Bob

Batz

Read Bob's bio and previous columns

April 3, 2009

Bread and Milk for the Winter Weary

People are funny.

Here’s the scenario: It’s a Tuesday morning in late winter and the local TV weather anchors – their voices quavering with emotion – are warning viewers of a rapidly-approaching late-winter storm that will dump approximately seven feet of snow on the area.

As reports of the impending storm are repeated over and over and over again, as only TV stations can repeat such messages over and over and over again, residents do what they always do as soon as storm warnings are posted.

They quickly don their boots, toss on their coats and drive their cars – at speeds that would make Mario Andretti envious – to the nearest grocery store to buy bread and milk.

I, for one, have never been able to figure out why those people always buy bread and milk when a storm is forecast, but I know they buy them because within 10 minutes of the first televised snowstorm warning, grocery store parking lots are suddenly filled to overflowing with cars and pickup trucks. 

Inside those stores, such grocery items as fresh broccoli, canned peas, olives, catsup, hotdogs and cabbage remain in abundant supply, but the bread displays are suddenly bare and the milk coolers are empty.

Ya know, I can see why people might get ready for inclement winter weather by buying bourbon, beer or wine. What I don’t understand is why so many people stock up on bread and milk.

My first wife Sally doesn’t always prepare fancy meals for us. But not once in our mostly blissful 46-year marriage has she ever fixed me bread and milk for supper, even when winter storms were headed our way.

One evening after our little corner of America was hit by some particularly nasty winter weather, I phoned my friend Eddie.

“Whatcha doing Eddie?” I asked as the 345-mile-an-hour wind rattled my shutters and blew our eight-pound Malti-poo into a neighbor’s yard.

“Just drinking milk and eating bread,” he replied.

I laughed. “Be serious. What are you really doing?”

“I told you,” Eddie said, “I’m eating bread and drinking milk. Harriet spent the night at her sister’s house and I’m batching it. I was going to have steak, tossed salad and a baked potato slathered in melted butter and sour cream, but when I checked I discovered we don’t have any steaks, lettuce, potatoes, butter or sour cream. So, I’m eating bread and milk. Can’t say it’s particularly mouth-watering, but it does fill me up.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Listen.” I said, “Let me bring you something better than bread and milk. What would you like?” 

“Don’t bother, I’m fine,” he said. “It’s decent bread and the milk is ice cold, just the way I like it.”

Even as you read this, I’m in the process of writing a cookbook. I’ll call my book “Quick and Easy Meals You Can Make With Bread and Milk.

I’m pretty sure it’ll be a best-seller.

Contact Bob at bbatz@woh.rr.com

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.

To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it.

This is Column # BB153. Request permission to publish here.