By Gary Topping–
At this writing, we are well into the holiday season, with Thanksgiving behind us, Christmas on the horizon, and lots of holiday get-togethers in between. So with food on our minds and behind our expanding beltlines, I offer today some recipes collected from her students by some prescient preschool teacher at St. Thomas More parish in the year 2000. These come from the parish archives.
Each recipe includes the name of the student who contributed it, but I have elected to omit them here. These “boys and girls” are now in their mid-twenties and, having had the good fortune to begin their formal education at St. Thomas More preschool, they are no doubt graduates of top-flight colleges and universities and beginning stellar careers in law or medicine–or if they’re REALLY sophisticated—in history. And being that refined and intelligent, they are obviously regular readers of The Boy Monk. I figure they might not want to be held to account for something they said when they were four or five years old.
SPAGHETTI
Put some special stuff that doesn’t move in the Microwave for 6 minutes. Then she feeds it to me, with sauce on it to make it look red and meatballs, too.
CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP
She puts it in a fat pot and her cooks it and she makes sure it doesn’t blow up, for 5 minutes then we eat it.
BASKETTI FOR DINNER WITH CLAMS ON IT
Cook it till it wiggles and pour the sauce in the can. Cook it for just a few hours then put it on the noodles and eat it.
CAKE
Take flour and 5 eggs, then you crack the eggs, then you put the frosting on and you’re all done.
PIZZA
She gets the dough and pours water on it and puts it in a bowl and mixes it. Then she pours sauce on it and then she pours cheese on it. She bakes it for 20 minutes and she buys muffins at the store, white and chocolate with sprinkles on top.
THE WHOLE BLUE BOX
The whole blue box that you put in the microwave for 64 and when you take it out its really hot and you eat it and its good!
WAFFLES
She kinda warms up the syrup in the warm up thing for just a minute. Then she mixes up some frosting or something like that. She mixes it and its kinda wobbly and you can’t eat it cause it makes you sick. When they’re done, I go up and eat them.
RICE-A-RONI
It’s in a box, she opens it and pours it on to a mixing bowl. Put on a little bit of milk and spices and then she cooks it for 1 hour. Then I play for a while, it cools off and I go eat it.
PEACHES
You have to grow them first before you eat them.
NOODLES
When I get big, I’ll tell you how she does it.
DISCLAIMER: The Boy Monk will employ all means, fair or foul, legal or illegal, to evade responsibility for the results if any of its readers try any of these recipes.
*Gary Topping is a writer and historian living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is the retired archivist for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City and has written many books and articles.
