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The next morning, Kookie and Emmie join me in the kitchen early.  Since Lyric and Janna helped me to make the meatball dough yesterday afternoon, now all we have to do is roll it into balls before browning them in a hot skillet. Then I’ll add the gravy ingredients and let it all simmer for several hours. 

The three of us spend a half hour making all the meatballs, and I marvel at how much easier this seems to be when I have such efficient helpers.  Of course, back in the old days when my kids were tiny, I was feeding only my own family.  I didn’t have to make nearly this many meatballs.  So why does it seem so much easier with such delightful help?

Janna arrives shortly to begin making the lefse. 

“Boys!” she yells at the top of her lungs as she calls her little brothers to the kitchen.

However, they are very effective at ignoring her shrill tones.  A bedroom door stops a lot of trauma.  Of course, Janna is not going to give up that easily.  She marches down the hallway and swings their door wide. 

“Boys!  It’s time for you to peel the potatoes.  Come on!  The Switch will wait!  The potatoes will not!” 

I’m not in the room, but I can see her stomp over to their desk and pull the Switch from its cradle.  I know this happens because I can hear Everett whining, “Hey!  I was playing that!”

“You can finish playing it once the potatoes are peeled.  We have to peel two whole bags of potatoes today.  Lyric’s whole family is joining us.  All seven of them.  Then there’s the nine of us.  Plus, we’re taking food to Jimmy and his mom.  We’re cooking for twenty people today!”

“Seven?” Everett responds.  “I thought Lyric just had two sisters.”

“Nope.  He has a little sister, Cadence, who will be joining us today too.  So is Chord.”

“Who is Chord?”

“His baby brother.”

As she enters the kitchen, I hear these last few remarks.  “Lyric has a baby brother?”  How on earth do I not know this?

She nods at me.  “Yeah, Mom.”

“How old is he?”

“He’s two years old.  And Cadence is five.”

I simply stare at her.  Lyric has practically been living at my house for the past few weekends.  How did I not know he had tiny siblings?

“Janna, how come I didn’t know that Lyric has a little brother and sister?”

“Because it just happened, Mom.”

“What?”

“Remember how I told you that they had taken a couple of foster kids into their house a few weeks ago?”

“Oh, yes.  I vaguely remember this.”

“Well, they were just granted an adoption.  Last Friday!  Cadence and Chord are now Lyric’s siblings.  Officially.”

“That’s wonderful, honey!  Hmm.  Janna, you need to bring the booster seat up from the basement for tonight then.  And I need to rethink the table arrangements.  I hadn’t factored in two tiny kids that need to stay close to their parents.  I must admit I forgot they had foster kids when I was making up the seating chart.  

“I guess I can put your father out here in the kitchen with me, Lyric’s parents, and little siblings.  I’ll seat Alastair and Abner out here too.  Then the rest of you can sit at the dining room table.  Lyric, Nana, Kookie, Emmie, Melody, Harmony, Everett, Noel,” I list off the seating assignments for the other room.

“Mom.”

“What?”

“I think you forgot something.”

“What?” I glance sharply at my daughter.

“You told Lyric that Melody and Harmony could invite a friend.”

“Did they?”

“Yeah.”

“And their dates are coming?  To a stranger’s house?  On Christmas Eve?”

“Mom.  You’re not a stranger.  Yoon’s been here before.”

“Who is Harmony bringing?”

“Well, she was going to invite Jimmy, but since his mom is still in the hospital, she invited Harper instead.”

“So, Harper is coming?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“All right.  Let’s get to work then.  We have a lot of people to feed tonight.  I guess I’ll let Everett and Noel sit at the coffee table in the living room then, so Yoon and Harper can join you guys at the dining room table.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“It’s a good thing Emmie’s parents couldn’t come tonight.  I wouldn’t have anywhere to put them.”  I pause for a second as I consider the mammoth task that we’ve taken on today.  “Wow.  This is going to be the fullest house we’ve ever had.”

“That’s not true, Mom.”

“Well, I mean, on Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“But your grandma has me beat.  When we used to do this at her house, she would often invite as many as twenty-five.”

“Don’t worry, Mom.  You’ll get there.  You had five kids.  One of these days, you’ll have fifty people crammed into this house on Christmas Eve.”

