Dinner With the Family, Mini-Mart Style

I  thought I’d finally gotten used to the changes in journalistic sensibility that have gone on at The New York Times over the past 40 or so years, but it was still jarring to open the paper on Wednesday and see that it had published a recipe for Twinkies. Not that that’s a bad thing! I love Twinkies. When the children were little and Mrs. Banks spent the occasional weekend with her mother, Twinkies were a key tool I used in preventing mayhem. “Okay, everyone in the minivan!” I’d yell at dinnertime on Saturday night. Normally when I barked orders like that, the kids would barely take a break from thrashing each other down in the basement. But if it was Daddy planning dinner while Mommy was away, the three of them would fling themselves into the car like a pack of four-foot dervishes and be and buckled in and ready to go before I even realized I had no idea where my keys were.

Dinner planning for me in those days essentially consisted of presiding over an all-you-can-eat walk-through of the . There was only one rule: if you can pick it up it, you can take it home and have it for dinner. “Try the Cheez Doodles!” I’d tell my nine-year-old son if he seemed to waver in front of the chip aisle. “And grab some Pringles. I’ll hold your Gatorade.” We'd typically be out of the place after fifteen minutes of frenzied buying and be home in another five, whereupon I’d lay out our bounty—bowls full of Cheez Doodles, Dipsy Doodles, Pringles, beef jerky, and the rest—in all its majesty on the dining room table. Then the sodas would appear—Barq’s root beer being, in this context, the closest thing we had to what might be considered a house wine. Next, and with great fanfare, I’d boil half a dozen hot dogs, place them on slices of Wonder Bread, and bring them out on a dinner plate and serve them en le style de la famille. The whole display looked like the sort of groaning table of plenty that, if he were ever put in charge of Thanksgiving, Cap’n Crunch might come up with. Then we’d have at it. “No leaving the table until your fingers are orange!” was my rule for making sure everyone had enough.

The crowning moment to all this was of course dessert. I was in charge of that, and it was always the same: Twinkies. They never failed to be an ideal end to an ideal family dinner. Then when the last one was gone, we’d retire to the family room and watch a DVD of Terminator II.

So you see I’m a Twinkies fan. The New York Times may be the country’s Newspaper of Record, and certainly knows more than I do about what should fill its pages. But I wonder if printing that recipe on Wednesday wasn’t a bit of a waste. Oh you’ll get no argument from me about the public’s right to know. It’s just that I’ve come to believe that Twinkies are one of those foods that the home cook shouldn’t even bother to attempt in the first place. (Other items on my list include Big Macs, cassoulet, egg rolls, corn dogs, tandoori chicken, and jalapeno poppers.) Sure, you might be able to come up with a passable version of any of these, but it’ll never taste like the really real thing. There are other ways to create lasting family mealtime memories. Every once in awhile, for instance, head on over to the mini-mart.

Have a question about cocktails or dining out? Ask Conrad!