Ginger ale and milk and other gourmet treats!

Does anyone in the family remember a special treat -- at least at the time I thought it was special...

Ginger ale and a little milk mixed in, or was it the other way around -- milk with a little bit of ginger ale mixed in?

Mom must have thought it tasted like an ice cream soda, but since we didn't have any ice cream around she mixed this concoction. I loved it -- before I became a teenager. Now, the thought of it makes me bilious.

Another goody...cream cheese and olives. I visited my cousin Robert last year and he told me he always liked the way Aunt Rose made him cc&o sandwiches. My cousin Betty Boyll also likes cc&o. Believe it or not, Alan and I still enjoy cc&o often. Can't remember, but I think we had cc&0 the last time my sister and I visited. Maybe not. The old brain is getting tired and not remembering as well as it used to.

And lest we forget -- pastina and butter -- our favorite Sunday night dinner. I tried it a few years ago -- yuck! What did I ever see in that dish?

Smelts -- I loved smelts. I probably would still love smelts, but who knows where to buy them? I've tried baking fish the way my mother did. I've only had success on one occasion and for the life of me I can't remember what I did to make that fish taste good that time. Alan and I went to Max & Erma's (a local eatery) and I ordered the baked haddock -- I don't often order fish in a mid-west restaurant). It tasted just like my mother's baked fish (albeit she usually baked flounder). So, I found a place that makes fish like mom used to make. And it is now my favorite restaurant dish.

Because we had a fish monger who came by every Friday with fresh fish, which he would fillet right there in front of my mom, we had fish for dinner on Friday nights. Sometimes it was flounder, sometimes it was smelts, sometimes it was scallops.

I sill love fish and seafood, unfortunately Alan won't touch the stuff, except once in a while when I can get him to eat tuna salad, if I mask it with eggs and relish and stuff that shouldn't be set on the table with fish. So, I take the opportunity to order fish as often as I can when we eat out--which I have to say is rarer than hen's teeth!

Daddy had to have bread and jelly with his dinner. I never took up on that habit, and I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to end a meal with bread and jelly instead of a good salad with oil and vinegar dressing! We children used to fight over who would get the last portion, because then we'd get to slurp up the dressing (drink it actually). The danger with waiting to be last at the salad was that you didn't get much salad, so you had to weigh getting as much salad as you could eat, or waiting to get the drippings.

Silly memories!