“Fifty?” I ask, startled.  “You’re all going to have eight kids?”

“Probably not.  But, someday, you’ll have great-grandkids too.”

“You can host Christmas Eve when I do,” I respond blithely.

She laughs.  But I can see that her ordered brain is already planning that family get-together.

As she works on the potatoes, I begin cooking the meatballs.

“So, Janna, if you and Lyric decide to help me make these another time, you’ll need to know how to cook them.  I melt a couple tablespoons of butter in a skillet before adding enough meatballs to cover the bottom of the pan.  Then I brown them on both sides.  Once they’re browned, I remove them from the pan and put them on a plate. 

“Then, I add a little water to the pan to loosen the little browned bits.  That’s where all the flavor is.  I scrape all that goodness into a bowl and cook the next batch of meatballs the same way.  Now, your grandma’s recipe called for using only two tablespoons of butter for the whole recipe, but I like to make more gravy, so I use two tablespoons of butter per panful of meatballs.  I add a couple extra pats of butter and melt them every time before adding the next group of meatballs to the pan.  When you make the gravy, you’ll need to add extra flour and coffee too.”

“Coffee?”

“Yeah.  Remember?  That’s the secret ingredient.”

“It’s just so weird,” Janna opines.

“I know, but it makes them taste amazing.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.  I definitely do.”

I finish cooking the first batch of meatballs.  Once I’ve removed them all from the pan, I turn towards Janna. 

“I’m going to teach you how to make the gravy now.  I add another two tablespoons of butter to the hot pan and melt them.  Then I add a quarter cup of flour.  Mix it until a soft paste forms.  Finally, I pour all the drippings I previously scraped from the pan back in.”

“Do I whisk all that together?”

“If you can.  If it’s too thick, you can use a spatula to smooth it together.  Then add another quarter cup of flour.  Basically, you want to use one tablespoon of flour for each tablespoon of butter used.  I’m hoping that will be enough.  The meat leaks its own fat into the mix too while it all cooks.  So if I don’t add enough flour, the gravy will be really greasy.”

I tilt the pan towards her.  “See how we’ve created a pale paste?  Now, I slowly whisk in four cups of coffee.  Then I find a big oven safe pan and pour half the gravy into it.  Can you grab a pan?”

“The stainless steel one?” she asks as she crosses to our mini pantry and pulls the big pan off its shelf.

I nod.  “We’ll start with that one.  I’m making so many meatballs today that we’ll probably need three pans.” 

She places the pan down on the burner next to my gravy pan.  I dump half the gravy into it before pouring all the meatballs in.  I finish by covering them with the remaining gravy.  I stow the pan in the oven that I’ve set to two hundred fifty degrees.  I continue working on the next batch of meatballs while Janna works on making the mashed potatoes.

“Janna, you can also make these meatballs and put them in a crockpot.  I’d probably cook them on low all day.  I bet they’d turn out great!”

“How do you usually cook them?  When you’re making just one batch for us?”

“Then I just leave everything in a pot on the stove and cook it at a low temperature for a couple of hours.  You just have to be careful about it.  I stir it often to make sure that the meatballs aren’t sticking to the bottom of the pan.”

“Any way you bake them, Mom, they’re amazing!”

I smile at her.  I couldn’t agree more.  Oddly enough, I can’t even remember what my own family did for Christmas Eve dinner when I was a kid.  My mother-in-law’s Norwegian tradition has been a part of my life for more than twenty years now.  And I wouldn’t trade it for another one.

––

An hour later, Janna removes the hot pan from the stove and dumps the soft potatoes into a colander after boiling them for several minutes.

“Mom, can you get the lefse recipe out?”

I pull it out of my recipe box and remind her of its ingredients.  “For every two cups of mashed potatoes, you need a tablespoon of butter, a quarter cup of milk, and half a teaspoon of salt.”

“But the question is: how many cups of mashed potatoes should I use?”

“Hmm.  I think each batch makes eight to twelve lefse.  Depending on how much dough you use for each one.  We’re cooking for twenty people.  So we need to make at least forty.”

“Five batches?  Or four?”

“Depends.  Do you want leftovers?”

“Yes!”

