Robo Lasagna

I like to cook. I'm not fantastic. But I'm okay. Amazingly, today was the first time I had ever made Lasagna on my own. It reminded me of a story I wrote for a contest a while back. It was for M&M Meats, the idea to write about a family cooking memory. I only found out about the contest an hour before the deadline so I whipped something up. I didn't win the $200 worth of free meat. But, whatever, you can only have so much ground beef at once:

Robo Lasagna

Growing up, meal times were a very routine process. Dinner was always at six and preparation usually started around five. My younger sister would help with chopping veggies for the salads, and, over time, she would learn the basic cooking skills that allowed her to contribute to the meals with my mother’s supervision. I was trusted with some lighter tasks, such as setting the table, doing the dishes, and entertaining the dog.

There was a lone bar stool that overlooked the counter and I often hung around on it watching dinner be made. I sat slumped, my head resting in my hands, my feet kicking together. My father would not be home from work until just before dinner, so I would gaze away at my sister and mother chatting. I felt left out. It was like I was the lone audience member for a community cooking show. Monday to Friday, it was like this for years.

My mother and sister were making Lasagna one day. I was sitting on the bar stool as usual. There was a basket on the ledge between the counter and bar stool and I was rooting through it. In it I found a box of staples. Eventually, my mother put the lasagna noodles in a casserole dish beside the kitchen sink, which was right in front of me. She went back to the stove to help my sister with something, and while they were there I showered the cooling lasagna noodles with staples.

I have no idea why I did this. I still don’t. A cry for attention? To be a part of the process? Like, in some way, throwing staples into a pan of lasagna noodles would contribute to the meal making process. I didn’t say anything and the lasagna was cooked ala staples. I must have dropped about fifteen in.

We sat down to eat, the four of us, and before we began, I told everyone what I had done. My father was outraged, calling me a Doorknob, a Ding-a-Ling, and a “right fucking asshole.” My mother looked on the verge of tears. My sister didn’t know what to think because she was only seven, but I think she copied my father’s reaction and started repeating his insults.

I’m not sure why I decided then to mention it. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe I knew that eating staples could ruin our intestines thus creating the potential for ulcers. I’m not sure. I was only ten. But all that is irrelevant to what that meal would eventually mean to us as a family.

My father would go to his toolbox and grab a large circular magnet. Each of us would be plated with a piece of lasagna and we would take turns hovering the magnet over it. It didn’t really work, as a tiny staple is not going to get pulled through mounds of melted cheese. But it was hilarious; we were in hysterics. We chewed each slice slowly, making outrageous faces towards one another.

We recovered several of the staples and no one ended up knowingly eating any, and, if they did, nothing serious happened. But it has had a lasting effect. It’s a memory that bonds the family. And still, to this day, someone, inevitably, when at a family dinner, will say, “Excuse me, can you pass me the Magnet?”