"Mine never tastes as good as my dad's," she'd say.
I heard that refrain all through my childhood, whenever we'd eat Mom's goulash, always a favorite, a one-skillet dish that preceded Hamburger Helper.
When I left home and did my own cooking, my goulash never tasted as good as hers, but Mom made hers with tomatoes and onions she grew in her own garden, while I was foolishly following the church cookbook recipe. All church ladies know nothing can be cooked without a can of creamed soup (tomato or mushroom) or a packet of Lipton's dry onion soup mix, or Velveeta processed cheese, or a box of jello.
The Four Basic Food Groups of the church potluck. I have no doubt, it was a church lady who invented that One-Skillet Dish known to us today as HAMBURGER HELPER.
But if you make it from scratch, with your own onions and home-grown tomatoes, you'll never go back to the boxed version.
The Demro Family goulash recipe starts with a few simple ingredients but each family has their own variations. My mom's father would carmelize onions in a skillet, then brown the ground beef with chopped green peppers, salt and pepper, then add a jar of whole tomatoes (homegrown, home canned), and water as needed to boil macaroni (elbow noodles), not letting the water boil dry. And that's it! Beef, onion, tomatoes, macaroni, all in one skillet.
Word of Mouth is really not the best method to preserve these recipes, so I'm a gonna take some notes today.
Here's a version I found online, with garlic and cheese:
- In a large (black, cast iron) skillet over medium heat, heat oil. Add onion and cook until soft, about 5 minutes.
- Add garlic (unless you're my mom) and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute more.
- Add ground beef and cook until no longer pink, about 6 minutes. Drain fat and return to pan. Season with salt and pepper.
- Add tomato paste (or whole tomatoes, or canned tomatoes), then pour in broth (or just water), tomato sauce (or ketchup, or just water) and diced tomatoes. Season with Italian seasoning and paprika (unless you're my mom), then stir in macaroni. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until pasta is tender, about 15 minutes. (Mom reminds me to add water as needed to keep the pasta from boiling dry.)
- Stir in cheese (unless syou're my mom) and remove from heat.
- Garnish with parsley before serving. (My mom does not.)
So, my mom, who knows this recipe by heart, would whip up her own goulash from scratch, and still she'd scratch her head in wonder: she'd made it exactly the way her dad made it, yet hers didn't taste as good. Why?
I figured out once my own children had left the nest.
Because having your dad there made it taste better!
The missing ingredient is YOUR DAD!
And that cozy kitchen table by the window, overlooking the river, in your childhood home. Take today's goulash back to that kitchen, take a seat beside your father at that table, and you'd know it was the best goulash anyone ever cooked anywhere.
Sometimes it's not what we are eating, but who is eating it with us.
Sometimes, it's who caught the biggest fish.
Always, anything somebody else cooked will always seem to taste better than what we ourselves had to cook.
How old am I, that these World War I era people were my grandparents and their siblings? How old am I, that I remember some of them? How tragically young were those who never lived to see their grandchildren?
Backing up a bit....
... I phoned my mother this morning to say, "I couldn't find your goulash recipe in the church cookbook."
Of course not. Hers doesn't call for canned soup.
"Funny," she said, "I was just about to start some goulash when you called."
Also funny: "The last batch of goulash I made was really, really good. About as good as my dad's."
I did not ask if it was her first goulash since the funeral.
In September, Mom had to bury another daughter. Children are supposed to bury their parents, and that's sad enough; for parents to bury their children.... no. No. But we did it. #1 and #2 of the 5 daughters are now in the cemetery. She who lost her mother in infancy, who lost her father by age 30, who lost her firstborn daughter at age 38, buried another daughter at age 84.
Julie and Lori loved to eat. Mom's cooking was their bribe for living. Mine too. At sixteen, suffering another bout of unrequited love, I once tested the sharpness of Mom's best butcher knife against my wrist. Then I caught a whiff of that chocolate sheet cake Mom makes from scratch.
Nobody eats chocolate, six feet under.
Well, that settled that.