“Do you have ten cups of mashed potatoes there?”

“Uh, we peeled about twenty medium potatoes.”

“Okay.  You should have about ten cups then.  Just measure them out after you mash them to be sure.”

A few minutes later, Janna reports her progress.  “Wow.  This made almost exactly ten cups of mashed potatoes.”

“How perfect.”

“So, I need five tablespoons of butter and a cup and a quarter of milk?”

“Yep.  And two and a half teaspoons of salt.”

“I add the butter first and make sure that the potatoes are perfectly smooth before adding the milk, right?  Otherwise, I’ll end up with lumps?”

“Yep.  That’s the trick.”

Once she’s incorporated the butter, milk, and salt into the potatoes, she questions me, “Now I set them in the fridge to cool before adding the flour, right?”

“Yep.”

“Do we have ten cups of flour?”

“You better double check.  If not, we’ll need to run to the store quick.  But I’m pretty sure I have another bag of flour in the basement.”

Janna pulls the flour container from the cabinet.  She peels off the lid and gazes down at the pile of white dust.  “I think this is enough.”

“You better measure it to be sure.”

After stashing the potatoes in the fridge, she begins to measure out the flour.  I see her scraping the bottom of its container a couple of minutes later. 

“It’s not enough.  This is only eight cups.”

Just then, Everett wanders into the kitchen.

“Hey, Ev, can you run downstairs and grab a bag of flour and bring it up to me?” Janna queries.

Everett grumbles and rolls his eyes.

“Everett.  Please help your sister.”

He heaves a loud sigh.  “All right.”

He returns thirty seconds later with a whole bag of flour.

“Oh, thank God.  I don’t have to go to the store,” I sigh in relief.

Janna finishes measuring out the flour before filling up the empty container and returning it to the cabinet.

—

An hour later, Lyric knocks on the front door.  I answer it and grin at him as he greets me.

“Hello, Mrs. Franklin.”

“Lyric!  Come on in.  How is it that I didn’t know that you have a baby brother and a tiny sister?”

He shrugs.  “Well, I guess I never mentioned it around you.”

“Yes, but I can’t figure out why Nana didn’t tell me your good news on Friday.”

“We’ve had a busy few weeks,” he murmurs.  “I bet it just slipped her mind.”

“Still, I’m looking forward to meeting them tonight.”

He flashes his boxy grin at me.  “My mom can’t wait to see you again.”  He glances around.  “Where’s Nana?”

“I think she’s in her bedroom.  Would you tell her that it’s time to check the potatoes?”

“Sure,” he flashes that beautiful grin at me one more time as he heads down the hallway.

Sixty seconds later, Janna and Lyric join me in the kitchen.  She pulls the cold mashed potatoes from the fridge. 

She glances up at Lyric.  “Are you ready to learn how to make lefse?”

Anticipation dancing in his eyes, he grins at her.  “Yes, ma’am!”

She picks up a grooved rolling pin off the counter.  “First lesson.  Do you know what this is?”

“Uh, a rolling pin?”

“Yup.  But this is, specifically, a lefse rolling pin.  See the grooves?  They make it easier somehow.”

“Huh.  Fascinating,” he twinkles at her. 

I smile at the affection brimming in his eyes for my daughter.

She pulls the pan of chilled potatoes from the fridge.  “I made mashed potatoes.  Now we have to beat the flour in.”

She slides the grooved bowl into the bottom of the stand mixer and turns it until it’s locked in place.  Then she asks Lyric to get the bowl of flour off the island.  After directing him to begin slowly adding the flour, she turns on the mixer.  They work together for several minutes to form the dough.  Once this is done, they return to the island.

“Lyric, can you get the griddle down from up there?”  She points to the top of the cabinet over the stove. 

Her eye meets mine, and I smile at her.  How many years did I ask her to get the griddle down for me?  Now she’s found someone taller than her to help her.

Once it’s settled on the counter, Lyric plugs it in.  Janna turns it on.

“Three hundred fifty degrees.  Right, Mom?”

“Yep.”

“Ok,” she glances up at her boyfriend.  “Now we roll the dough into balls.  Like this.”  She grabs a handful of dough and forms it into a ball.  It’s wider than two inches, so she pulls some dough off and puts it back in the bowl.  Then she rolls her ball round again. 

