My mom was the Queen of the Health Nuts. She was eating quinoa, and forcing us to eat it too, way back when it was just us and the Peruvians. She ordered big boxes of weird grains like millet – curse its name - from a mail order company called Walnut Acres. (I stole the box once and hid it in my room, and let her think she was losing her mind a little bit before relenting and returning it. It seemed a fitting revenge for the culinary torture she inflicted on her children.) The lunch she packed for work every single day was a parade of oddities: Shredded green cabbage (raw), with an unearthly pink homemade dressing we referred to as “poison dressing.” (She was glad to adopt that name for it as well.) Plain yogurt into which she had mixed instant coffee granules. A green apple. And a packet of instant miso soup. She proudly baked what she deemed “lead breads” every week, and happily ate them herself when no one else would partake. And once, in an incident that is seared into my memory, she delightedly picked a number of large puffball mushrooms from a cemetery and served them up for dinner. They were delicious, but that’s not really the point, is it?
This is all to say that my mother was truly and absolutely committed to cooking, serving, and consuming only the healthiest - and weirdest - food she could find. With one exception.
I don’t remember when or how it started, but at some point in my childhood my mother began a tradition that our family carries on to this day: Whenever any of the four of us embarked upon a journey, be it literal or figurative, she would send us on our way with a Ring Ding. We got Ring Dings for trips to summer camp, for the move to college, for weddings, and for other life adventures. Even when it stopped being a surprise, it always made me smile.
Ring Dings needed no introduction. They were just my mother’s love, plain and delicious.
What’s a Ring Ding, you ask? A Ring Ding is a Ding Dong by any other name. A chocolate snack cake in the shape of a hockey puck, with some sort of a white “cream” on the inside that probably will still be around – and edible! - long after humans disappear from the Earth, and a chocolate coating. It’s the thing on the rack at the 7-11 that you think about buying after 7 hours in the car on a road trip, but decide against in favor of something that doesn’t have an ingredient list that reads like instructions for building a Molotov cocktail. It’s the redheaded stepchild of the pre-packaged dessert family.
How she settled on Ring Dings is anyone’s guess. I remember vaguely that she had a weakness for Twinkies, but maybe those were just too toxic for her to inflict on her beloved children? I don’t know. (I may write to the Hostess company, makers of Twinkies, and suggest “Twinkies – A Bridge Too Far” as their new slogan.) So Ring Dings it was, and they arrived on cue at every major transition point in our lives; a chocolate love bomb wrapped in plastic. There’s a joke in my family that the Ehrenfeld sign of love is receiving a book or article with a sticky note on the front reading, “Thought you would find this interesting.” You know you’ve been accepted into the fold when you’ve gotten that message from one of us. But Ring Dings needed no introduction. They were just my mother’s love, plain and delicious.
The night before her funeral we sat in the living room where she died, and toasted her with Ring Dings and mugs of Guinness. These represented my mom in a nutshell: indulgent in her love, strong as hell, sweet when she wanted to be, sharp when she needed to be, and always eclectic in her tastes. And who but the Queen of the Health Nuts, so beautiful in her madness, could have inspired such a memorial?
In her honor, I have carried on her Ring Ding tradition. My girls get Ring Dings for every major transition, and if the delight they feel each time is even a fraction of the delight I experienced as a child, then I think that’s a wonderful tribute to my mom. And in her absence I have gifted myself Ring Dings as well, or sometimes find them in care packages from my older sister. What they remind me of now, in addition to conjuring lovely memories of my beloved mother, is that we cannot know the road in advance. And so yes, there was a Ring Ding for the first day of my new job this past year, but I had a Ring Ding as well to honor the odyssey that was put into motion with the finalization of my divorce. The journey may be bittersweet, like a snack cake washed down with a mug of Guinness, but I have learned too much, from my parents more than anyone, to only offer Ring Dings to the life changes that are easy to celebrate. Who knows what lies at the top of the difficult climb, the dark path? Ring Dings were never simple. They were just love for the journey, whatever the journey brings.
Didn't realise you had been such a juvenile brat. I guess it's another great achievement of your Mom that you turned out kind of OK, and weren't with the dudes looting the Capitol last week. Well done Mother!
Guinness (or to the connoisseur, Murphys) mixes well but with Ring Dings! Think I'll take your word on that.