Phat Phriday Phiesta
Phidge Sweers
Goodrich, MI

When I was a little girl in the early 50's, social life revolved around the kitchen table. We did a great deal at the table, including eat. The table was always completely set, not bottles or tubs of food, but matching Fiestaware always set "just so". This was my job on Friday nights. Forced to leave the dairy farm business due to poor health (which, ironically, was determined years later to be aggravated by dairy products), Daddy moved us to the "big city". Here we enjoyed all of the modern conveniences of suburbia, but retained some of that dairy life by the menu that my mother chose. Even though paychecks may be have been lean at this time, there was nothing lean about the food we ate: macaroni and cheese, cottage cheese, white bread and butter, a garnish of tomato and lettuce leaf for that special eye appeal, coffee with cream and sugar and, of course, whole milk. There was ice cream for dessert, naturally. What more could the children of a very successful ex-dairy farmer want? Daddy always came home from his new job "at the plant" to a cozy table spread with his favorites: his darling daughters, his thrifty wife and his newspaper. Life was good.