Egg Nog is not only for Christmas, and T learns about gas – for mw&g

When we were kids and living in that big beach house, there was a period when my mother became unwell.  For quite some time actually. And during the times when she was in bed  I would take over the kitchen and the littlies and my sister A would take over the laundry and the floors. My youngest sister G did the animals and chooks.

Dad would rise very early in the morning  and make a big pot of porridge.  Then he would walk up and down the halls calling us all to wakefulness before he went to work at 6.30.

Our milk was delivered early in the morning in pint bottles with little silver tin foil lids. These were dropped one by one into a little wire basket. To tell the milk boy how many bottles you wanted you put that many empty bottles out on the fence the night before, with the corresponding number of plastic tokens that we bought at the dairy (little grocery store)up the road, inside the bottles.  The milk boy had a trolley with crates loaded with bottles of milk and he ran clanking down the road, going to each house, pulling out empties and loading the baskets with full white fresh creamy milk and popping the baskets in a special shaded area below the letterbox with a tinkle of glass on glass. Our first morning sound. The milk was always whole, or full cream and so there was a little layer of cream on top of the milk. We were always careful of this layer as it was the best of the milk, kids would get up early in the morning to try and get this cream for their hot porridge, which was then piled high with  brown sugar and eaten from the outside in. One of my sisters did not care about the cream because she would pour the milk very carefully in a moat around her porridge then lift the island of porridge away from the sides and then stir the island around and around until the milk flew across the kitchen.

After I had poured the cream off  I would make egg nogs for everyone with our own eggs (Dad had chooks down the back)  and this beautiful fresh milk.  Everyone had a cup of egg nog every morning. This was not American Christmas eggnog which I knew nothing about until I came to America.  This was special celi eggnog that we had for breakfast every morning for years. Mum was adamant that we all drink it.  I think that even though my mother struggled for years with her health or maybe because if it she was probably a pioneer in health food. I will tell you about her muesli, and mama munch one day too.

So we were all upstairs in the new kitchen.   I had separated 6 eggs into two separate bowls and was whisking the whites. Dad had gone to work. Mum was in bed. All the kids were milling about stuffing lunches (sandwiches that I had made the night before  and wrapped in grease proof paper) into their bags, doing last minute homework and preparing their own versions of breakfast.

T was in charge of making the toast.  He had been doing this for ages. Everyone worked together, had their own job and cleaned their own dishes in the mornings. We had a system, the kitchen was packed with movement but it worked. We did not have a toaster, we had a gas grill that was mounted on the wall. The grill could take 6 pieces of bread at a time, and T would sit up there munching and toasting until the orders stopped coming in.  He was a bit short though being so young so to reach the grill he pulled out a drawer, stood on it then heaved his little self up onto the bench. He would squat like a  grasshopper at the grill. Saying very little because he was a quiet fella.

This morning as I was making the egg nog I was  listening to an even younger brother read his homework book, my sisters were eating at the breakfast bar, and my older brother was carefully sprinkling about 2 inches of brown sugar onto his porridge.  I was in charge of the littlies and I took this responsibility seriously but I was right there at the bench with T, so it wasn’t like he was alone or anything. 

So, I had separated the 6 eggs, the yolks were mixed with three cups of milk and a teaspoon of vanilla in one bowl. I was beating the egg whites in another bowl into peaks slowly adding three spoons of sugar.

T had that thing that you strike and it makes a spark, my sisters were shouting to each other and Mum was beeping on her intercom hoping for a cup of tea and we had not noticed that T had turned on the gas and  was taking a bit longer than usual to light it. He had been doing this job for months without misshap. The repeated rasp of the lighter went unheard. The gas silently surrounded him. He was leaning right into the grill peering – all eyebrows and freckles.  I turned off the beater reaching for the spatula to fold everything together when we heard  the woosh as the gas lit. An instant blue flame ignited the air around his head. T was  absolutely silent and motionless  within it  for just a moment. As we all turned to him he turned to us and he had a shocking grin on his face. Like WOW.  We all just froze. The toast began to cook.  I looked at him saying what just happened. His big eyes seemed bigger. He just looked back at me. Then I realised that he had no eyelashes at all and his eyebrows were singed to stubs and the front of his hair was frizzled to orange. His skin was completely untouched, he was absolutely ok,  the flame had just wooshed around him burning all the hair. I reached over and swung him down off the bench and lugged him over to the mirror to look at himself. He was laughing, this little kid was laughing his head off.  My sisters laughed as well and my big brother turned over the toast. My other little brother sat silently on his stool in the middle of the floor, holding his book and just watched.

I went back to the egg nog with T kneeling on  another stool next to me and let him fold everything together. The other little brother resumed his reading.  Everyone else started the clean-up. I did not share this job as a rule. The drink had to be light and airy or no-one would drink it. My egg nog had to be just right. He carefully poured the mix into each persons glass. It was important to get the portions exactly the same in the glasses as the pourer could not choose his glass until everyone else had.  I made Mum her cup of hot weak black tea as T called the others to  their drinks, he  handed me mine, littler brother his, then gulped his own egg nog down (it must be drunk immediately while still fluffy and straight down the hatch), we dropped the glasses and bowls upside down in the big top-loading  dishwasher as our sisters wiped benches and grabbed bags and then we went downstairs to tell Mum what had happened, but we have to run because we are late and say goodbye as we all left for school. 

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