Water's here for the water's wake up call.
Thanksgiving week.
This morning I thought I'd ask, what is the weird side dish that your family serves?
My family did, scalloped oysters.
Well, hooray for scalloped oysters.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.
You had it three times a year.
I had a grandfather and two uncles that loved scalloped oysters.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, that probably helped.
For us, it was only me and my mother.
Everybody else thought, hey, scalloped oysters, who wants that crap?
They went for the easy potatoes and stuffing and 23 bean salad and all of that.
Yeah, my aunt would eat just the breading, not the oysters.
My three uncles just totaled it.
Oh, me too.
I just, I couldn't stop.
It was actually appetizing.
So you'd eat a ton.
You'd increase your appetite.
Eventually, if you ate too much, you'd die a star.
I think so that's what got me to stop I
Think
that's what happens when you eat too many appetizers you die of starvation
My mother it's her secret recipe,
okay,
she only used
Washington Red Apples, chopped up.
Celery, chopped up.
Cucumbers, chopped up.
And a little bit of the little baby carrots, chopped up.
And then she would make a cream sauce, a whitey cream sauce, really sweet.
Yeah.
And she'd mix the salt together.
And then just to totally get you going, she'd only use a little bit of egg white.
OK.
Chopped up.
And
you sit there and you're going, OK, shredded lettuce and that.
It's good.
You start eating this like your taste buds are going, apple, cucumber.
I got a carrot.
It tastes like I'm sucking on a kidney bar.
Wow.
And
it's like, oh, you just sit there, you eat it, and you forget about the turkey, the gravy, and the dressing, and all that.
You're just going, how much does apple salad do you make?
I only made one quart, so share with everyone.
I'm like, oh, come on now.
Make me a quart.
Make everybody else a pint.
Yeah.
Give me the major.
But she would never tell me how she made the sweet sauce.
And she's never revealed it to anybody, and you have no idea.
I've tried and I
killed
four apples.
I went through a half a stock celery.
Yeah.
And it's
that white sauce and she never told me.
Oh.
I
watched her add sugar one time.
I got it, but then it was like, so I don't know quite how she did that.
So I have to ask, is your mom still around?
Yes, but she still won't share the recipe.
You know, if she's not willing to share it now, maybe she'd be willing to like, leave it in her will.
And you know, you can pass it down through the generations and have it become a family thing.
Okay, my mother was taught to cook like this, and I watched my grandma do it.
It's a little of this, a little of that.
It tastes like this, it tastes like that.
Nothing is wrote down, it's in
their head yeah and they will not put this on paper
have you tried but mom and then suggest you know the next time she makes it maybe she can just write down you know right after she puts something in there how much she put in there on paper and then you'd have it that way
I tried that one day and I was told to get the hell out of the kitchen I'm in her way oh mother mother mother I tried that was a great idea
I had that
idea 20 years ago and I got kicked out of the kitchen twice
well now she's a little older and maybe you can
and talk to her more easily and maybe now she's more willing to, but you know, you know your mother better than I do, obviously.
Thinking out loud.
Yeah, she's going on, she's turned 79.
Yeah.
And she still kicks
you out of the kitchen.
Hey, I just wanted to tell you what we make as a side dish.
Yeah, what do you make?
Is it weird?
It is weird.
Good!
What
is it?
It's oyster stuffing.
You know what?
We do scalloped oysters.
Oh, really?
Oyster stuffing.
I'll bet that's pretty stinking good.
It
is good,
absolutely.
Yeah.
I'm aware of.
You are.
In fact, the first time I heard oyster salad, I'm thinking, I don't want any part of that.
But then I ate it.
That sounds
disgusting.
It does.
It does sound disgusting.
But you put a spoonful in your mouth, and I'll tell you, you're a believer.
You are.
I'll have to give it a whirl.
You know, I think your oyster dish, the oyster stuffing is a lot like the scalloped oysters.
It's, you know, it had some breading in there and that kind of thing.
So it's, it tasted very stuffing like, uh, but.
Yeah.
But, so maybe it's the same thing.
It sounds
weird, but it's amazing.
This huge burst of, of flavor and either that burst of flavor will make you run to the bathroom or it'll make you eat the entire dish.
It's one of the two.
One
of the two.
You're
the weirdo or you're not?
Weirdos and.
Oysters, there's something cool about us.
Right on.
My dad always loved orange jello with shredded carrot in it.
Oh, I know of that side dish, I do.
That was- It's pretty good though.
Yeah, do
you think so?
You had to like jello and a weird texture, but-
See, that's it.
Really, the one thing I love about jello is just that texture.
If you had those little, little carrots in there, it just, I don't know.
It would taste wrong.
Cause everybody
else always did jello and fruit, but-
Yeah.
Never ever heard of anybody else doing jello and a vegetable.
I have actually heard of that.
Maybe we're the only two.
Yeah, but it always felt like something foreign in the Jell-O when you chop down on the carrots.
Exactly.
You're trying to swallow the Jell-O and it's like, wait a minute, what's that?
Yeah.
Now I've got like 17 carrot shards stuck in my throat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you just wash it down with some wine and who cares?
Exactly.
A little extra gravy next bite.
Yeah, that too.
All right.
I'm adding that to the list of weird side dishes.
Thanks for that.
Oh, you are welcome.
Weekday mornings, 5.30 to
10.
