Back To That In Our Family Portrait

Last Saturday, the family and half the tiny town threw - flung, perhaps - a surprise party for my niece Lois's seventeenth birthday. Pete turned out beautiful, sculptural platters laden with bright fruit, cheeses and crisp vegetables and an abundant variety of dips, breads and crackers. My sister Daria arranged the tables. She told me later, "Pete put down a platter and I said, 'Nice. But not there.'" My cousin Sandy contributed an elegant display of striking cupcakes in the party's black and white theme. We've developed the confidence to throw - fling, really - a party anytime, anywhere.

It's also at these moments I remember our parents have always been batty.

Do not adjust your monitor.

Somewhere in 1950s America, Mom learned that significant teen occasions must include layered or rolled pink and green sandwiches with a creamy olive filling made by professional bakers. Psychiatrists refer to this as an idée fixe. Every time a member of the increasingly large family reaches a milestone, out come these completely tasty and mildly psychedelic sandwiches. Then those of us not thriving on diets of Frankenberry and Count Chocula detox for months.

Seriously: the ingredients are cream cheese, olives, bread and two vats of food coloring at truly dubious points on the color wheel. I'm sorry I'm not eating one of these sandwiches right now.

In an unrelated and equally inexplicable development, I seem to be able to try stuff and generally succeed at it again. Last week, I decided I could make the pierogies I wanted to eat. With Pete's help and Siobhan's favorite dough recipe, it worked! I was flabbergasted, and I mean completely flabbergasted when not only did the dough come together in my hands after chilling overnight, but the filling was brilliant: sweet potato, a bit of andouille sausage, vitamin greens and homemade yogurt, drained and herbed. The pierogies served with more yogurt and homemade apple butter were so good we could barely summon words to describe our joy. The next day, I made the desperate decision to make tamales. Somehow. Because I really, really, really want to eat those. Really.

While we all know better than to shake babies, science has yet to deliver a verdict on how many forehead slapping moments a brain can stand. For quite a while now, I've been looking for banana leaves in the produce aisle of the Asian market I love. Sunday morning, Rick Bayless was talking tamales on Mexico One Plate At A Time and he held up a bag of frozen banana leaves, saying they're everywhere these days. I slapped my forehead and probably lost five I.Q. points I might need someday. Banana leaves, with their rich, verdant aroma reminiscent of my grandmother's artichokes, have been in my grocer's freezer all along.

Yesterday, I awoke from my nap anxious to make tamales. All I had to do was decide I could, and then I could! I moved fast but everything I wanted to do as prep took about an hour longer than I planned for. Result: with better planning, not only can I make tamales on week nights -

- but we can eat them as well. Poor banana leaves! Without their scrumptious corn, chicken and achiote filling, they look so sad! And yet, I am so happy!

Tomorrow, between jobs, we will have the pierogies we made with yogurt we made and apple butter we made and green beans someone with a tractor made. I love this idea so much I want to buy a small tractor. Tonka makes them. I'm almost sure.