I don't remember any dinner's in the Bronx. I guess I was too young, plus I did not care much for food. I said food, not snacks. lol
The kitchen was small in the house in Queens. You could fit four people at the kitchen table. It would be me and Charlie in the kitchen, (Tommy being too young at this point) My mother would serve my father in the living room. Peg or Barb would be in the kitchen and one in the livingroom or both. I guess it depended on what was on TV. Mom would eat in the kitchen. I never saw her eat in the living room.
We never ate out for dinner. My father did not like to eat out, so my mother cooked 365 days a week. Even in later years when my married sister would take my mother out to eat, mom still had to cook for my father and whatever kids were still home.
Breakfast was cereal for the kids, my father always had eggs, usually with home fries and or ham.
Lunch was P&J or P&B (butter) sandwich, or grilled cheese.
We had no TV dinners or take out food. (or if we did, it was rarely)
In the 60's when my sisters were married and came for dinner with their husbands, and children, we still managed for everyone to have a seat...somewhere. lol
There were no table settings, you got your plate with utensils, that's it. Mom usually filled the plate and it was brought in the living room by one of us.
It was the women in the kitchen and the men in the livingroom.
Those are very warm memories for me.
This was before both sisters moved away, got divorced, one lost a child, one became an alcoholic.
...In the later 1970's when their house went on fire and they stayed with me for 9 months. I told them we order pizza every Friday for dinner and they said that is fine with us.
When they moved back home, they continued to order pizza once a week, so my mother got a break from cooking!
