While Paul and I were away this past week, we took a road trip from L.A. across the desert to Palm Springs to visit my dear friend Mary, whom I have known for almost 30 years. I met her when she hired me to be the the receptionist at my first job in the New York City garment industry. Mary was the office manager for a now defunct sportswear company called Mega Sport, who prided themselves in making affordable active wear for the not-so-active set, or what they referred to as “armchair athletes.”

When Mary saw that I was smart and ambitious, she immediately took me under her wing, mentored me, and I quickly rose through the ranks to assistant merchandiser. It was shortly thereafter,  that Mary married her second husband and moved to Palm Springs. We only worked together for 6 months, but we stayed in touch all these years, which is remarkable considering that there was no Facebook or email 27 years ago.

Mary is now 74 and I will be, dare I say it, 50 next month. In my 27-year- long distance friendship with Mary I have seen her in person only three times, but it never detracted from our closeness. She has been a surrogate mother to me.

Paul and I travel to L.A. quite frequently on business, and are often too busy or too preoccupied to make the two hour drive to Palm Springs. This time I told Paul we had too. Mary has stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, and although she has defied the odds and has lived almost five years since diagnosis, I dare not even think about life without her. So instead, I focus on life with her.

We reminisced about old times over lunch at a classic New York style deli. I had a Reuben, Mary had a bagel with a smear. Mary looked great. She had her hair and nails done and she was dressed to the nines. Nothing changed. She told me when she goes into the hospital for chemo, the other patients are surprised to learn she has cancer too. She cheers them up with gifts and her lively, boisterous, no nonsense New Yorker sense of humor. In that regard, she reminds me a lot of my own mother. A real independent, self starter who never let adversity get in her way. No victims here. She and my mother both were powerful role models to me and I am proud to follow in their foot steps.

Feeling her pain and wanting to help out, I took over the dinner duty chores when I was about 12 or 13. My mother worked and would always call home around 3 pm to make sure I made it home from school and to assign tasks. First, set the table. Next, make the salad. Eventually I was cooking the whole meal.(I have always said that I learned to cook over the phone.)

I breaded pork chops and pounded chicken cutlets into thin slivers for Cordon Bleu. I experimented with Jello parfaits and started throwing fruit and nuts into salads long before it was chic. Why? Because I loved to eat. There isn’t a childhood photo of me where I wasn’t stuffing my face with cake. (Maybe that’s because the only time pictures were taken was at family birthday parties, but still….)

As an adult, nothing has changed. Except I too get into my cooking slumps and get bored with the same old fare. Whenever this happens, I crawl into bed with a stack of cook books (I have quite a collection) and come up with some fresh ideas to pull us all out of the doldrums. Here are some recent recipes that my family just adored.

Spicy Shrimp and Herb Wrap

This recipe doesn’t take nearly as long as you might expect, especially if you get your husband to peel the shrimp. Mine is always up to the task. Lucky me. I’ve made this twice, both times for just the two of us.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup each of fresh mint, parsley and cilantro, chopped.
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 tsp. cayenne
• 1 tsp. paprika
• 3 T olive oil
• 1 1/2 lbs large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 4 (10-inch) tortillas

In a large bowl, combine half of the fresh herbs with the mayonnaise. In a separate bowl, toss the garlic,  2 T olive oil, cayenne, paprika and then add the shrimp.

Heat 1 T olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add shrimp and cook until pink. Transfer to large cutting board and let cool slightly. Then chop into 1/2-inch pieces. Stir into mayonnaise mixture.

Lay tortillas on a clean work surface. Spread shrimp mixture down the center and top with a sprinking of fresh herbs. Roll tortilla around the filling and slice in half. Absolutely delicious. Very spicy. Serve with a crisp, light white wine like a chenin blanc, or a riesling.

Pine Nut and Parmesan Crusted Chicken

This meal is a whole family favorite. The recipe calls for pine nuts and fresh basil. I had neither, so I substituted pistachio and mint and it was terrific.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup panko (Japanese-style bread crumbs)
• 1/3 cups pine nuts (or pistachio), toasted and chopped
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 T olive oil
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (or mint)
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• salt and pepper

Adjust oven rack to upper middle position and preheat to 450°. In a medium sized bowl, combine panko, nuts, Parmesan, 2 garlic cloves, 2 T olive oil and ¼ tsp each of salt and pepper. In a separate bowl, combine mayonnaise and the basil/mint.

Rinse chicken and pat dry. Place in 13 x 9 inch baking dish. Spread mayonnaise mixture evenly over one side of each piece of chicken. Top with panko mixture, pressing in slightly. Bake chicken until crumbs are golden brown and chicken temperature is 160°. About 20 minutes. Serve with a garden salad and a buttery Chardonnay.

