Chapter 5 (Bob Helps Get Dinner)

Introduction

Obviously Bettina has decided that her husband’s share of kitchen work should cover more than sitting down at the table and tucking into the victuals...hence Bob’s first cooking lesson!

Home Ec 101, a la Bettina : mixing up a salad dressing using pre-measured ingredients, how to remove beans from the cooker and sliced pineapple from the icebox, the proper way to cut up a lemon, and how to snip up parsley.

After Bob’s completes his tasks and the two sit down to eat Bettina comments brightly, “Things are good tonight, aren’t they?”—warming up her man up for a lesson in Remedial Dishwashing?

Part 1

The Menu

Halibut Steak

New Potatoes in Cream

String Beans

Butter Sauce

Bread

Butter

Tomato, Cucumber and Pimento Salad

French Dressing

Fresh Pineapple

A very typical Bettina menu--heavy on the salt and the protein, I’m afraid. I’m beginning to feel like a Paleolithic creature with scales (from all the fish) and pinfeathers (from the glut of eggs) swimming in an ocean of cream sauce. Granted, I don’t cook a la Bettina every day, but something a little lighter would be nice…

Halibut Steak

Despite Bettina’s testimonial I can’t agree that halibut is both “good and inexpensive”—not in our neck of the woods, anyway.

In fact, initially I was pleased to be serving fresh fish (for once) but ran into problems right off the bat locating a source—probably would have been cheaper more efficient, as it turned out, to row out to sea and catch my own.

After numerous calls I located a fish market in the next town that sold halibut—alas at a whopping $28.99 per pound! I instantly decided that the frozen steaks found at Safeway would be fine, but to my horror they were every bit as expensive: $18.99 per 12 oz.

Resigned to this blow to my pocketbook I swallowed hard and purchased 20oz (enough for the three of us) for a grand total of $37.98—by far the most expensive meat that’s ever graced our table.

All I can think is THIS HAD BETTER BE GOOD!

New Potatoes in Cream

Another dish that’s appeared on the table a little more often than I’d like. But…OK. Although parley isn’t mentioned in the recipe, chopping it is one of the kindergarten tasks Bettina assigns Bob. A lucky break for me—a bit of green sprinkled over the dish might relieve its overall drabness. So too should serving the potatoes in a cozy little casserole rather than mammoth, oversized baking dish.

String Beans with Butter Sauce

Hooray! the first Bettina-sanctioned use of my thermal/fireless cooker. Since its arrival I’ve actually taken it for some test runs by cooking a couple of simple dishes: rice (a horrible failure—the finished product crunched between our teeth), and steamed bread (OK).

Oddly enough A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband gives no fireless cooker recipe for string beans, and so I forced to turn to The Fireless Cook Book by Margaret Mitchell (yes, the Margaret Mitchell. Who knew she was a cook—and a good one?)

As per the recipe I washed the beans, cut off the ends, and searched in vain for strings to pull off. Maybe modern beans have been genetically engineered to be stringless? I have no idea, but I certainly couldn’t find any.

Bread

The standard unsliced supermarket loaf—same old same old.

Tomato, Cucumber and Pimento Salad

Slices of cucumber and tomato arranged on a lettuce leaf and sprinkled with pimento. I always love these retro salads, and the bright red and green will give a much-need touch of color to this visually bland menu.

French Dressing

Making this dressing gave me a new respect for Bob, who must have worked out regularly or been related to the Man of Steel.

Following Bettina’s instructions I measured the salad dressing ingredients into a jar and shook it as my curious family gathered around.

Eventually it turned into a game of Pass the Bottle—literally. DH shook, Filip shook, and I shook until my arms were about to fall off. The stuff never did become thick and creamy, and I finally tossed it into the refrigerator hoping the cold might work a miracle.

Pineapple

Thanks goodness for simple desserts! Cutting up a pineapple is easy but, like the halibut, purchasing it turned out to be harder than I thought.

In search of a decent fruit I checked two different lots at two different markets and was faced with exactly two choices: overripe pineapples with cracks in the sides or specimens so green they could have doubled as billy clubs.

After some thought I chose the underripe pineapple, certain that my faithful friend the Internet could provide some tricks for getting the thing in shape.

The general consensus was to store it in a plastic bag and then turn the pineapple upside down to allow the natural sugars to spread throughout the fruit.

Sounds pretty whacky—but we’ll see.

The Table

In this chapter Bettina mentions using the sinister-sounding “coreopsis” as her centerpiece, and naturally I was curious. I’d never heard of that before and so was forced to do some research.

As a flower it’s rather pretty, something like a daisy:

Alas the name is a little less attractive—in fact, positively revolving.

According to Wikipedia, the word coreopsis is derived from the Greek word for bedbug, and these little gems are also known as “tickseeds” because of the seeds’ resemblance to dead bugs.

Charming.

No bedbug flowers around here (thank goodness), but the roses left over from Betinna’s “Ladies Luncheon” are still fresh.

How It Looked

Unfortunately I forgot to snap a shot of the table after the food was laid out. Darn!