Chapter 1 (Home at Last)

Introduction

Our heroine and her husband Bob have just returned from their honeymoon, and domestic management Bettina-style kicks in immediately. Spurning Bob’s offer of a dinner at a hotel and a taxi ride home Bettina declares to the bridegroom that “the time has come to show you that Bettina knows how to keep house!”

After a cut-rate trip on a streetcar to the couple’s newly-built cottage, Bettina slips into a “trim percale bungalow apron”, charges into the kitchen, and whips together a “pick-up meal” in a scant ten minutes.

PART 1

The Menu

Creamed Tuna on Toast Strips

Canned Peas with Butter Sauce

Rolls

Butter

Strawberry Preserves

Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows

Preparing the Meal

Well, I’ve purchased a bungalow apron (actually a sort of housedress, according to Wikipedia), the necessary foods, and have a timepiece at the ready to see if this supposedly quick and simple meal can be put together in the allotted time. I’ll need to double the recipes as I’m feeding myself, my son, and my husband (who has a notoriously large appetite), but that shouldn’t pose a problem.

Creamed Tuna on Toast Strips

At the outset this seemed simple enough: open a can of tuna, stir up a white sauce, combine, and pour over toast cut into strips. How difficult could that be?

In a word: plenty. I’ve never made a white sauce in my life and was afraid it would scorch if I turned the burner up too high. The so-called sauce sulked at the bottom of the pan in an unsavory lump until I gathered my courage together and resolutely cranked up the heat.

Canned Peas with Butter Sauce

Open up a can of peas and dump it in a pot—as simple as I’d hoped. The butter sauce, though, was a bit more challenging. Having a microwave has spoiled me—butter melts in a trice and I’ve never once scorched it. Not quite as simple on the stovetop, and measuring out precise quantities of salt and pepper was a pain. So was getting out the chopping board and a knife to cut up a tiny bit of parley.

Rolls and Butter

Since Bettina’s rolls obviously came from a bakery I had no qualms about making mine with commercial frozen bread dough. They came out a little too brown, but with luck no one will notice.

Strawberry Preserves

My bete noire—an absolute disaster! I had a hunch these weren’t going to be easy and so made the preserves the day before on a “just in case” basis.

Wise thinking. After boiling the allotted time they looked like Death in a Bottle.

I actually dared to try one as soon as they were cool enough to sample.

Helpful household tip: Strawberries boiled for an hour taste exactly like strawberries boiled for an hour.

I ended up dumping the lot and instead prepared some stewed berries from a recipe I found on the Internet (plus a few illicit drops of food dye to bring back some of the color).

Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows

A dish I’m familiar with (thank heavens). I make cocoa and hot chocolate for my son quite often and could probably make the stuff blindfolded. It’s never occurred to me though to whip the brew together with an eggbeater—and I find out just now that my manual has only one remaining rotor. A whisk will have to do.

Time Elapsed: 32 minutes. Yow! Quick and easy this ain’t, no matter what Bettina claims.

How It Looked

Since Bettina calls this a “pick up meal” I figure my everyday dishes (not a matching plate in the lot) and silverware will suffice.

Hmm…the table looks shall we say casual, what with the mix-and-match plates, the dull flatware, and that mess of stuff in the upper right. My husband’s never met a condiment he didn’t like and keeps a score or more on hand at all times [for the record that’s olive oil, fresh garlic, honey, blackberry jam, pitted prunes, craissins (dried cranberries), Hershey’s cocoa, apple cider vinegar, ground turmeric, currant jelly, anise seed, Saigon cinnamon, garlic powder, caraway seed, ground ginger, horseradish sauce, crushed red pepper, jalapeno peppers (both ground and chopped) and of course salt and pepper].

I’d love to channel my inner Bettina and get this stuff organized, but it’s certainly not happening tonight!