This year’s event will be fairly low key. We are going to spend the day in Carmel with  lunch at the Hog’s Breath Inn (which I believe is still owned by Clint Eastwood)  and  the afternoon at the beach. Paul said he would cook us dinner when we got home. Lovely. My sister Jill is coming with us. She and I like to toss flowers into the ocean to honor our mother who passed away 7 years ago. (She never made us do chores either. And she always raved about the running eggs we made her for breakfast.)

My kids live with us all the time except every other weekend and even though Paul has a 50/50 split with his ex, his kids still come to our house every day before and after school. That means we have a full house pretty much all the time.

Yesterday Cheryl had a half day and she called me around noon to ask if she could bring five friends over for a few hours. (If you have five kids, what’s five more?) I said yes. When she got home she did the sweetest thing. She brought all five friends out to my studio so she could introduce them to me. She also introduced them to the dog, but that’s not the point. She had a big, happy smile on her face. She wanted her friends to meet her amazing and wonderful stepmom, I just know it. Seriously, I was both touched and proud that Cheryl demonstrated her good manners and made the effort to make the introductions. It left me with a big, happy smile on my face.

I can still envision her playing endlessly for hours on end when she was a little girl. At one time she had every American Girl doll that was made. The only reason she doesn’t have all of them now is because she simply stopped collecting them and others have since been produced. I think we must have been American Girl’s best customer. Sophia had everything. The beds, the armoires and all the outfits. Why so much indulgence you wonder? I ask myself the same thing. The answer is simple. My girls had a mother who loved dolls too. Except when I was a child, there were limits to what my parents could afford to give me. Although I did have Dancing Ballerina. Remember her? Did I overcompensate? You bet. Sophia justifies her rather large collection by rationalizing that she never played with anything else and that is true. She wasn’t a stuffed animal kid or one to play board games or computer or video games for that matter. The sheer joy of watching her play acting imagination run wild was motivation enough for me to continue to foster her passion. But I digress.

Seeing Sophia gingerly reminisce about every single doll, their names and the personalities she imbued upon them, made me realize that not only am I not ready to see them go,  she wasn’t either. I assured Sophia that we would keep the dolls safe for her daughters and that she could always come home to visit them. Sophia lamented, “What if I have some maniacal daughter who wants to scribble magic marker all over their faces?” I assured her it was genetic. If I loved dolls and she loved dolls, then her daughters would certainly love dolls too. My sisters all loved dolls. In fact, I don’t think my sister Pam has ever forgiven me for leaving her Chatty Kathy doll out it the rain. We all have memories, and hopefully they will remain in tact … and in our hearts forever.

One side note in closing. The photo to the left is of two dolls wearing outfits my mother made for them. The swimmer’s flip flops were hand crafted out of foam. Lovely. She loved dolls too.

Later, my over-fastidious tendencies were further solidified by my job as a chambermaid every summer at the Jersey shore. Consequently, I see dirt no one else does, like the dust on top of picture frames and the grease stuck to the bottom of the range hood. I’ve been known to vacuum the ceiling (cobwebs really annoy me).  Dust bunnies, look out!

Are my children anything like me? Not a chance. I often chide them, “It’s not enough to wash the bottom of the tub, you have to scrub the sides too.” Where did I go wrong? Perhaps I went too easy on them, especially after my mother, at the age of 82, confessed to me, “When I look back on my life, I can’t believe how much time I wasted doing housework. ” Imagine that?

Still… my standards are high, and when it is cleaning day in the Shwanda household Paul often jokes that he has to wear a crash helmut. Very funny. Which is why he recently suggested (insisted) that I hire a housekeeper once a month to come in and do all the deep cleaning. I don’t know. What do you think? It would depersonalize the chore for me, and would certainly lighten my load, as well as my frustrations over my children’s slovenly habits. But am I sending them the wrong message by giving up the fight to get them to dust between the spindles of our Stickley style dining room chairs? Or should I just go for it?

There was one small wrinkle in this plan in that Sam, Paul’s oldest son, lives with us full time. He does not go to his mom’s every other weekend. When he moved in with us a few months ago, Paul made it clear to him that on the weekends that we have no kids, he’s to make himself scarce, which is usually not a problem since he’s almost 20, has a lot of friends, has a car and is usually never around. On top of that, his room is not in our house, but in a separate building adjacent to our property, so we almost never see him (unless it’s meal time). Tonight was an exception.

I came back from the store with a bag full of groceries to make Paul and me a romantic Friday-night-we-are-finally-alone-dinner and was humming happily  to myself  when I heard a deep voice from living room mumble, “hello.” I thought it was Paul and walked over to greet him and was startled to see Sam, sitting on the couch, relaxing and reading a book. Imagine my surprise. I thought, “What are you doing here? It’s Friday night. Why aren’t you out with your friends???!!!”

