Noises From Kitchen Cause Hopeful Curiosity
I love the sounds of the kitchen. The soft whir of my bread machine on the kitchen counter, the whistling kettle calling out for attention, the beeping of the microwave oven telling me dinner is ready - they’re music to my ears. The sounds bring me out of my current task, and I move with anticipation to the calling in the kitchen.
You may have noticed that kids like appliance noises. My middle daughter went through a phase one summer of creating all kinds of concoctions in the blender. We got used to the monstrous sounds of that not-so-quiet machine throughout the day.
The mixer has a special appeal, too; turn ours on and my youngest daughter comes running. She loves mixing things such as cookie dough and will contentedly hold the mixer for the longest time, watching the swirl patterns it makes in the food.
My oldest daughter is quick on her feet when she hears the toaster pop up. And all of us can make the contents of the refrigerator clink together when the door is shut too hard.
Put a few of those sounds together at the same time - not an unusual occurrence in many households - and you have a kitchen cacophony which can easily go unnoticed as participants concentrate on their appliance-assisted food creations.
The best sounds from the kitchen, however, are those lip-smacking, satisfying sounds of someone enjoying their food. The clinking of spoons in a cup of hot chocolate, the slurp of a straw in a glass of cold skim milk, the unmistakable crunch of popcorn means pure enjoyment for someone reaping the results of their food preparation.
Here’s a quiet sandwich dinner to put together as you savor the silence before gathering the family to talk and laugh about their experiences of the day.
Hot Ham Hoagies
From “Taste of Home Annual Recipes, 2000” (Reiman Publications, 1999).
1 cup barbecue sauce
3/4 teaspoon ground mustard
3/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 pound thinly sliced fully cooked ham
Lettuce leaves, sliced tomatoes, onions and Swiss cheese
6 hoagie or submarine buns, split
In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the first five ingredients (barbecue sauce through ham); bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
Place lettuce, tomato, onion and cheese on buns. Top with the ham mixture.
Yield: 6 servings.
Nutrition information per serving: 394 calories, 10 grams fat (23 percent fat calories), 45 grams carbohydrate, 30 grams protein, 42 milligrams cholesterol, 4 grams dietary fiber, 1,576 milligrams sodium.