Ironically, my attachment to food has been severly punished. Food allergies! Migraines, rendering me almost comatose, for years, before the dreaded diagnosis: GLUTEN. I ranted and raved and shook my puny fist of rage at the sky. I showed incredible restraint, passing up bread and beer and pizza and all those cookies, cakes, pies, and even simple foods like chicken marinated in soy sauce. Nothing was safe. Gluten lurks in everything. Why did I dare to complain? My punishment increased: No Eggs, No Dairy. Milk chocolate, ice cream, even that awful gluten-free/dairy free bread was off limits now (the so-called bread contained EGGS, which explained the month of migraine that had me ready to load a pistol and blow my head off, I kid you not).
Our son urges me to "consider it a challenge" and create a whole new line of cookbooks for those who cannot eat 90% of what other Americans eat, namely, Hamburger Helper. (No loss.) Velveeta. Church Lady specialties.
Purge the memory of beer and pizza, bread and butter, and learn to love salmon and kale. Says the young man who can eat anything.
My poor, pathetic, plain holiday table. I can eat none of it.
Food, Glorious Food!
Food, glorious food!
Hot sausage and mustard!
Food, glorious food!
That's all we live for
Why should we be fated to do
Nothing but brood on food
Magical food,
Wonderful food
marvelous food,
Beautiful food,
Food, Glorious food glorious fooooooood.
source
Food, Glorious Food!
Hot goulash and Grandpa!
If I could create one memory, one experience, one great holiday dinner, my mom's mother and father would sit at the table with her and all five of her daughters. I'm feeling benevolent. Let's throw my dad in too for good measure.
We'd be crowding around that Formica-top table in the old kitchen Mom grew up in, with the big window that over looked the river in her back yard.
Her mother, her father, her five little girls.
We are all there.
Together.
For the first time ever.
If heaven exists, it must include time travel, and it must allow us little excursions like Sunday dinner at Grandma's, or the dinners that should have happened but didn't because too many loved ones are taken from us so soon.
Let's eat goulash
(hey, with gluten-free pasta, I might pull it off!)
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Nothing better than fresh food. GOOD TO KEEP IT GOING.. Your son has good advice..
Rise to the challenge... experiment with new recipes, new ingredients... well, there will be no coffee cakes in my world, none of the comfort foods of childhood, but maybe there will be better things. New things. (Maybe.) I'm still in mourning for all the beloved foods from my mom's kitchen.... fried chicken, asparagus in white sauce (butter, milk, flour), gravy, Swiss Steak, corn casserole, any kind of pie. She missed her dad's goulash. I miss every food I ever loved. Baked apple with sugar and cinnamon: never my favorite, but ok, I can try to convince myself it is. (No ice cream with it! The fake ice cream all tastes like coconut.) At least I'm alive and above ground... detaching from my obsession with food.
You need a hobby
Bobi the Bad is a hobby.... or my penance ...
LOL, yes, I need to be busy with a job that keeps me too active to think.
Not a "job" that sounds oppressive and boring.. More like a passion where when you wake up you can't wait to dive into it. 🙃🤣🙀👀 Would you like a lone of Scary Mary so you can watch 2 dominate cats go at each other.
A clone of Scary Mary... we already have her "son," Bobi the Bad, who howls at the door each night wanting to go outside and persecute the little black stray we've been seeing, and so have our neighbors. It keeps coming back, so Bobi must not be as terrifying as he imagines.
A passion, a job to dive into - well, that was motherhood, and they grew up and flew the coop. :) I'll check the Help Wanted and see if I might have some skill set to offer someone...
How does one put goulash, Barbie cakes, church ladies, Velveeta, despair and migraines all into one post and make something that is heart wrenchingly lovely? Just ask @carolkean!
What does your mother have against garlic, paprika, cheese and parsley? Did her father use these ingredients?
Thanks @owasco!
Her dad's recipe didn't include those additions. She never cooks with fresh garlic, never uses parsley.
My spinster aunt went through every cookbook scratching the word NUTMEG out of every recipe. I guess Aunt Malita hated nutmeg, especially in sugar cookies.
My mother-in-law could not fathom anyone not sharing her love of black walnuts. She'd add them to Rice Krispie bars, sugar cookies, fudge, cakes of all kinds - and she never left half the item free of the nuts. Nope. That flavor dominated (destroyed?) everything.
