84 JANUARY 2020
Occasionally she would go to her grand-
father’s house, where her uncle Frank still
lived. Frank cleaned my mom’s face and
hands, put her in fresher clothes, and
brought her into the kitchen. She sat on a
curved bench by a window with the small
kitchen table in front of her. Frank stood
on the other side of the table, a pile of flour
between them.
They spent the afternoons mixing dough;
my mother helped roll it out. She pinched it
closed before placing it in the long loaf pan,
which she had smeared with butter. After
Frank put it on top of the stove, she didn’t
move for two hours, until it was ready to
bake. She read Archie comics as she waited.
Every couple of minutes she looked up to
see the level of the loaf, because she knew
that when it peeked from the top like a
cloud, it was ready. Frank gave her mittens
to wear while she put it in the oven. The hiss
and crackle of the logs from inside the stove
were the perfect accompaniment when rain
began to fall. When he opened the oven,
the Champagne-like smell of yeast and
caramelized butter permeated the room,
so thick you could feel it on your skin. The
sweet smell stuck in your hair for days.
“Can we cut it?” she asked every time a
loaf came out.
“No,” Frank said. “We have to wait.”
When they finally cut into a loaf, Frank
had a method. He slathered it with butter.
Then he coated the butter with a layer of
sugar. Then he poured a small amount of
boiling water over it, just slowly enough to
melt the sugar and butter into the bread.
This is what my mother recalls in her
daydreams, sleep dreams, and whenever
she still tells this story.
Frank would sit down next to her and for
the rest of the day, she was allowed to eat
as many pieces as she wanted while they
listened to the fire—and the rain, if it was
raining—and read the newspaper together.
IN THE EARLY ’50S, CLUB 57 WAS THE THING
in Gary, Indiana. This was when being a
bartender was a very real job, and Frank
was the best one in town. Everyone came
in Fridays at 3 p.m.; that’s when Frank’s
shift started. My mom went there, too.
After school she’d climb the staircase up to
the second floor over the dime store. Short
tables zigzagged across the open room. At
the far end of the room was a stage, where
at that hour a band would be setting up.
Frank would make my mom a grenadine
“cocktail” with a cherry, and she’d sit at the
bar. Frank would put a bowl of beef and
noodles in front of her, and she’d devour it.
Food was love for Frank, too. My mom
typically wore penny loafers from the year
before that made her toes curl toward the
balls of her feet. As he filled her bowl a sec-
ond time, Frank always reminded her that
she was a sweet girl and he loved her.
“Those beef and noodles, though,” my
mom said, “were the best thing. They really
drew a crowd, and soon the place would
be full and the band would start playing.”
My mom usually fell asleep on a couch
backstage and would wake up the next
morning at her grandfather’s to the smell
of caramelized beef. Sleepily, she would
wander into the kitchen. She sat down at
the same table where she and Frank made
their bread together.
“I got you something,” Frank told her
once.
He began to unwrap what looked like
a hunk of meat in butcher paper, tied up
pretty with twine. When he turned around,
he was holding a shiny new pair of shoes.
My mother gasped. “Those are for me?”
“Yes,” he said and slipped them on her
feet. She wiggled her toes inside them.
“I can move my toes.”
“I know,” he said. “I saw you limping, and
that’s not right.”
She hugged his waist tight.
“OK,” he said. “Let’s get cooking. Time to
make beef and noodles.”
He turned the beef over in the pan un-
til each side was equally dark brown and
nearly charred at the corners. The meat had
been dusted in flour that was now stuck to
the bottom of the large Dutch oven, becom-
ing darker and darker. He added butter and
onions, sliced thick, and smashed cloves of
garlic, still in their husks. Then he covered
the meat with water, quickly put on the lid,
and placed the pan in the oven.
Frank did everything to its fullest—no
shortcuts, no tricks. Frank made everything
from scratch, milled flour, churned butter.
“That’s how it was,” my mom said.
“That’s why it was always so damned good.”
Frank created a mound of flour in the cen-
ter of the table. The white dust spilled out
and up into the air. It was beautiful, my mom
thought, like a mini avalanche. He formed
a well and had my mom crack a dozen eggs
into it. Frank made his own crème fraîche
by leaving cream in a jar on top of his icebox
with a dash of apple cider vinegar. He placed
two large spoonfuls in the center of the well.
“Now mix it,” he said, and gestured for
her to put her hands in and massage the
dough. After she made a big rag-like mess,
Frank pulled it toward him and began to
knead it on the table. He turned it over and
over until it was uniform. He poked his fin-
ger into it, and it slowly sprung back.
“Perfect,” he exclaimed. He wrapped it
snug with a kitchen towel and set it in a
cool, dark corner on the kitchen counter.
Several hours and many crossword puz-
zles later, Frank began to roll out the dough
with a large rolling pin. He tossed the sheets
to my mom. With steady concentration, she
cut them the size of chewing gum sticks.
When Frank pulled off the Dutch oven
lid, my mom felt what girls at school said
they felt about boys they liked: Her stomach
felt full of butterflies, and her heart felt like
it was beating all the way up into her throat.
The beef was brown and juicy; the muscle
pieces began to splinter away, held by a web
of milky white fat. Frank explained that
you should always cook with beef that has
a good amount of fat between its muscles,
and cook it until it falls apart—but not too
long. Just until it’s perfect.
He pulled the meat from the pan, into
which he added more water, some bay
leaves, and a splash of red wine. With two
forks he gently broke the meat into pieces.
As the pan’s contents came back to a
boil, he showed my mom how to cook the
noodles, right in the same pan. The flour
from the noodles thickened the pan drip-
pings, water, and wine into a gravy. Once
the noodles were floating in the gurgling
gravy mess, Frank added the meat back in
and stirred. He used a big wooden ladle to
heap the contents into a china bowl and
placed the dish before her.
Frank was everything.
Reprinted with permission from Burn the Place by
Iliana Regan, Agate Midway, July 2019.
THIS IS WHAT MY MOTHER RECALLS IN HER
DAYDREAMS, SLEEP DREAMS, AND WHENEVER
SHE STILL TELLS THIS STORY.
FOOD STYLING: TORIE COX; PROP STYLING: THOM DRIVER
