During the pandemic, our family started two weekly traditions in our search for a semblance of consistency during a worldwide moment of uncertainty: Friday night became Dance Night.
We had a blast. And now our daughter has amazing taste in music (or at least our taste in music, which is amazing), fostered as as we boogied to our favorites: Whitney Houston, David Bowie, Prince, John Prine, Queen, Dolly Parton, Dwight Yoakam, Willie Nelson, Elvis Costello, She and Him, Mariah Carey, and too many more to name (clearly, we are of a certain age). One of my proudest parenting moments followed the next year when “Raspberry Beret” began playing while we were cooking dinner. Thus, I began explaining why this song is essential listening, not only of international but also local significance for those of us on the Northern Plains—but she interrupted me, rolled her eyes, and asserted, “Mom, I know who Prince is. You’ve told me many times.” Despite the disdain in her voice, I felt triumphant. My Minnesota-adjacent child is on top of all the important things.
On Dance Night, we also regularly tuned in to our local NPR station, Prairie Public, to listen to “Friday Night Swing,” with Lloyd Anderson. Every week we hoped we didn’t miss this week’s Truly Terrible Track, after experiencing the revelation that is the 1953 song “Who Hid the Halibut on the Poop Deck?” by Yogi Yorgesson. Though listeners never learn who actually hid the aforementioned, fetid halibut on the ship, we do learn that it was found by Knut Knutson (side note: I am fairly certain it was not my paternal great-grandfather—also named Knut Knutson). Our family is thoroughly charmed by Lloyd’s expert commentary and taste.
Saturday night became “Movie Night” and has two components: food and a movie. The food portion often involves what a then-preschool-aged daughter started calling “Snack Supper”—charcuterie, smoked salmon, cheese, veggies, fruit, hummus, tapenade, and so on. It’s a supper full of snacks, right? It’s brilliant! Our later variations of snack suppers included warm appetizers during the winter—garlic cheesy bread, egg rolls, dumplings, mozzarella sticks, samosas, and spinach and artichoke dip. We worked our way around the Costco frozen foods section, obviously.
Sometimes we made or ordered a themed meal, paired to a cinematic selection. We ate pizza when watching Luca, Chinese take-out as we enjoyed Turning Red, and lasagna during Puss in Boots.
Yes, I know…Garfield is the orange cat who loves lasagna.
How could I ever forget? Garfield has been one of the most important cats in my life since I was a child; though as an adult, I’m a bit shocked at how casually cruel he can be. Since our daughter had watched a few episodes of the new Garfield cartoon show on Netflix, we were thinking about orange, anthropomorphized cats when we selected our movie for our upcoming Movie Night. Since we’d already seen both Garfield movies, whoever was the lucky one to chose the movie that Saturday decided by analogy that Puss in Boots was up next.
And I decided to create some zany lasagna-fueled cattitude for my family by making a trifecta of The Joy of Sharing’s dishes for an Italian banquet: “Sharon’s French Bread,” submitted by Pat Buen; “Simply Dilly Cukes,” contributed by Geraldine Florence; and of course, “Lasagna,” from Cathy Knutson, my mother. Each recipe will be featured in a separate post.
Like Garfield, we feasted.