“Now we have to roll it out.” 

She sprinkles some flour onto the countertop before setting the ball of dough in the middle and sprinkling some more flour over it.  She grabs the rolling pin and begins to roll it deftly out.  She rolls it back and forth and then side to side.  Then she rotates the dough forty-five degrees to the right and repeats her rolling motions.  Up and down.  Side to side.  Pretty soon she has a nine-inch circle.

“Perfect,” I comment.

Lyric grins.  “It is perfect.”  He’s clearly impressed with his girlfriend’s talent at using a rolling pin.

She runs a little water over her fingers and tosses it onto the griddle.  It sizzles. 

“The griddle is ready.”  She picks up her circle of flatbread and sets it on the griddle.  “Now we cook it for about thirty seconds.  Just until it begins to form brown circles on the bottom.  Then we flip it.  And brown the second side.”  She glances at the bowl of dough.  “Can you roll another one while I cook this?”

Another flash of that boxy grin.  “Sure.”

Of course, Lyric proves to be a quick study at making lefse.  The two of them spend the next hour and a half enjoying baking together.  And at the end of their time together, we have several piles of lefse ready to enjoy.  I didn’t have to lift a finger to make it happen either.  How wonderful.

––

“So, Lyric, do you want to learn how to cook the meatballs?” I ask him once their task is done.

“Yes!”  His eyes light up.

So I show him the ropes, melting the butter in the pan and adding the meatballs.  We cook them until they’re browned.  I instruct him in deglazing the pan.  Then we continue browning meatballs until they’re all done.  He’s familiar with making a paste from melted fat and flour.  But he’s shocked when I share our secret ingredient with him.

“Coffee?  You really add coffee to make the gravy?”

“Yep,” I grin at him.

“Amazing.  And it really tastes good?”

“Yes.  It’s the best gravy I’ve ever had.  I can’t taste the coffee.  Really,” I add when he stares at me doubtfully.

“Here, whisk it in.  Then taste it.”

He does.  His eyes grow wide. “Wow.  You were right.  I can’t taste it either.  But it is really good.”

“It’s even better after the meatballs have simmered in it for a couple of hours.”

Lyric treats me to his boxy grin again.  “I can’t wait for dinner!”

“You won’t have to wait at all.”  Now I’m the one grinning at him.  “You can try one right now.” 

Then in a silly television announcer voice, I intone, “Through the magic of television…”

An expression of delight flows over his countenance as I open the oven door and spear a meatball.  I hand him the fork.  “You might want to let it cool first.”

I watch him gingerly navigate the outside of that meatball.  He blows on it, then he takes the tiniest bite.  I hand him a little plate. 

“Here.  Cut it up.  It’ll cool fast that way.”

A moment later, he’s sinking his teeth into a quarter of a meatball.  “Oh, wow!  Those are delicious!”  His eyes widen in surprise and delight.  He quickly scarfs down the rest.  Sheepishly, he asks me, “Can I have another one?”

I scoop several onto his plate.  His eyes grow as large as saucers as he watches my generosity manifest on his plate. 

“Thank you, Lyric, for all your help yesterday and today.  You made my job so much easier.  You and Nana both.”

“My pleasure, Mrs. Franklin.”

“Lyric,” I gaze at him thoughtfully, “have you ever considered getting a job at Chick-fil-A?”

He stares at me quizzically.

Janna giggles.  He glances at her.

“You know,” she remarks, “everyone who works there is always saying, ‘My pleasure.’”

“Ohhhh,” Lyric chuckles.  “Well, it is my pleasure.  Every time I come over here, I get to eat something delicious.”

Awww. 

I just gape at him.  The boy is so sweet.

He confirms it a moment later when he offers to do the dishes while I make a small batch of mashed potatoes for Jimmy and his mother.  Fairly soon, I have two wonderful meals packed for them.  Complete with all of our goodies.  Even two slices of cheesecake. 

Once the kitchen has been fully cleaned, I turn the oven down to its warm setting, inform my husband we’re all leaving for a while, and pack my troop and all our Christmas trimmings into my van and Lyric’s car.  It’s time to head to the hospital.  We’ve got a family to bless.