Monday, October 22, 2018

Leftovers

Challenge Prompt:Leftovers | Word Count: 500 words exactly | Genre
Due Date: 11/7/18
(this is not the story I will turn in to the challenge, but thought I would share it here anyway)

Leftovers were not common in our house when I was growing up. Even though dinner most nights might seem like a veritable feast, with eight kids and two adults and the occasional friend or three to feed, there wasn’t usually any leftovers. As I recall, the only meal that regularly resulted in leftovers was spaghetti, and that was because we always made extra. Spaghetti was one of those meals I learned to make at an early age. I was sixth of eight kids and by the age of ten I could make homemade spaghetti like a pro.

We always ate dinner at the table; always at 6 o’clock. Dinner back then was a noisy affair. There could be five conversations going on at any given time, and if you concentrated really hard, you could follow all of them, as long as you didn’t try to participate in any of them. I was a quiet, introverted child, and I was real good at listening.

At six o’clock the table would be set and everyone in their seat. If you were late, you might miss dinner altogether. The rules were simple. Pass the dishes clockwise. Take what you want, eat what you take. Never take more than what will be enough to go around. You can always go back for seconds, assuming there’s any left. Always take some of everything, even if it’s canned spinach or lima beans. Thankfully, Mom didn’t serve those often. Eat everything on your plate. Because God knows there are children starving in China that don’t have any food at all. And, finally, you don’t get dessert if you don’t clean your plate.

Wealways had dessert on Sunday Night. Right before the Disney movie came on. Buta two layer cake or two dozen cookies spread across ten or more people rarelyproduced leftovers. Even a half-gallon of ice cream didn’t last beyond one setting.Mom always divvied up the cake, but the ice cream carton would be passedclockwise, and as long as someone was monitoring portion control, you’d usuallyget some.
Everyone had to stay at the table until everyone was done eating. Then you placed your silverware on top of your plate and passed it clockwise, where the next person would place their silverware on top and stack and pass, until all the plates were stacked with all the silverware on top. Whoever had dish duty that night carried them into the kitchen to start washing.

Eventually my family split up and dispersed around the world. I moved into my first apartment and made that first batch of spaghetti for my boyfriend. Wouldn’t you know I made enough to feed an army, even though there were only the two of us!

Two husbands and a boyfriend later, the [step] kids have grown and now we eat dinner in front of the television. I still haven’t quite learned to cook for two, but I have grown rather adept at making new meals out of leftovers.

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