All you need is love!

Beatles fan here and when I’m feeling low I find it uplifting to hum “All you need is love” (quietly) to myself, it almost always works. I say “almost” because there are some (very few) things that even Beatles music can’t fix.

Back to mom’s cooking: Our family of six would go to church on Sunday’s mostly because my Grandfather was the Reverend of the our church, where nearly the entire service is sung by the priest, backed up by the choir, directed by my Grandmother. Both she and Grandpa had beautiful voices, as did my aunt, unfortunately that’s where the beautiful voices ended, one of the reasons I hum “All you need is love”.

Our after church meal was usually cooked by my mother (I suspected this was because when she cooked she could blow off church while preparing dinner) unfortunately mom’s Sunday cooking wasn’t improved by divine intervention, or anything else for that matter and usually consisted of over-cooked roast beef. When I say over cooked, I mean to the point where I didn’t realize that roast beef isn’t supposed to be grey as hardened cement and just about as juicy. I was in my early 20’s, dining at with my girlfriends parents at their house and was shocked when the mother set down a platter with a large juicy pink piece of meat on it. I turned to the latest love-of-my-life and whispered “what’s that?” (meaning the roast beef) “It’s roast beef” to which I replied “what’s wrong with it?” “Nothing, that’s the way it’s supposed to look, why?” “I’ll explain later”. I have since learned that one way to make juicy roast beef every time is to coat it in flour, I mix in some seasoning with the flour, even taught my mom how to do it, unfortunately I was in my 30’s when I learned of this method of preparation and had to endure several years of roast beef flavored gum on Sundays. (Holly, here girl, got a treat for you…) Fortunately my Grandfather retired from active service in the church when I was 12 and I didn’t have Roast Beef again, that is until that fateful day when I found out being served roast beef wasn’t a punishment for impure thoughts while in church, or was it??