I was housecleaning at my client’s home, which was undergoing renovations by her brother-in-law. We had gotten to know each other, as we were in the house together, both doing our own thing on 4-5 different occasions. Anyhoo, the brother-in-law said he had plans to head out to their Hunt Camp… the location for the Annual Effing Family Reunion

I naively asked, “Effing.  What nationality is that name?” He looked up at me, to check my facial expression. Since I looked inquisitively at him, awaiting his reply, he sheepishly answered me, “That’s a real bad word that we don’t like to say in full around the womenfolk.” I had to laugh, but I felt like a fool. I think I also made him feel bad for even saying it.

Some people might consider it traumatic to be left behind at a meeting while the rest of the family goes ahead home.  Not so with the Bryant kids!  We learned not to panic; eventually Dad and Roberta would notice our absence and come back to collect us.  To prevent this recurring problem, a family roll call was instituted.  We would all pile into the van and it would begin: Ray – Here! Juanita – Present! Derek – Hee-yah! and so on down the line.  Only later, when the number of children at home had dwindled to a mere 5 or 6 was the roll call no longer deemed necessary.

Being from a large family with thirteen children, we were not what most people would consider rich. Truthfully we were probably not even what most people would consider “comfortable”. We didn’t eat out much and we all had our chores ever since we were little. The nine girls of the family were taught to cook from an early age. This made for a very interesting diet. If one of the girls burned everything she cooked, the next youngest under-cooked everything in her paranoia of burning the food.

When we cooked or baked it was quite often that we did not have all the ingredients or baking utensils the recipe called for, especially the expensive ones, and no one was willing to go and buy them for a learning cook. This led us to regularly improvise or invent our own recipes using what we did have in the house at the time. As could be imagined these meals or desserts were not always pleasant dining experiences. Even though the food didn’t taste very good it did get eaten since none of us were picky eaters and we wanted the same consideration the next time we cooked.

One day my younger sister Gabrielle, who at the time was about five years old, decided she was going to bake something. No one realized that she was in the kitchen unsupervised at the time. She had seen us cook so many times she thought she knew just how to do it. She got a big mixing bowl and started randomly dumping in ingredients. She was making muffins and she put in milk, flour, margarine, raisins and sugar. Of course the measurements were way off since it was a five-year-old deciding how much sugar or raisins would taste good in a recipe. She had made such a big batch that no one wanted to throw it out and waste all that food, so one of my older sisters started dumping more unmeasured ingredients into the bowl. She kept adding things until she felt it was the right consistency and then we poured them into muffin tins and baked them.

When the muffins came out of the oven they were rock hard little pucks that had not risen at all. Since all of us kids were curious to see how a five-year-old child’s invented recipe of muffins tasted, we tried them. They weren’t very good and we didn’t want to eat them all so we went around to all of our neighbour friends and asked them if they wanted to try the muffins that Gabrielle made. They were surprised and said yes and eventually they all ended up being eaten. My little sister then thought she was a great cook since all of her muffins disappeared so quickly. Since none of the ingredients went to waste and everyone enjoyed a fresh batch of “muffins” our parents didn’t get upset with anyone.

Since that experience a new rule has been instituted in the Bryant home that the younger children need to ask permission and find a recipe to follow before they are allowed to attempt cooking. This has led to a much better quality of food.