Liver and Onion Day (Published Jan 17, 2022)

Thursday was Liver and Onion Day in my house growing up. I can still smell that liver frying to this day. It was a disgusting smell, sort of like the smell you get passing those steers waiting for slaughter along Interstate 5 near Kettleman City. Wait, that smell is more pleasant to me than the smell of that liver cooking. I tried to stay outside or in my room with my door closed and the window open. Seems nothing worked to hide that smell. I remember my parents trying and trying to make me eat that liver, but I just couldn’t. And the smell led to me just hating the look of that slimy purplish red blob wrapped in white butcher paper. Once cooked it turned a hideous rusty brown. So that pungent smell went on to affect all my senses toward liver. Once my parents finally figured out, I absolutely would not eat that organ on the plate, my mom decided to instead serve me the over-boiled chicken which was nearly as bad but not intolerable. Okay, a bit more about the chicken. My mom would buy a chicken and would make delicious fried or baked chicken. What was left of the chicken would be made into a soup. That soup would cook on the stove for hours and hours, also not my favorite smell, but tremendously better than the liver. We would have the soup, with soggy carrots, turnips, and rutabaga. But wait, that boiled chicken now blotted in water was still in the pot. That was used for chicken-a-la king. Now that was pretty good as the flour and white sauce drown out the water-soaked chicken taste. But what was left still was some off-white, almost grey, chunks for glob and this is what I would get if I did not want the liver and onions. So, the off-white glob it was. I can remember piercing the chicken with my fork and having it incinerate into mush before my eyes. At some point, I believe when I was around ten, the torture over the rusty-brown liver and off-white water bloated chicken suddenly ended. My parents were apparently tired of the fight. The decision was made to pick up Peaks hamburgers for my dinner. Peaks was one of the first fast-food places in the San Fernando Valley and as I recall even had golden arches like McDonalds. And so while had to still endure that awful smell, I had something to look forward to on Thursday nights and instead of it being my least favorite nights, it became one of my favorite dinner nights of the week.

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