Victoria's Vegetarian Victuals

Is it Spring yet? I have to keep checking. You know all those weather reports that you're hearing about the cold spell in the Middle Atlantic States? Well, I think that it's sitting right on top of our house. We have a new heating system, and boy are we glad about that. All the same, I still don't like cold weather.

In particularly, I don't like February.

Except for February of 1983.

I was nine years old. It was cold that month, but there had been no snow. I was still in foster care, and recovering from bronchitis, though I was back at school.

I remember that it was a Tuesday night, and my foster mother sat me down and told me that the next day a strange woman was coming to take me away from them forever and that I'd never see any of them again. I was terrified. Not that I was so all-fired happy in that home, but after all, "better the devil you know...."

I was too scared to sleep that night. Somebody had said, shortly before I went to bed that I was going to be adopted by a fat witch, who would beat me and kill me. There was a going away party the next day in school for me, but I was too scared to enjoy it. I dreaded the end of the day, when I would have to go home and SHE, the fat witch, would be there.

There was a strange car in the driveway, and the caseworker's car was there, too. I was shaking.

She was sitting on the sofa, between two case workers.

First thing I noticed was that she wasn't fat. She had on a brown velvet pantsuit, (later, I learned that she had made it herself) and her hair was up on top of her head. It was red, like my own. She smiled, sort of a scared little smile. (Could witches be scared?)

"This is Ms. Smith," somebody said. "You will be my new mommy?" I said, scornfully. I wasn't going down without a fight. "If that's OK with you," she said.

All of a sudden, I wasn't scared. I grabbed her hand and showed her my room. (The only one in that cold house without even a small bedside rug on the floor.) We went back into the living room, and one of the caseworkers said to her, "Well, do you still want her?" As though I were not there.

"Of course," the red-haired stranger said. "I'm in love." She was annoyed at the caseworker, I could tell.

To make a long story shorter, she sat on the floor with me, and opened her briefcase. There was an "Annie" doll in it, and a bunch of Barbie clothes, and a locket. She put the locket around my neck. "Just like in the movie," she said. I didn't know that she was talking about the "Annie" movie, because I had never seen it.

"I heard that you have a Barbie doll," she said. "Please go get her."

I was embarrassed, because the other kids had pulled the left leg off the doll, and most of her hair. But I brought her out. The stranger took her from me very gently. "Can you help her?" I blurted out. She nodded, very slowly. "I think so," she said. "One of my hobbies is doll-making."

When it came time for her to go, I expected that I would go with her. I was ready. Of course, Social Services was not. We had to "visit". I put my arms around her waist and hung on.

"You will come back for me?" I begged. "Nothing will stop me," she said. I made her take Barbie and Annie with her. I didn't know what the kids would do to them. I wanted them safe with my new mommy. Like I would be. "When will we go to your house?" I asked. "Sunday," she told me. It was only Wednesday. It took forever to get to Sunday from there.

And that was how I met J. M. Smith, author of Merlyn, in February of 1983. And she taught me to kick butt, and nobody has bullied me since.

Now, in honor of our 17th anniversary, and also in honor of President's Day, I have some very American recipes to help us survive this month.