When I'd make my mom's coffee cake, I would leave half of it free of coconut, the other half free of pecans, for the picky eaters in the house. Then I just started eating the whole cake by myself in two days. :) That was before age 50, when I could eat half a bag of M&Ms in one sitting. (Oh how I have been punished!)
Mom's Coffee Cake
Stir together one 8-oz carton of sour cream or yogurt (peach yogurt is my #1 choice), 1/2 cup oil, and 2 eggs. Add 2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, and do not over-stir (this is not like a 2-minute beating of cake batter). Pour into a 9x12 pan or a round Smartware rubbery layer cake pan. Top with cinnamon, coconut, pecans (or not). Bake 350* aprrox. 40 minutes or until a knife in the center comes out clean and the coconut is golden brown.
You can substitute apple sauce for half the oil, or all of it.
Without the real yogurt or cream, without eggs, without real flour, this cake just doesn't turn out. The knife never comes clean from the center. I've experimented with various blends of gluten-free flour, flax for egg, etc, and it's no use. Just, goodbye coffee cake, and pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting...
Aunt Malita and I would get along famously - I dislike nutmeg myself. And too much vanilla, which I always cut in half. Pretty funny that she couldn't even abide by the word in a book though...
I might try that coffee cake. I'm one of the lucky ones - can eat anything. I wish you could too. You clearly come from a family of foodies with sweet-tooths.
But black walnuts in everything?! That has to be a certifiable illness.
LOL - yes - black walnuts in cookies, cakes, salads, everything but the roast beef.
Miles came back from Mexico last year making Croque Madame, an egg sandwich topped with a white sauce made with NUTMEG (freshly grated? not in my house; he was lucky to find a powdered version that hadn't expired ten years ago). He did find a pot of thyme growing in my sun porch - Mom is full of surprises! I actually learned to make this gourmet French ham-and-egg sandwich myself, even though I could eat none of it. The right bread is as non-negotiable as the nutmeg (powdered or fresh; must have nutmeg!). I never did learn to bake my own baguette or rustic, crusty bread, though I certainly did make bread from scratch (pie crusts too) back in the day.
I should be turning these comments into blog posts!
Miles didn't add Dijon to his white sauce, and the cheese wasn't parmesan. It had to be... oh man, what was it, so hard to find, but Aldi was 50/50 about having it in stock.
GRUYERE - that was it!
Bechamel - always reminds me of that song "Besame mucho"
https://www.myrecipes.com › recipe › croque-madame
Other variations:
https://www.iloveimportedcheese.com/recipe/croque-madame-with-imported-gruyere-cheese/
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/croque-madame-recipe-2047386
Now I can't get besame mucho out of my head.
Both of those sandwiches sound disgusting to me. As much as I like cheese, those are not my kind of thing! I like vegetables balancing the fat in my sandwiches! The only nutmeg in my house is a tiny bit of a nut left for grating. It's a marvel I can find it when nutmeg seems necessary, which is almost never. Why do folks like it so much in cream sauces? Throw in some vanilla, and I will throw up.
I think black walnuts with roast beef sounds good. I like black walnuts, but in everything? I'd get sick of them real fast.
All of your comments could stand alone as freewrites. If we were doing the favorite freewrite contest still, I could enter with one or more of your comments.
xo
Your comments are contest-winning quality - always!
Now I'm on a mission to find a "nut" that can be grated for fresh nutmeg. And you've had this thing for years...?
Who uses mace....??? Won't find that in a church cookbook! Not a rural Midwest church, anyway...
And before I go, here is Besamu Mucho - performed by the Beatles! -
I think perhaps your goulash childhood memories were better than mine 🤣 Let's just say I'm more of an al dente kind of guy now, when it comes to all pasta based dishes.
Thank you for sharing the family photos as well as the heartbreak that your family has experienced. I see so much love in your family and tight bonds that have lasted generations through this love.
Fate would have it that my own suicide attempts in life have gone wildly wrong, and through a 10 year addiction hit my head very hard on concrete multiple times and woke up in hospitals with doctors telling me I ingested enough drugs to kill 3 men, that I was a medical mystery.
It seems your mothers chocolate must have been some really good stuff considering it stopped you from what you were going to do, and I'm glad it didn't happen because you are such a gifted person with so much insight and love to give to your family and others, which is very apparent in looking at your blog for a mere 30 minutes.
