Sunday Night Lunch

Yesterday Amanda, Rachel, and I had a "Sunday Night Lunch." The term comes from the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace. Betsy's family, the Rays, have "Sunday Night Lunch" every week. It's really supper, but the Rays have always called it lunch, which is just one of their many endearing traditions. Mr. Ray sits in state in the kitchen and makes thick sandwiches with lots of salt and pepper and dressing. And they always have cocoa and fudge and other goodies. Plus a house full of people and singing around the piano, and maybe a waltz or a two-step when the rugs get rolled back.

So last night we had cheese and crackers and bread and pickles and tomatoes - a kind of Betsy-ish picnic. But the culinary centerpiece of the evening was the fudge. In the Betsy books people always made fudge at the drop of the hat - how hard could it be?

We stirred the ingredients over the stove...


Then we put it in the fridge to cool and harden, while we went and sang hymns around the piano. Eventually the fudge was cool so we went to cut ourselves some....



Goop! Not sure what happened, but it was kind of a disaster! In fact, it didn't even remotely resemble fudge, except that it was sweet and chocolatey. Of course, one of the best things about fudge is its fudgy texture. Oh well. We comforted ourselves with the fact that Betsy apparently couldn't make fudge either:

"[Betsy and Joe] were making fudge, or rather, Joe was making it. He scorned Betsy's cooking and fancied his own, so he took charge of the bubbling pan while Betsy watched from the kitchen table." (from Betsy and Joe)

Yes, well, what I want to know is this: where is Joe Willard when you need him?