Instead I said, “So Sam, what are your plans for this evening?”

“No plans,” he replied, nonchalantly. I think I’ll just reread this book I got for Christmas.”

Oh. I walked out to Paul’s office and announced, “We have a problem. ” I explained the situation and Paul knew immediately where I was coming from. It opened a dialogue between us that tackled the question: “Just how do you get rid of those kids who simply will NOT LEAVE?”  And do it delicately so as not to hurt their feelings? (We divorced/remarried parents tend to overcompensate for our divorce guilt.)  I suggested, “Can’t you just give him twenty bucks and tell him to go see a movie or go out to the diner?” We deliberated for a while and came up with a solution. We decided that we would go out this evening and stay in tomorrow, which would give Sam enough time to make other plans.

I don’t understand kids today. When I graduated from college I couldn’t wait to get away from my parents. They were dorks who listened to Lawrence Welk and drank whiskey sours. They were so OLD FASHIONED. I wanted to move to New York City and make my own mark, and although my mother sobbed as she helped me move into my third-floor-walk-up-roach-invested-apartment, she let me go. In fact, in a matter of days, she turned my bedroom into a sewing room and donated all of my stuffed animals to Goodwill. I swear to god, when I went home to visit, aside from a few pictures here and there, it was like I never existed. But she was always happy to see me. And she was just as happy to see me go.

I shared my thoughts with Paul this morning as we were lying in bed before the alarm went off. I told him, “The day Sophia leaves for college is the day I fling myself across the bed and sob.” Apparently my mother had the same reaction on several occasions. First, when I left home in Pennsylvania to move to New York City, and later when I moved across the country to California.

I now know how she felt.

It was a fun filled, busy and joyful occasion filled with lots of activities during the day with  surfing, sailing and  kayaking, and in the evenings at each other’s homes playing charades, board games and reminiscing over old photos of Pop Pop in the army and on his wedding day. Those were the moments when I looked at my girls blending in with their “step” aunts, uncles and cousins, enjoying themselves and feeling included, even though they don’t share the same heritage, history or genealogy. After Sophia and Eva left for the wedding in New Jersey, where I heard reports that they ripped up the dance floor with their East coast cousins, we had one final big party at our house on the last day of the reunion.

I had planned a menu of grilled chicken kabobs, homemade potato salad and coleslaw. It was  a pot luck and everyone brought their contribution. Paul’s older brother decided he wanted the family to take a trip down memory lane and asked his wife to prepare “bun burgers,” a dish their mother made for them as children. It stirred some fond and not so fond memories. (Apparently not everyone liked the bun burgers.) I didn’t quite get the recipe, but I watched them being prepared. Basically, you prepare ground beef like you are making hamburgers. Throw in some spices and some chopped onions, but instead of adding bread crumbs, pick out the bread from the tops of hamburger buns, which leaves a big O, tear it into pieces and add to the mix. The top of the bun is placed on the bottom half of the bun and then on a cookie sheet. Next, scoop up a  generous dollop of hamburger meat and place inside the opening of the top bun. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees and just before they are done, top with strips, in an X shape, of Kraft processed American cheese. Place back in oven until melted.

I have to say they were pretty darn good and could easily be adapted to something healthy and rather gourmet if using, say, ground turkey, whole wheat buns and  perhaps some goat cheese, instead of the fatty beef and fake cheese. The culinary nostalgia didn’t end there. No. There were fish sticks too! You know, the frozen kind that comes in a box with lots of fillers and mystery ingredients. They were a  once-a-week staple in Paul’s family’s house. Paul’s brother felt that no family reunion was complete without fish sticks and bun burgers. As we were standing around the kitchen, noshing on the retro delicacies, he lamented, “Too bad we don’t have fake milk to go with them.” Anyone who grew up in a large, budget stretching family in the 50′s and 60′s would know what fake milk is. I do. My mom used to take powdered milk, mix it with water and add it to the real milk to make it last a little longer. It was gross, but we accepted it because that’s just the way it was.

As Paul’s family reminisced about their childhood memories, I reflected on my own (I’m one of five kids.) and realized that big families are pretty much the same.  It isn’t just the food, the family vacations, the sibling squabbles and competition for the bathroom that they have in common, but rather the inherent bonds, life lessons and experiences that go with the territory. I’ve always said being part of a big family prepares you for life’s greatest challenges: To be able to get along with anyone, to know how to wait your turn, to accept delayed gratification and to tolerate things that can at times be somewhat unpleasant.

My thoughts wandered to the future as I pictured myself at Sophia’s or Eva’s wedding and imagined all the guests who would attend.  There would be my family, Jared’s family and  Paul’s. It would be  a blended family wedding… and one hell of a party.