It's a depressing thought, to think what some of these dinners would have been with the loved one's who are no longer here with us.
I come from a rather broken family, and none of them seem to be able to let go of the past, which makes for sparse family get togethers, none of which I will attend because of these grudges and unwillingness to sit down as adults and talk about things so that we can all heal together.
I wonder in the end if anyone will say "We should have just let all that stuff go and just be a family."
I like to flirt with the idea that I'm perhaps a time traveler, here to build a brighter future for all :)
Great post, now I want goulash :)
You - suicide attempts, ingested enough drugs to kill 3 men, a medical mystery - and head hitting concrete - thank God (the Universe, whatever The Powers That Be) that you are still here!
You're very kind. Too many people see bad in me, but I hold fast to Yahia's observation: "The good in you is unmissable." Now to find more people who agree. You do, @owasco does, and others...
Like that song by Hundred Little Reasons: all the people that care about you, wrap 'em in a big pink blanket and stick them to yourself like glue...
Thank you for the kind words @carolkean.
Yes some people get very angry with me, but I like to believe this is because I'm good at asking questions that many are not good at asking, or simply refuse to ask because it could shatter their belief system(s). To even think about the potential that their entire life/set of beliefs has been a lie.. Is just too much for them to bear, or comprehend. Notice how easily people will get angry if their beliefs are challenged? That is lack of humility for one, and a signal that you are trigging their worst fears. It's difficult to communicate with these types because they incite great confusion and will also trigger anxiety, sometimes anger or a defense in me, like:
"Hey I'm not attacking you, I'm just challenging your belief, why the need to get hostile with me?"
I think people like us are just a bit more intelligent than average people, and I don't say that in an egotistic way.. Just look around, it's blatantly obvious! :D
This is one of those songs that I will listen to over and over again... It will get stuck in my head, and now my neighbors have a new reason to hate me. Thanks! :D
Seriously though, this is a cool song :) I've listened to it three times while writing this comment, thank you for sharing.
I see the good in you :)
You are my soul mate, omg, I love you!!!
Just EVERYTHING here... you actually clicked the link and played that song, and you like it...
and people get mad at you, and you challenge their beliefs, and you dare to ask the questions others want to keep buried deep. Yes, yes, triggering their anxiety, and "Shoot the messenger" seems to be their knee-jerk reaction.
Welcome to my world :) - you can ask me all the challenging questions without risking my wrath or Fight-or-Flight response.
Grabbing that big pink blanket now...
Time Traveler. While I find it scientifically impossible to believe, the mystic in me says BRING IT ON!
I hope you find an alternate or parallel universe where you and your family and loved ones get along and enjoy many Sunday dinners together. With goulash. :)
I'd wrap you in that big pink blanket if you were near!
Hahah It's a fun thought to flirt with :D
I'm pretty objective with the time traveler idea as well... "The Grandfather Paradox."
If someone travels back and time, and causes one of their grandparents to die, (or parents, pre birth) then this would mean they would never be born.. So there's one paradox, and there are many others.
I was getting deep into this stuff a few years ago, and there seems to be more arguments to say it's not possible than arguments to say it is. A man can dream though!
Awe thank you, :) that's such a nice thought.
I'm also smitten with the idea of time travel - even wrote some short stories about a German soldier, WWII era, who comes up with a time machine and goes back to save people without violating the grandparent paradox. Only people whose bodies wouldn't have been found get saved and he delivers them to a future place for safekeeping. Ten years later, I still haven't pulled it into a novel or novella. And Christoph Waltz is getting too old to play him in the movie version :) .
If there is a heaven, it comes with a bonus: time travel! My husband at age four gets to play trains with our son at age four. Our children get to see their grandparents as young people. And, always, the Sunday dinners include all of us, and we are all young and healthy, and the food is good!
Others might prefer speeding through the universe, exploring new worlds. That will happen, too. But revisiting the past is as necessary to my "Reward in Heaven" (!) as visiting stellar nurseries ("A star is born!") - Hubble telescope photos - that's where we wannabe! (And back home with our beloved cats and dogs, too, if only for an hour.)
Maybe you and I will recognize each other in a parallel universe. :)