Mayonnaise Recipe – Family Style!

My office chum Chet really needs my family’s mayonnaise recipe.  Last week we had a chat  about kids. All our chats are about kids. This is because Chet’s kids are all Chet ever has to talk about. Chet’s kids keep him so busy in fact, that other than between the work hours of 8AM and 5PM Chet believes he has time for nothing else. This singularity of small talk might be a problem for us were Chet and I to have an actual friendship; but Chet and I are merely “office friends” so the rules of engagement are somewhat more lax.

And besides, I like it.

Chet will describe the not-so-exciting tribulations of his three children (ages of 5, 12 and 16) in remarkable detail and I make mental notes on the many milestones my baby niece will someday bust past. Were it not for our weekly Chet chats I wouldn’t know things such as as at what age girl’s soccer practice begins, how much a math tutor costs, or what happens when a toddler takes a crap in the community pool.

Chet in turn will hear me rattle on about how difficult it is to get into the new hot-spot restaurants we’ve been wanting to try out, how there just isn’t enough time to see all the shows on our New York City list, and how long it has taken us to find just the right shade of red to paint our guest bathroom.

Neither of us would trade lives permanently with the other no matter how tempting that might be at times. (Nope, not at all tempting.) Our infrequent water cooler exchanges, however, vicariously give us enough flavor of the other’s life to feel gratitude and go home to embrace our choices.

Not surprisingly, last week’s discussion centered entirely around Chet’s kids. Chet seemed tired (what’s new?) and revealed just how much there is for him to do around the house each night. Laundry folding, cleaning the dishes left from breakfast, resetting the coffee maker for the next day, feeding the dog, setting the table for dinner, and helping his two youngest with their homework.  I suggested to him that one way of coping would be to add a few of these responsibilities to the kid’s chores STAT! One man’s family is another man’s workforce after all.

Chet seemed reticent to add anything to what he though was their already full daily task list.

“My kids already do a lot around the house,” he protested. “We want them to have free time to do some things they enjoy doing.”

 “Argue for your children’s limitations, and sure enough, they’re theirs,”

I somewhat awkwardly paraphrased  a favorite Richard Bach quote, not sounding quite as wise as I wanted to. I couldn’t help but wonder just what after-school tasks took so much of their time that they couldn’t feed the dog without sacrificing the dance lessons or soccer practices Chet taxi’d his kids to and from each weekend?

Time must really stand still when children aren’t in your life because Chet’s chore list for his kids wasn’t exactly what I was expecting to hear. Nobody told me life for kids had changed this much from when I was young.

Chet’s oldest is a 16 year old girl who wants to be a bio major or a corporate economist one day.  She is in charge of the family’s Twitter and Facebook feeds.  Seriously. She contributes to the family and earns her gas money by posting the social media updates grandma and grandpa use to know what they are all up to. She is known as the family “curator” manages the the family photo library and performs the system backups before getting her allowance each week. Family members hand their photo memory cards to Chet’s “little girl” and she transfers the photos and populates the various online albums for family and friends. She’ll update your operating system’s security update patches and refills the family’s two printers with paper and inkjet cartridges whenever needed. Having trouble connecting to the WiFi network? Call Chet’s little girl Geek Squad.

I suppose I understand how she might not leave much so time left for doing dishes and helping with her sister’s homework. But, um, Chet’s family has a Twitter feed?  Huh?

Far be it from me to throw judgement at what passes for family chores. Certainly I had my share of oddball childhood chores. Weed pulling on Saturdays would generate so much pissing and moaning on my part that my parents nearly filed for emancipation. I am eternally grateful for other unique chores my parents gave me, even though they would today have interested Child Protective Services.  (I wonder which of my parents dreamt up bartending for cocktail parties as my chore?)

Oh, I still had to feed the dog each day and pick up her poo in the side yard, babysit my little brother and my twin sister (long story), and more of the common tasks kids get asked to do. Having extra-curricular ways to contribute to the family taught me the different life skills I would need later. Skills such as knowing how Mrs. Katsokopolis likes her martinis. (Dirty, two olives.)

So, um,  what does any of this have to do with mayonnaise?

The Family Mayonnaise Recipe

One of my favorite household responsibilities was to make the family mayonnaise. Seriously, this was one of my “chores” although really, it was no chore at all.

I am no doubt responsible for producing more more jars of home-made mayonnaise than there were weeds pulled from the garden.  One fateful day Mom learned that store-bought mayonnaise was full of crappy oils and, well,  that was that. She figured out how to make our own mayonnaise recipe with better oils and then how to lightly season it for flavor and variety.  One taste of the home-made mayo and that sealed the deal. No more store bought.  Ever.

She taught me.  I made a jar (sometime more) each weekend.  For years.

Thanks Mom!

Now what can I get you to drink?

Mayonnaise Recipe
adapted from my mom’s mayonnaise recipe