The Yellow Box

​​THE YELLOW BOX

Susan W. Hudson

Every semester, when the class listings came out for East Carolina University, I spent hours poring over them intensely. I had to decide what I could fit into my half-time schedule without too much disruption for my family or my full-time employer.

In the fall of 1989, I chose “The Power of Myth,” based on the book by the same name, authored byJoseph Campbell. It was spellbinding. I was learning to embrace my totem (the small, but mighty Bobcat), became fascinated by the spiritual concept of Wicca, and pondering how to follow my bliss.

My mind automatically wandered back to a “Magic Box” that came to me a decade early, and my friend, Mary Ellen.

I met Mary Ellen quite by accident. In the fall of 1979, my older son was in fourth grade and his little brother was four years old. I had been a stay-at-home mom, but I decided this would be a good time to re-test the waters of the work world. I accepted a temporary position with the county health department. My duties were typing and filing. No need to think.

The employees, mostly women, were of the “married, had children, let myself go a little bit, gained a little weight” ilk. On the contrary, I was thin and well-kempt. I had long dark hair, and I had a knack for sewing and fashion.

Within days, a young woman, Mary Ellen, who was the nutritionist for the health department, befriended me. She was blessed with an abundance of long fiery red hair and a personality to match.

The women at the health department were, for the most part, kind to me, They lived in a very small universe. Some, however, resented my relationship with Mary Ellen. Why would a lovely Yankee girl from Cincinnati, Ohio with a college education take up with a Southern-born and bred temporary typist? Well, we had much more in common than those folks could imagine.

Though single and childless, Mary Ellen enjoyed spending time with me and my boys. She found my older son precocious and the younger one adorable. She sensed that I was a “cut above” the average Southern “country people” she had met.

Mary Ellen taught me about nutrition, pasta making, yogurt making, and the water of the Catholic Italian family - red wine. I had tasted neither wine nor beer. “Everbody in my family and most of our friends drink red wine with dinner - even the kids,” she explained.

One day the boys and I dropped by to help her pack. She was moving to a nicer apartment. She held up a yellow plastic box with recipes in it.

“Would you like to have this? If not, it’s going in the trash.”

“Yes. Why not?” I took it home. Eventually, I opened “the box.” It contained “The Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library." I read every recipe and committed every picture to memory. I closed the box. A simple yellow plastic box, 6x6x8, holding approximately 100 recipes opened up my world.

The Ancient Greek poet, in “The Theogony,” said,

“Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house -

she remained under the lip of the jar and did not

fly away. Before [she could], Pandora replaced the

lid of the jar. This was the will of aegis-bearing

Zeus the Cloud-gatherer.”

This was certainly a Pandora’s box for me. I had already experienced some of the demons Zeus had let out of the box before he presented it to Pandora: The pain of pregnancy and childbirth, woe when my best friend lost her 18 month old son to the murky waters of a pond in their backyard, and two surgeries when I had cervical cancer at age 28.

But the box that I opened still held the one important element that Zeus had left behind, and Pandora had saved. There, among the many recipes that I was bound to try, and the new adventures that I was hoping to experience, was the lovely little “Hope.” She flew out of the box but remained near me for the rest of my life.

When I accepted a marriage proposal at age 19, my prospective husband knew that I did not love him. I told him so. I had grown up in a financially and intellectually poor home. He continued to seduce me with promises of a house on a hill with a white picket fence. I finally caved and agreed to marry him. I learned very soon after the wedding that my husband’s attitude toward me was “You are what you are, only a woman. Everything you have is because I have given it to you. You are mine.”

He didn’t realize that the goddesses had granted me many gifts at birth. Aphrodite gave me Beauty. Although I was often told that I was attractive, she gave me something more valuable, the ability to see beauty in unusual ways: the humble weed, a delicate spider’s web, an angry cloud, or an insect. Aphrodite also gave me one of the greatest gifts of all - Love: clearly not the love of my life at this point, but a love for all humankind and animalkind.

Athena had granted me Wisdom, which I sometimes doubted because no one around me confirmed it. She also granted me the power of the knowledge of War which I rarely used unless someone attacked me or my sons.

Fortunately, Hera had granted me a double dose of curiosity and a keen sense of fairness, which I often used in an excruciatingly unfair world.

Most importantly, Eloes granted me more sympathy than most humans will ever know.

My husband, John, liked Mary Ellen less than the women at the health department liked me. Like much of the population in our small southern town, he was suspicious of anybody who didn’t use the word “y’all.” He feared her. Like my parents and my sister, he felt that Brown people, Black people, and just foreigners from up north were out to get him. But, he was so inattentive to my inner workings that he didn’t even notice when I came in with “the box full of Hope.”

My husband never forgave Mary Ellen. I physically took my boys, their clothes, and my clothes and left him in 1981. He didn’t even realize that I left him emotionally much earlier (just after I married him). He was not mean – just totally self-centered, insensitive, and unresponsive to anyone else’s needs. He was a toddler in a man’s body. He thought that my friend, and Hope, who escaped the Yellow Box, corrupted me.

Five years later, when I was happily married to an open-minded husband, we revisited the Yellow Box together. We found and tried a provocative recipe. We both liked it.

Rumaki

12 strips bacon, cut in half (use a thin slice bacon)

24 slices of water chestnuts

24 pieces of chicken liver

2 T. Soy Sauce

2 T. Brown Sugar

To Prep: Soak wooden toothpicks in a bowl for water for an hour.

Drain chicken livers and cut into 24 bite-sized pieces. Place chicken livers and water chestnuts in a medium bowl and add about 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. Stir and marinate for at least an hour. Drain again when ready to use.

Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking pan with foil or parchment paper.

Lay a half a piece of bacon flat on a cutting board. Place one water chestnut and piece of chicken liver on top, in the middle of the bacon. Wrap bacon around the water chestnut and liver and secure with a wooden toothpick. Place on the prepared pan. Repeat until all the chicken livers are prepared and are on the pan.

Bake until the bacon is crispy, about 20-25 minutes. Best if enjoyed immediately.

I decided to make this recipe for the Christmas luncheon at Planters Bank where I was a Customer Services Representative. I didn't expect rave reviews, but I thought it was worth a try. I always loved to surprise people.

On my break the day of the luncheon, I went downstairs to the kitchen. People had put out their deviled eggs and cheese balls and other dishes - the usual fare. I opened the crock pot I had brought to keep the Rumaki warm.

David, a hot-shot, recent college graduate who was an obnoxious loan-officer wannabe bounced down the stairs. He sniffed around, sneaking a little head start on the others. He picked up one of the Rumaki by its toothpick, gave it a smell and said, “yum, that smells good.” He popped the whole thing in his mouth.

“Id tat ‘hichen LVRS?” he stammered as he turned as green as the Grinch. He picked up a handful of napkins, as I replied, “Why, yes - yes it is. Do you like it?”

While he spat into the trash can, I heard Hope, who was sitting on my shoulder, softly giggle. When he made it to the top of the stairs, Hope and I gave each other an air high-five. Hope and I agreed that David had learned a lesson that day that he will never forget.