for her mouth, and suddenly decides it would be funny to put her other finger on the top of the spoon and pretend to slingshot potatoes at stepdad. We all stared at her in mild surprise and curious suspense, waiting for her to either put her spoon in her mouth or on her plate. However, potato-filled spoons can be slippery, and before anyone can say oops, stepdad is sitting perfectly silent, staring at her out of his one good eyeglass lens, while a blob of buttery potatoes oozes off his other lens and onto his lap. No one made a sound. No one moved a muscle. We weren’t sure if we should stay put or bolt from the table and run for our lives. Once my daughter broke the stunned silence and babbled her apologies, stepdad decided this was a one-time event, wiped his glasses off, and continued to eat his dinner without comment. We never spoke of it again, except to tell everyone we knew. The next two food flights were not my fault. Our sales manager started both of them. One took place at a franchise cafe (from which we were then banned for life) and was limited to only one table where programmers and sales staff used to go for lunch. Before we got banned. The other was at a Chinese restaurant where the company owners were hosting a banquet for important Chinese guests, and it involved multiple tables. At the end of the meal, the sales manager tossed a damp finger-wiping towel over his head toward the programmers sitting behind him, which set off an instantaneous blitzkrieg of flying towels. It was not literally a food fight per se, but our company owners were mortified, the restaurant requested we not return, and the sales manager was reposted to Hong Kong. The next two food fights, I’m sorry to say, took place at my house. But first I want to tell you about the Kasha Varniskes, because it’s a good story. Several times a year I would try to serve a traditional Jewish holiday meal in a futile attempt to pass on my cultural heritage. I would often serve Kasha Varnishkes. Kasha is buckwheat groats and Varnishkes are little bowtie pastas. These are mixed together, like couscous, only worse. If cooked correctly, they have no taste whatsoever and have no reason to exist. Yet on most holidays I would buy the ingredients, follow the directions in my dog-eared Jewish cookbook, stand over the stove, stir multiple pots, and whip up this disgusting concoction. Hiding my loathing, I would carry a steaming bowlful to the table and serve it with love to my darling family, who would ooh and aah over this traditional treat. I can’t remember the year or who drew the short straw, but I do remember the conversation. I was stunned. “You don’t like it?” “We hate it.” “Then why do you always act as if you love it?” “Because we know you love it and you look so happy when you serve it. We didn’t want to disappoint you.” “Me? Love it? I detest it! I only make it because I thought you loved it.” “What? No! We’ve always hated it.” “Does that mean I never have to make it again?” “Please, never again, if you love us.” “Kasha Varnishkes have remained elsewhere ever since. The next event was my fault. I started it. A maggot entered my brain following a Jewish holiday meal to which my high school-aged daughter invited a male friend. The whole thing was so boring. We just sat there, staring at each other, and for some reason I don’t understand, I picked up a piece of soggy zucchini and tossed it at her friend. Two things I learned that night. One: don’t start a food fight if your dining room has white walls and you have horseradish with beets on the table. Two: don’t let anyone aim horseradish with beets at anyone else’s eyes. I have a distinct memory of a young man standing at my kitchen sink, yowling in pain, while my daughter tried to flush horseradish off his eyeballs. That was not my doing. I did not throw anything other than a piece of zucchini, I think. A bit of scene setting is needed next. We didn’t actually have a dining room. We had a hallway from the living room to the kitchen where we squeezed in a table, some chairs, and a few cabinets, because, you know, china sets. Instead of a wall, we had a huge garden window which was covered with Venetian blinds. Anyone seated with their back to this window had to stay put because there was no room to move. The window blinds were tilted up, slightly open. Stay with me, you’ll need to remember this later on. I decided to introduce a few Catholic relatives to a traditional Jewish holiday meal, complete with Hebrew prayers and sweet wine. To my right sat my daughter and her embarrassed Catholic husband. To my left, pinned to the window, were my irreverent Catholic brother-in-law and sister-in-law. (First husband. Left him. Kept his family.) My second husband was replaced at the head of the table by my best friend dance partner, who toasted with sparkling grape juice. The scene is now set. Everyone sat politely through the blessing of the candles and the first toast of wine, which ends with something like “borei pri hagafen, amein.” This more or less means “who created the fruit of the vine. Amen.” Don’t quote me on that. Rather than remain seriously unable to repeat a simple Hebrew phrase each time a toast was given, the sister-in-law started singing at the top of her voice, “Boring pretty dolphins, Amen.” She paid for her sins after dessert when my dance partner reached for his grape juice and knocked it and her full glass of Manischewitz red wine all over her brand new sweater set as well as half the tablecloth. No problem. We fixed it. She changed into one of my tops, I removed the tablecloth and all the dishes, and my dance partner wished he wasn’t there. For some reason, I’d sprinkled lots of Hanukah gelt on the table as decorations. These are chocolate discs wrapped in gold foil to look like coins. The gelt was now atop a smooth wooden surface. Naturally, people picked them up and tried to make them spin like a top. Someone spun too hard and a candy coin slid across the table like an ice hockey disc. Wham! Suddenly everyone was playing gelt shuffleboard, aiming game pieces at enemies across the table while simultaneously protecting their own courts, which were their laps. Somebody shoved too hard and a gold coin flew off the table, up into the air toward the window, slipped through a slat of the blinds, and landed in the window garden. We all stared at the blinds and now vanished piece of gelt. Silence hit the room…for three, maybe four seconds…then in unison we grabbed our gelt pieces and threw them at the blinds in an air-filled barrage of flying chocolate. Any that bounced off were snatched up and tossed again, until the table was bereft of all coins. That was a memorable night. No one got food in their eyes. I didn’t have to hose down the walls. The sweater set went to the dry cleaners and was made whole again. It was a little sad that my daughter and I were not allowed to say all the Hebrew prayers we had memorized, but that’s probably because we were singing to the wrong crowd. To this day, I cannot sing the Hebrew blessing over the wine without hearing in my head, “Boring pretty dolphins. Ah-ah mein.” This is how you have good food fights and begin new family traditions.