The COOLEST Find Ever – Barack Obama On PBS’ ‘Check Please’ In 2001

[VScott]

15. We had 3 spices at home when I was a kid.

Salt, pepper and ketchup (ok, ketchup isn't a spice, but it gives you some idea of what
meals were like growing up in a working class Boston Irish household in the 60's-70's).

I didn't know there was such a thing as beef prepared anything less than well done or over cooked.

It wasn't until I was 20 something that I had my first steak done medium/medium rare.
My first thought was 'my God... this is fantastic!'. 'What kind of sorcery is this?'

Then there was 'meatless Fridays', which meant tuna fish sandwiches for lunch, and pizza for dinner.

It wasn't all meat/beef and potatoes (at least not the potatoes part) though.
Maybe once or twice a week my mom would make pork chops (with mashed potatoes), broiled chicken legs
(with mashed potatoes... sometimes instant rice). Ohhh.... and how could I forget frozen TV dinners.
Those were a special treat that I looked forward too.

Ethnic cuisine (on the rare occasions we had it), usually meant Chinese and/or Italian... Italian being
meatballs and spaghetti.

So, it was really no surprise that when I joined the FD years later, and a fair portion of the guys were people from
the neighborhood, more than I few that I grew up with, that the meals were practically identical.

There was one difference though from my moms cooking... we had firehouse chefs that could cook up a storm
and outdo a lot of professionals in the kitchen... at least for roast beef, pot roast and meatloaf.